linux/Documentation/sysctl
Linus Torvalds a0e881b7c1 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs
Pull second vfs pile from Al Viro:
 "The stuff in there: fsfreeze deadlock fixes by Jan (essentially, the
  deadlock reproduced by xfstests 068), symlink and hardlink restriction
  patches, plus assorted cleanups and fixes.

  Note that another fsfreeze deadlock (emergency thaw one) is *not*
  dealt with - the series by Fernando conflicts a lot with Jan's, breaks
  userland ABI (FIFREEZE semantics gets changed) and trades the deadlock
  for massive vfsmount leak; this is going to be handled next cycle.
  There probably will be another pull request, but that stuff won't be
  in it."

Fix up trivial conflicts due to unrelated changes next to each other in
drivers/{staging/gdm72xx/usb_boot.c, usb/gadget/storage_common.c}

* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs: (54 commits)
  delousing target_core_file a bit
  Documentation: Correct s_umount state for freeze_fs/unfreeze_fs
  fs: Remove old freezing mechanism
  ext2: Implement freezing
  btrfs: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  nilfs2: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  ntfs: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  fuse: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  gfs2: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  ocfs2: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  xfs: Convert to new freezing code
  ext4: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  fs: Protect write paths by sb_start_write - sb_end_write
  fs: Skip atime update on frozen filesystem
  fs: Add freezing handling to mnt_want_write() / mnt_drop_write()
  fs: Improve filesystem freezing handling
  switch the protection of percpu_counter list to spinlock
  nfsd: Push mnt_want_write() outside of i_mutex
  btrfs: Push mnt_want_write() outside of i_mutex
  fat: Push mnt_want_write() outside of i_mutex
  ...
2012-08-01 10:26:23 -07:00
..
00-INDEX sysctl: remove obsolete comments 2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
README Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
abi.txt Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
fs.txt Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2012-08-01 10:26:23 -07:00
kernel.txt Documentation: add missing tainted bits to Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt 2012-02-06 16:29:19 -08:00
net.txt net: doc: merge /proc/sys/net/core/* documents into one place 2012-04-27 00:09:26 -04:00
sunrpc.txt Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
vm.txt mm, oom: replace some information in tasklist dump 2012-07-31 18:42:42 -07:00

README

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

==============================================================

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

==============================================================

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)