linux/Documentation/sysctl
Linus Torvalds d4e796152a Merge branch 'sched-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip
Pull scheduler updates from Ingo Molnar:
 "The main changes in this cycle are:

   - Make schedstats a runtime tunable (disabled by default) and
     optimize it via static keys.

     As most distributions enable CONFIG_SCHEDSTATS=y due to its
     instrumentation value, this is a nice performance enhancement.
     (Mel Gorman)

   - Implement 'simple waitqueues' (swait): these are just pure
     waitqueues without any of the more complex features of full-blown
     waitqueues (callbacks, wake flags, wake keys, etc.).  Simple
     waitqueues have less memory overhead and are faster.

     Use simple waitqueues in the RCU code (in 4 different places) and
     for handling KVM vCPU wakeups.

     (Peter Zijlstra, Daniel Wagner, Thomas Gleixner, Paul Gortmaker,
     Marcelo Tosatti)

   - sched/numa enhancements (Rik van Riel)

   - NOHZ performance enhancements (Rik van Riel)

   - Various sched/deadline enhancements (Steven Rostedt)

   - Various fixes (Peter Zijlstra)

   - ... and a number of other fixes, cleanups and smaller enhancements"

* 'sched-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (29 commits)
  sched/cputime: Fix steal_account_process_tick() to always return jiffies
  sched/deadline: Remove dl_new from struct sched_dl_entity
  Revert "kbuild: Add option to turn incompatible pointer check into error"
  sched/deadline: Remove superfluous call to switched_to_dl()
  sched/debug: Fix preempt_disable_ip recording for preempt_disable()
  sched, time: Switch VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN to jiffy granularity
  time, acct: Drop irq save & restore from __acct_update_integrals()
  acct, time: Change indentation in __acct_update_integrals()
  sched, time: Remove non-power-of-two divides from __acct_update_integrals()
  sched/rt: Kick RT bandwidth timer immediately on start up
  sched/debug: Add deadline scheduler bandwidth ratio to /proc/sched_debug
  sched/debug: Move sched_domain_sysctl to debug.c
  sched/debug: Move the /sys/kernel/debug/sched_features file setup into debug.c
  sched/rt: Fix PI handling vs. sched_setscheduler()
  sched/core: Remove duplicated sched_group_set_shares() prototype
  sched/fair: Consolidate nohz CPU load update code
  sched/fair: Avoid using decay_load_missed() with a negative value
  sched/deadline: Always calculate end of period on sched_yield()
  sched/cgroup: Fix cgroup entity load tracking tear-down
  rcu: Use simple wait queues where possible in rcutree
  ...
2016-03-14 19:14:06 -07:00
..
00-INDEX
README
abi.txt
fs.txt pipe: limit the per-user amount of pages allocated in pipes 2016-01-19 19:25:21 -05:00
kernel.txt Merge branch 'sched-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2016-03-14 19:14:06 -07:00
net.txt net: qdisc: enhance default_qdisc documentation 2015-09-17 16:09:22 -07:00
sunrpc.txt
vm.txt Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2016-01-15 11:41:44 -08:00

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 :-)