0001 ===========================
0002 Documentation for /proc/sys
0003 ===========================
0004
0005 Copyright (c) 1998, 1999, Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>
0006
0007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0008
0009 'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
0010 for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
0011 the source...'
0012
0013 Well, this documentation is written because some people either
0014 don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
0015 have the time or knowledge to read the source code.
0016
0017 Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
0018 be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)
0019
0020 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0021
0022 Legal blurb:
0023
0024 As usual, there are two main things to consider:
0025
0026 1. you get what you pay for
0027 2. it's free
0028
0029 The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
0030 this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
0031 screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
0032 feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...
0033
0034 But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
0035 only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
0036 it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
0037 you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.
0038
0039 In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
0040 stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>
0041
0042 Rik van Riel.
0043
0044 --------------------------------------------------------------
0045
0046 Introduction
0047 ============
0048
0049 Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
0050 at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
0051 don't even need special tools to do it!
0052 In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
0053 facilities:
0054
0055 - a running Linux system
0056 - root access
0057 - common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
0058 - knowledge of what all those values mean
0059
0060 As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
0061 several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
0062 one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
0063 by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.
0064
0065 This documentation is about:
0066
0067 =============== ===============================================================
0068 abi/ execution domains & personalities
0069 debug/ <empty>
0070 dev/ device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
0071 fs/ specific filesystems
0072 filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
0073 binfmt_misc <Documentation/admin-guide/binfmt-misc.rst>
0074 kernel/ global kernel info / tuning
0075 miscellaneous stuff
0076 net/ networking stuff, for documentation look in:
0077 <Documentation/networking/>
0078 proc/ <empty>
0079 sunrpc/ SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
0080 vm/ memory management tuning
0081 buffer and cache management
0082 user/ Per user per user namespace limits
0083 =============== ===============================================================
0084
0085 These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
0086 or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
0087 really like to hear about it :-)
0088
0089 .. toctree::
0090 :maxdepth: 1
0091
0092 abi
0093 fs
0094 kernel
0095 net
0096 sunrpc
0097 user
0098 vm
