Sysctl

sysctl is a software utility of some Unix-like operating systems that reads and modifies the attributes of the system kernel such as its version number, maximum limits, and security settings. It is available both as a system call for compiled programs, and an administrator command for interactive use and scripting. Linux additionally exposes sysctl as a . In BSD, these parameters are generally objects in a management information base (MIB) that describe tunable limits such as the size of a shared memory segment, the number of threads the operating system will use as an client, or the maximum number of processes on the system; or describe, enable or disable behaviors such as IP forwarding, security restrictions on the superuser (the "securelevel"), or debugging output. In OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD, sysctl is also used as the transport layer for the hw.sensors framework for hardware monitoring, whereas NetBSD uses the ioctl system call for its sysmon envsys counterpart. Both sysctl and ioctl are the two system calls which can be used to add extra functionality to the kernel without adding yet another system call; for example, in 2004 with OpenBSD 3.6, when the tcpdrop utility was introduced, sysctl was used as the underlying system call. In FreeBSD, although there is no sensors framework, the individual temperature and other sensors are still commonly exported through the sysctl tree through Newbus, for example, as is the case with the aibs(4) driver that's available in all the 4 BSD systems, including FreeBSD. In BSD, a system call or system call wrapper is usually provided for use by programs, as well as an administrative program and a configuration file (for setting the tunable parameters when the system boots). This feature first appeared in 4.4BSD. It has the advantage over hardcoded constants that changes to the parameters can be made dynamically without recompiling the kernel. Historically, although kernel variables themselves could be modified through sysctl, the elements comprising the MIB of the sysctl tree were hardcoded at compile time, and as of 2019, it's mostly still the case in OpenBSD (with some exceptions like hw.