The rewamped sysctl program that will find all the variables itself.

Also a couple of handy new options.

1 files changed, 42 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/sbin/sysctl/sysctl.8 b/sbin/sysctl/sysctl.8
index 931ac35..c09b418 100644
--- a/sbin/sysctl/sysctl.8
+++ b/sbin/sysctl/sysctl.8
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
 .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
 .\"
 .\"	From: @(#)sysctl.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
-.\"	$Id: sysctl.8,v 1.5 1995/02/16 00:28:40 wollman Exp $
+.\"	$Id: sysctl.8,v 1.6 1995/02/20 19:42:42 guido Exp $
 .\"
 .Dd September 23, 1994
 .Dt SYSCTL 8
@@ -40,15 +40,15 @@
 .Nd get or set kernel state
 .Sh SYNOPSIS
 .Nm sysctl
-.Op Fl n
+.Op Fl bn
 .Ar name ...
 .Nm sysctl
-.Op Fl n
+.Op Fl bn
 .Fl w
 .Ar name=value ...
 .Nm sysctl
-.Op Fl n
-.Fl aA
+.Op Fl bn
+.Fl aAX
 .Sh DESCRIPTION
 The
 .Nm sysctl
@@ -57,16 +57,25 @@ appropriate privilege to set kernel state.
 The state to be retrieved or set is described using a
 ``Management Information Base'' (``MIB'') style name,
 described as a dotted set of components.
+.Pp
 The
 .Fl a
 flag can be used to list all the currently available string or integer values.
+.Pp
 The
 .Fl A
-flag will list all the known MIB names including tables.
+flag will list all the known MIB names including opaques.
 Those with string or integer values will be printed as with the
 .Fl a
-flag; for the table values,
-the name of the utility to retrieve them is given.
+flag; for the opaque values,
+information about the format and the length is printed in addition the first
+few bytes is dumped in hex.
+.Pp
+The
+.Fl X 
+flag is the same as
+.Fl A
+except the entire value of opaque variables is hexdumped.
 .Pp
 The
 .Fl n
@@ -78,6 +87,12 @@ For example, to save the pagesize in variable psize, use:
 set psize=`sysctl -n hw.pagesize`
 .Ed
 .Pp
+The
+.Fl b
+flag forces the value of the variable(s) to be output in raw, binary
+format.  No names are printed and no terminating newlines are output.
+This is mostly useful with a single variable.
+.Pp
 If just a MIB style name is given,
 the corresponding value is retrieved.
 If a value is to be set, the
@@ -87,16 +102,21 @@ by an equal sign and the new value to be used.
 .Pp
 The information available from
 .Nm sysctl
-consists of integers, strings, and tables.
-The tabular information can only be retrieved by special
+consists of integers, strings, and opaques.
+.Nm sysctl
+only knows about a couple of opaque types, and will resort to hexdumps
+for the rest.
+The opaque information is much more useful if retrieved by special
 purpose programs such as
 .Nm ps ,
 .Nm systat ,
 and
 .Nm netstat .
+.Pp
 The string and integer information is summaried below.
 For a detailed description of these variable see
 .Xr sysctl 3 .
+.Pp
 The changeable column indicates whether a process with appropriate
 privilege can change the value.
 .Bl -column net.inet.ip.forwardingxxxxxx integerxxx
@@ -187,6 +207,10 @@ Information about the load average history may be obtained with
 .Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
 sysctl vm.loadavg
 .Ed
+.Pp
+More variables than these exist, and the best and likely only place 
+to search for their deeper meaning is undoubtedly the source where
+they are defined.
 .Sh FILES
 .Bl -tag -width <netinet/icmpXvar.h> -compact
 .It Pa <sys/sysctl.h>
@@ -208,6 +232,14 @@ definitions for fourth level UDP identifiers
 .El
 .Sh SEE ALSO
 .Xr sysctl 3
+.Sh BUGS
+.Nm sysctl
+presently exploits an undocumented interface to the kernel
+sysctl facility to traverse the sysctl tree and to retrive format 
+and name information. 
+This correct interface is being thought about for the time being.
 .Sh HISTORY
 .Nm sysctl
 first appeared in 4.4BSD.
+.Pp
+In FreeBSD 2.2 sysctl was significantly remodeled.