sysctl.conf(5) — Linux manual page
SYSCTL.CONF(5) File Formats SYSCTL.CONF(5)
NAME
sysctl.conf - sysctl preload/configuration file
DESCRIPTION
sysctl.conf is a simple file containing sysctl values to be read
in and set by sysctl. The syntax is simply as follows:
# comment
; comment
token = value
Note that blank lines are ignored, and whitespace before and
after a token or value is ignored, although a value can contain
whitespace within. Lines which begin with a # or ; are
considered comments and ignored.
If a line begins with a single -, any attempts to set the value
that fail will be ignored.
NOTES
As the /etc/sysctl.conf file is used to override default kernel
parameter values, only a small number of parameters is predefined
in the file. Use “sysctl -a” or follow sysctl(8) to list all
possible parameters. The description of individual parameters can
be found in the kernel documentation.
Maximum supported line length of the value is 4096 characters due
to a limitation of /proc entries in Linux kernel.
EXAMPLE
# sysctl.conf sample
#
kernel.domainname = example.com
; this one has a space which will be written to the sysctl!
kernel.modprobe = /sbin/mod probe
FILES
/etc/sysctl.d/*.conf
/run/sysctl.d/*.conf
/usr/local/lib/sysctl.d/*.conf
/usr/lib/sysctl.d/*.conf
/lib/sysctl.d/*.conf
/etc/sysctl.conf
The paths where sysctl preload files usually exist. See also
sysctl option --system.
SEE ALSO
sysctl(8)
AUTHOR
George Staikos ⟨staikos@0wned.org⟩
REPORTING BUGS
Please send bug reports to ⟨procps@freelists.org⟩.
COLOPHON
This page is part of the procps-ng (/proc filesystem utilities)
project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
⟨https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/blob/master/Documentation/bugs.md⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2024-06-04.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
procps-ng 2021-09-15 SYSCTL.CONF(5)
Pages that refer to this page: sysctl.d(5), sysctl(8)