Nathan J. Williams wrote:

> My thinking is that sysctl(3) should be limited to being a back-end
> for sysctl(8): individual knobs that are examinable and tweakable by a
> system administrator.

We use sysctl(3) outside sysctl(8) a lot. Recent examples: using sysctl
for reading inet/inet6/local PCBs and protocol statistics instead of
using /dev/kmem; rpaulo@ even made trpt/trsp use sysctl, which means we
don't have to give them the sgid kmem bit anymore.

sysctl is an interface, and I see sysctl(8) as the control program for
knobs that don't justify their own control program. In the future, I'm
hoping to use sysctl entirely in netstat(1), but not collapsing
netstat's functionality into sysctl(8)...

> You're the one who brought it up, so I'm commenting on it.

I didn't bring it up, someone else did, and for the record I brought it
up as a "known" issue that I find esoteric enough to ignore *for now*.

-e.

-- 
Elad Efrat