LINUX : T H E /proc F I L E S Y S T E M

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T H E /proc F I L E S Y S T E M
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Table of Contents
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0 Preface
0.1 Introduction/Credits
0.2 Legal Stuff
1 Collecting System Information
1.1 Process−Specific Subdirectories
1.2 Kernel data
1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
1.5 SCSI info
1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
2 Modifying System Parameters
2.1 /proc/sys/fs − File system data
2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc − Miscellaneous binary formats
2.3 /proc/sys/kernel − general kernel parameters
2.4 /proc/sys/vm − The virtual memory subsystem
2.5 /proc/sys/dev − Device specific parameters
2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc − Remote procedure calls
2.7 /proc/sys/net − Networking stuff
2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 − IPV4 settings
2.9 Appletalk
2.10 IPX
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Preface
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0.1 Introduction/Credits

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This documentation is part of a soon (or so we hope) to be released book on
the SuSE Linux distribution. As there is no complete documentation for the
/proc file system and we've used many freely available sources to write these
chapters, it seems only fair to give the work back to the Linux community.
This work is based on the 2.2.* kernel version and the upcoming 2.4.*. I'm
afraid it's still far from complete, but we hope it will be useful. As far as
we know, it is the first 'all−in−one' document about the /proc file system. It
is focused on the Intel x86 hardware, so if you are looking for PPC, ARM,
SPARC, APX, etc., features, you probably won't find what you are looking for.
It also only covers IPv4 networking, not IPv6 nor other protocols − sorry. But
additions and patches are welcome and will be added to this document if you
mail them to Bodo.
We'd like to thank Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, and Alexey Kuznetsov and a lot of
other people for help compiling this documentation. We'd also like to extend a
special thank you to Andi Kleen for documentation, which we relied on heavily
to create this document, as well as the additional information he provided.
Thanks to everybody else who contributed source or docs to the Linux kernel
and helped create a great piece of software... :)
If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to
contact Bodo Bauer at bb@ricochet.net. We'll be happy to add them to this
document.
The latest version of this document is available online at
http://skaro.nightcrawler.com/~bb/Docs/Proc as HTML version.
If the above direction does not works for you, ypu could try the kernel
mailing list at linux−kernel@vger.kernel.org and/or try to reach me at
comandante@zaralinux.com.
0.2 Legal Stuff
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We don't guarantee the correctness of this document, and if you come to us
complaining about how you screwed up your system because of incorrect
documentation, we won't feel responsible...
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CHAPTER 1: COLLECTING SYSTEM INFORMATION
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In This Chapter
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* Investigating the properties of the pseudo file system /proc and its
ability to provide information on the running Linux system
* Examining /proc's structure
* Uncovering various information about the kernel and the processes running
on the system
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The proc file system acts as an interface to internal data structures in the
kernel. It can be used to obtain information about the system and to change
certain kernel parameters at runtime (sysctl).
First, we'll take a look at the read−only parts of /proc. In Chapter 2, we
show you how you can use /proc/sys to change settings.


1.1 Process−Specific Subdirectories
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The directory /proc contains (among other things) one subdirectory for each
process running on the system, which is named after the process ID (PID).
The link self points to the process reading the file system. Each process
subdirectory has the entries listed in Table 1−1.
Table 1−1: Process specific entries in /proc
..............................................................................
File Content
cmdline Command line arguments
cpu Current and last cpu in wich it was executed (2.4)(smp)
cwd Link to the current working directory
environ Values of environment variables
exe Link to the executable of this process
fd Directory, which contains all file descriptors
maps Memory maps to executables and library files (2.4)
mem Memory held by this process
root Link to the root directory of this process
stat Process status
statm Process memory status information
status Process status in human readable form
..............................................................................
For example, to get the status information of a process, all you have to do is
read the file /proc/PID/status:
>cat /proc/self/status
Name: cat
State: R (running)
Pid: 5452
PPid: 743
TracerPid: 0 (2.4)
Uid: 501 501 501 501
Gid: 100 100 100 100
Groups: 100 14 16
VmSize: 1112 kB
VmLck: 0 kB
VmRSS: 348 kB
VmData: 24 kB
VmStk: 12 kB
VmExe: 8 kB
VmLib: 1044 kB
SigPnd: 0000000000000000
SigBlk: 0000000000000000
SigIgn: 0000000000000000
SigCgt: 0000000000000000
CapInh: 00000000fffffeff
CapPrm: 0000000000000000
CapEff: 0000000000000000
This shows you nearly the same information you would get if you viewed it with
the ps command. In fact, ps uses the proc file system to obtain its
information. The statm file contains more detailed information about the
process memory usage. Its seven fields are explained in Table 1−2.
Table 1−2: Contents of the statm files


..............................................................................
File Content
size total program size
resident size of memory portions
shared number of pages that are shared
trs number of pages that are 'code'
drs number of pages of data/stack
lrs number of pages of library
dt number of dirty pages
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1.2 Kernel data
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Similar to the process entries, the kernel data files give information about
the running kernel. The files used to obtain this information are contained in
/proc and are listed in Table 1−3. Not all of these will be present in your
system. It depends on the kernel configuration and the loaded modules, which
files are there, and which are missing.
Table 1−3: Kernel info in /proc
..............................................................................
File Content
apm Advanced power management info
bus Directory containing bus specific information
cmdline Kernel command line
cpuinfo Info about the CPU
devices Available devices (block and character)
dma Used DMS channels
filesystems Supported filesystems
driver Various drivers grouped here, currently rtc (2.4)
execdomains Execdomains, related to security (2.4)
fb Frame Buffer devices (2.4)
fs File system parameters, currently nfs/exports (2.4)
ide Directory containing info about the IDE subsystem
interrupts Interrupt usage
iomem Memory map (2.4)
ioports I/O port usage
irq Masks for irq to cpu affinity (2.4)(smp?)
isapnp ISA PnP (Plug&Play) Info (2.4)
kcore Kernel core image (can be ELF or A.OUT(deprecated in 2.4))
kmsg Kernel messages
ksyms Kernel symbol table
loadavg Load average of last 1, 5 & 15 minutes
locks Kernel locks
meminfo Memory info
misc Miscellaneous
modules List of loaded modules
mounts Mounted filesystems
net Networking info (see text)
partitions Table of partitions known to the system
pci Depreciated info of PCI bus (new way −> /proc/bus/pci/,
decoupled by lspci (2.4)
rtc Real time clock
scsi SCSI info (see text)
slabinfo Slab pool info
stat Overall statistics
swaps Swap space utilization
sys See chapter 2
sysvipc Info of SysVIPC Resources (msg, sem, shm) (2.4)
tty Info of tty drivers
uptime System uptime

version Kernel version
video bttv info of video resources (2.4)
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You can, for example, check which interrupts are currently in use and what
they are used for by looking in the file /proc/interrupts:
> cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 8728810 XT−PIC timer
1: 895 XT−PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT−PIC cascade
3: 531695 XT−PIC aha152x
4: 2014133 XT−PIC serial
5: 44401 XT−PIC pcnet_cs
8: 2 XT−PIC rtc
11: 8 XT−PIC i82365
12: 182918 XT−PIC PS/2 Mouse
13: 1 XT−PIC fpu
14: 1232265 XT−PIC ide0
15: 7 XT−PIC ide1
NMI: 0
In 2.4.* a couple of lines where added to this file LOC & ERR (this time is the
output of a SMP machine):
> cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0 CPU1
0: 1243498 1214548 IO−APIC−edge timer
1: 8949 8958 IO−APIC−edge keyboard
2: 0 0 XT−PIC cascade
5: 11286 10161 IO−APIC−edge soundblaster
8: 1 0 IO−APIC−edge rtc
9: 27422 27407 IO−APIC−edge 3c503
12: 113645 113873 IO−APIC−edge PS/2 Mouse
13: 0 0 XT−PIC fpu
14: 22491 24012 IO−APIC−edge ide0
15: 2183 2415 IO−APIC−edge ide1
17: 30564 30414 IO−APIC−level eth0
18: 177 164 IO−APIC−level bttv
NMI: 2457961 2457959
LOC: 2457882 2457881
ERR: 2155
NMI is incremented in this case because every timer interrupt generates a NMI
(Non Maskable Interrupt) which is used by the NMI Watchdog to detect lookups.
LOC is the local interrupt counter of the internal APIC of every CPU.
ERR is incremented in the case of errors in the IO−APIC bus (the bus that
connects the CPUs in a SMP system. This means that an error has been detected,
the IO−APIC automatically retry the transmission, so it should not be a big
problem, but you should read the SMP−FAQ.
In this context it could be interesting to note the new irq directory in 2.4.
It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and one file; prof_cpu_mask
For example
> ls /proc/irq/

0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9
> ls /proc/irq/0/
smp_affinity
The contents of the prof_cpu_mask file and each smp_affinity file for each IRQ
is the same by default:
> cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
ffffffff
It's a bitmask, in wich you can specify wich CPUs can handle the IRQ, you can
set it by doing:
> echo 1 > /proc/irq/prof_cpu_mask
This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo 5
wich means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO−APIC, and it's Round Robin
between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
more info than you and does a better job than you, so the defaults are the
best choice for almost everyone.
There are three more important subdirectories in /proc: net, scsi, and sys.
The general rule is that the contents, or even the existence of these
directories, depend on your kernel configuration. If SCSI is not enabled, the
directory scsi may not exist. The same is true with the net, which is there
only when networking support is present in the running kernel.
The slabinfo file gives information about memory usage at the slab level.
Linux uses slab pools for memory management above page level in version 2.2.
Commonly used objects have their own slab pool (such as network buffers,
directory cache, and so on).
1.3 IDE devices in /proc/ide
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The subdirectory /proc/ide contains information about all IDE devices of which
the kernel is aware. There is one subdirectory for each IDE controller, the
file drivers and a link for each IDE device, pointing to the device directory
in the controller specific subtree.
The file drivers contains general information about the drivers used for the
IDE devices:
> cat /proc/ide/drivers
ide−cdrom version 4.53
ide−disk version 1.08
More detailed information can be found in the controller specific
subdirectories. These are named ide0, ide1 and so on. Each of these
directories contains the files shown in table 1−4.
Table 1−4: IDE controller info in /proc/ide/ide?
..............................................................................
File Content
channel IDE channel (0 or 1)
config Configuration (only for PCI/IDE bridge)
mate Mate name

model Type/Chipset of IDE controller
..............................................................................
Each device connected to a controller has a separate subdirectory in the
controllers directory. The files listed in table 1−5 are contained in these
directories.
Table 1−5: IDE device information
..............................................................................
File Content
cache The cache
capacity Capacity of the medium (in 512Byte blocks)
driver driver and version
geometry physical and logical geometry
identify device identify block
media media type
model device identifier
settings device setup
smart_thresholds IDE disk management thresholds
smart_values IDE disk management values
..............................................................................
The most interesting file is settings. This file contains a nice overview of
the drive parameters:
# cat /proc/ide/ide0/hda/settings
name value min max mode
−−−− −−−−− −−− −−− −−−−
bios_cyl 526 0 65535 rw
bios_head 255 0 255 rw
bios_sect 63 0 63 rw
breada_readahead 4 0 127 rw
bswap 0 0 1 r
file_readahead 72 0 2097151 rw
io_32bit 0 0 3 rw
keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
max_kb_per_request 122 1 127 rw
multcount 0 0 8 rw
nice1 1 0 1 rw
nowerr 0 0 1 rw
pio_mode write−only 0 255 w
slow 0 0 1 rw
unmaskirq 0 0 1 rw
using_dma 0 0 1 rw
1.4 Networking info in /proc/net
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The subdirectory /proc/net follows the usual pattern. Table 1−6 shows the
additional values you get for IP version 6 if you configure the kernel to
support this. Table 1−7 lists the files and their meaning.
Table 1−6: IPv6 info in /proc/net
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File Content
udp6 UDP sockets (IPv6)
tcp6 TCP sockets (IPv6)
raw6 Raw device statistics (IPv6)
igmp6 IP multicast addresses, which this host joined (IPv6)


if_inet6 List of IPv6 interface addresses
ipv6_route Kernel routing table for IPv6
rt6_stats Global IPv6 routing tables statistics
sockstat6 Socket statistics (IPv6)
snmp6 Snmp data (IPv6)
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Table 1−7: Network info in /proc/net
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File Content
arp Kernel ARP table
dev network devices with statistics
dev_mcast the Layer2 multicast groups a device is listening too
(interface index, label, number of references, number of bound
addresses).
dev_stat network device status
ip_fwchains Firewall chain linkage
ip_fwnames Firewall chain names
ip_masq Directory containing the masquerading tables
ip_masquerade Major masquerading table
netstat Network statistics
raw raw device statistics
route Kernel routing table
rpc Directory containing rpc info
rt_cache Routing cache
snmp SNMP data
sockstat Socket statistics
tcp TCP sockets
tr_rif Token ring RIF routing table
udp UDP sockets
unix UNIX domain sockets
wireless Wireless interface data (Wavelan etc)
igmp IP multicast addresses, which this host joined
psched Global packet scheduler parameters.
netlink List of PF_NETLINK sockets
ip_mr_vifs List of multicast virtual interfaces
ip_mr_cache List of multicast routing cache
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You can use this information to see which network devices are available in
your system and how much traffic was routed over those devices:
> cat /proc/net/dev
Inter−Receive [...
face bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast[...
lo: 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...
ppp0:15475140 20721 410 0 0 410 0 0 [...
eth0: 614530 7085 0 0 0 0 0 1 [...
...] Transmit
...] bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
...] 908188 5596 0 0 0 0 0 0
...] 1375103 17405 0 0 0 0 0 0
...] 1703981 5535 0 0 0 3 0 0
In addition, each Channel Bond interface has it's own directory. For
example, the bond0 device will have a directory called /proc/net/bond0/.
It will contain information that is specific to that bond, such as the
current slaves of the bond, the link status of the slaves, and how
many times the slaves link has failed.


1.5 SCSI info
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If you have a SCSI host adapter in your system, you'll find a subdirectory
named after the driver for this adapter in /proc/scsi. You'll also see a list
of all recognized SCSI devices in /proc/scsi:
>cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: IBM Model: DGHS09U Rev: 03E0
Type: Direct−Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD−ROM DR−U06S Rev: 1.04
Type: CD−ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
The directory named after the driver has one file for each adapter found in
the system. These files contain information about the controller, including
the used IRQ and the IO address range. The amount of information shown is
dependent on the adapter you use. The example shows the output for an Adaptec
AHA−2940 SCSI adapter:
> cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0
Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 5.1.19/3.2.4
Compile Options:
TCQ Enabled By Default : Disabled
AIC7XXX_PROC_STATS : Disabled
AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY : 5
Adapter Configuration:
SCSI Adapter: Adaptec AHA−294X Ultra SCSI host adapter
Ultra Wide Controller
PCI MMAPed I/O Base: 0xeb001000
Adapter SEEPROM Config: SEEPROM found and used.
Adaptec SCSI BIOS: Enabled
IRQ: 10
SCBs: Active 0, Max Active 2,
Allocated 15, HW 16, Page 255
Interrupts: 160328
BIOS Control Word: 0x18b6
Adapter Control Word: 0x005b
Extended Translation: Enabled
Disconnect Enable Flags: 0xffff
Ultra Enable Flags: 0x0001
Tag Queue Enable Flags: 0x0000
Ordered Queue Tag Flags: 0x0000
Default Tag Queue Depth: 8
Tagged Queue By Device array for aic7xxx host instance 0:
{255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255}
Actual queue depth per device for aic7xxx host instance 0:
{1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1}
Statistics:
(scsi0:0:0:0)
Device using Wide/Sync transfers at 40.0 MByte/sec, offset 8
Transinfo settings: current(12/8/1/0), goal(12/8/1/0), user(12/15/1/0)
Total transfers 160151 (74577 reads and 85574 writes)
(scsi0:0:6:0)
Device using Narrow/Sync transfers at 5.0 MByte/sec, offset 15
Transinfo settings: current(50/15/0/0), goal(50/15/0/0), user(50/15/0/0)
Total transfers 0 (0 reads and 0 writes)

1.6 Parallel port info in /proc/parport
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The directory /proc/parport contains information about the parallel ports of
your system. It has one subdirectory for each port, named after the port
number (0,1,2,...).
These directories contain the four files shown in Table 1−8.
Table 1−8: Files in /proc/parport
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File Content
autoprobe Any IEEE−1284 device ID information that has been acquired.
devices list of the device drivers using that port. A + will appear by the
name of the device currently using the port (it might not appear
against any).
hardware Parallel port's base address, IRQ line and DMA channel.
irq IRQ that parport is using for that port. This is in a separate
file to allow you to alter it by writing a new value in (IRQ
number or none).
..............................................................................
1.7 TTY info in /proc/tty
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Information about the available and actually used tty's can be found in the
directory /proc/tty.You'll find entries for drivers and line disciplines in
this directory, as shown in Table 1−9.
Table 1−9: Files in /proc/tty
..............................................................................
File Content
drivers list of drivers and their usage
ldiscs registered line disciplines
driver/serial usage statistic and status of single tty lines
..............................................................................
To see which tty's are currently in use, you can simply look into the file
/proc/tty/drivers:
> cat /proc/tty/drivers
pty_slave /dev/pts 136 0−255 pty:slave
pty_master /dev/ptm 128 0−255 pty:master
pty_slave /dev/ttyp 3 0−255 pty:slave
pty_master /dev/pty 2 0−255 pty:master
serial /dev/cua 5 64−67 serial:callout
serial /dev/ttyS 4 64−67 serial
/dev/tty0 /dev/tty0 4 0 system:vtmaster
/dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx 5 2 system
/dev/console /dev/console 5 1 system:console
/dev/tty /dev/tty 5 0 system:/dev/tty
unknown /dev/tty 4 1−63 console
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Summary
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The /proc file system serves information about the running system. It not only
allows access to process data but also allows you to request the kernel status

by reading files in the hierarchy.
The directory structure of /proc reflects the types of information and makes
it easy, if not obvious, where to look for specific data.
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CHAPTER 2: MODIFYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS
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In This Chapter
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* Modifying kernel parameters by writing into files found in /proc/sys
* Exploring the files which modify certain parameters
* Review of the /proc/sys file tree
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A very interesting part of /proc is the directory /proc/sys. This is not only
a source of information, it also allows you to change parameters within the
kernel. Be very careful when attempting this. You can optimize your system,
but you can also cause it to crash. Never alter kernel parameters on a
production system. Set up a development machine and test to make sure that
everything works the way you want it to. You may have no alternative but to
reboot the machine once an error has been made.
To change a value, simply echo the new value into the file. An example is
given below in the section on the file system data. You need to be root to do
this. You can create your own boot script to perform this every time your
system boots.
The files in /proc/sys can be used to fine tune and monitor miscellaneous and
general things in the operation of the Linux kernel. Since some of the files
can inadvertently disrupt your system, it is advisable to read both
documentation and source before actually making adjustments. In any case, be
very careful when writing to any of these files. The entries in /proc may
change slightly between the 2.1.* and the 2.2 kernel, so if there is any doubt
review the kernel documentation in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation.
This chapter is heavily based on the documentation included in the pre 2.2
kernels, and became part of it in version 2.2.1 of the Linux kernel.
2.1 /proc/sys/fs − File system data
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
This subdirectory contains specific file system, file handle, inode, dentry
and quota information.
Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/fs:
dentry−state
−−−−−−−−−−−−
Status of the directory cache. Since directory entries are dynamically
allocated and deallocated, this file indicates the current status. It holds
six values, in which the last two are not used and are always zero. The others
are listed in table 2−1.
Table 2−1: Status files of the directory cache
..............................................................................
File Content

nr_dentry Almost always zero
nr_unused Number of unused cache entries
age_limit
in seconds after the entry may be reclaimed, when memory is short
want_pages internally
..............................................................................
dquot−nr and dquot−max
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The file dquot−max shows the maximum number of cached disk quota entries.
The file dquot−nr shows the number of allocated disk quota entries and the
number of free disk quota entries.
If the number of available cached disk quotas is very low and you have a large
number of simultaneous system users, you might want to raise the limit.
file−nr and file−max
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The kernel allocates file handles dynamically, but doesn't free them again at
this time.
The value in file−max denotes the maximum number of file handles that the
Linux kernel will allocate. When you get a lot of error messages about running
out of file handles, you might want to raise this limit. The default value is
4096. To change it, just write the new number into the file:
# cat /proc/sys/fs/file−max
4096
# echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/file−max
# cat /proc/sys/fs/file−max
8192
This method of revision is useful for all customizable parameters of the
kernel − simply echo the new value to the corresponding file.
The three values in file−nr denote the number of allocated file handles, the
number of used file handles, and the maximum number of file handles. When the
allocated file handles come close to the maximum, but the number of actually
used ones is far behind, you've encountered a peak in your usage of file
handles and you don't need to increase the maximum.
inode−state and inode−nr
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The file inode−nr contains the first two items from inode−state, so we'll skip
to that file...
inode−state contains two actual numbers and five dummy values. The numbers
are nr_inodes and nr_free_inodes (in order of appearance).
nr_inodes
~~~~~~~~~
Denotes the number of inodes the system has allocated. This number will
grow and shrink dynamically.
nr_free_inodes

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

Represents the number of free inodes. Ie. The number of inuse inodes is
(nr_inodes − nr_free_inodes).
super−nr and super−max
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Again, super block structures are allocated by the kernel, but not freed. The
file super−max contains the maximum number of super block handlers, where
super−nr shows the number of currently allocated ones.
Every mounted file system needs a super block, so if you plan to mount lots of
file systems, you may want to increase these numbers.
2.2 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc − Miscellaneous binary formats
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Besides these files, there is the subdirectory /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. This
handles the kernel support for miscellaneous binary formats.
Binfmt_misc provides the ability to register additional binary formats to the
Kernel without compiling an additional module/kernel. Therefore, binfmt_misc
needs to know magic numbers at the beginning or the filename extension of the
binary.
It works by maintaining a linked list of structs that contain a description of
a binary format, including a magic with size (or the filename extension),
offset and mask, and the interpreter name. On request it invokes the given
interpreter with the original program as argument, as binfmt_java and
binfmt_em86 and binfmt_mz do. Since binfmt_misc does not define any default
binary−formats, you have to register an additional binary−format.
There are two general files in binfmt_misc and one file per registered format.
The two general files are register and status.
Registering a new binary format
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
To register a new binary format you have to issue the command
echo :name:type:offset:magic:mask:interpreter: > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
with appropriate name (the name for the /proc−dir entry), offset (defaults to
0, if omitted), magic, mask (which can be omitted, defaults to all 0xff) and
last but not least, the interpreter that is to be invoked (for example and
testing /bin/echo). Type can be M for usual magic matching or E for filename
extension matching (give extension in place of magic).
Check or reset the status of the binary format handler
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
If you do a cat on the file /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status, you will get the
current status (enabled/disabled) of binfmt_misc. Change the status by echoing
0 (disables) or 1 (enables) or −1 (caution: this clears all previously
registered binary formats) to status. For example echo 0 > status to disable
binfmt_misc (temporarily).
Status of a single handler
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

Each registered handler has an entry in /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc. These files
perform the same function as status, but their scope is limited to the actual
binary format. By cating this file, you also receive all related information
about the interpreter/magic of the binfmt.
Example usage of binfmt_misc (emulate binfmt_java)
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
cd /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
echo ':Java:M::\xca\xfe\xba\xbe::/usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper:' > register
echo ':HTML:E::html::/usr/local/java/bin/appletviewer:' > register
echo ':Applet:M:: register
echo ':DEXE:M::\x0eDEX::/usr/bin/dosexec:' > register
These four lines add support for Java executables and Java applets (like
binfmt_java, additionally recognizing the .html extension with no need to put
to every applet file). You have to install the JDK and the
shell−script /usr/local/java/bin/javawrapper too. It works around the
brokenness of the Java filename handling. To add a Java binary, just create a
link to the class−file somewhere in the path.
2.3 /proc/sys/kernel − general kernel parameters
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
This directory reflects general kernel behaviors. As I've said before, the
contents depend on your configuration. Here you'll find the most important
files, along with descriptions of what they mean and how to use them.
acct
−−−−
The file contains three values; highwater, lowwater, and frequency.
It exists only when BSD−style process accounting is enabled. These values
control its behavior. If the free space on the file system where the log lives
goes below lowwater percentage, accounting suspends. If it goes above
highwater percentage, accounting resumes. Frequency determines how often you
check the amount of free space (value is in seconds). Default settings are: 4,
2, and 30. That is, suspend accounting if there is less than 2 percent free;
resume it if we have a value of 3 or more percent; consider information about
the amount of free space valid for 30 seconds
ctrl−alt−del
−−−−−−−−−−−−
When the value in this file is 0, ctrl−alt−del is trapped and sent to the init
program to handle a graceful restart. However, when the value is greater that
zero, Linux's reaction to this key combination will be an immediate reboot,
without syncing its dirty buffers.
[NOTE]
When a program (like dosemu) has the keyboard in raw mode, the
ctrl−alt−del is intercepted by the program before it ever reaches the
kernel tty layer, and it is up to the program to decide what to do with
it.
domainname and hostname
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
These files can be controlled to set the NIS domainname and hostname of your
box. For the classic darkstar.frop.org a simple:

# echo "darkstar" > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname
# echo "frop.org" > /proc/sys/kernel/domainname
would suffice to set your hostname and NIS domainname.
osrelease, ostype and version
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The names make it pretty obvious what these fields contain:
> cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
2.2.12
> cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype
Linux
> cat /proc/sys/kernel/version
#4 Fri Oct 1 12:41:14 PDT 1999
The files osrelease and ostype should be clear enough. Version needs a little
more clarification. The #4 means that this is the 4th kernel built from this
source base and the date after it indicates the time the kernel was built. The
only way to tune these values is to rebuild the kernel.
panic
−−−−−
The value in this file represents the number of seconds the kernel waits
before rebooting on a panic. When you use the software watchdog, the
recommended setting is 60. If set to 0, the auto reboot after a kernel panic
is disabled, which is the default setting.
printk
−−−−−−
The four values in printk denote
* console_loglevel,
* default_message_loglevel,
* minimum_console_level and
* default_console_loglevel
respectively.
These values influence printk() behavior when printing or logging error
messages, which come from inside the kernel. See syslog(2) for more
information on the different log levels.
console_loglevel
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Messages with a higher priority than this will be printed to the console.
default_message_level
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Messages without an explicit priority will be printed with this priority.
minimum_console_loglevel
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

Minimum (highest) value to which the console_loglevel can be set.
default_console_loglevel
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Default value for console_loglevel.
sg−big−buff
−−−−−−−−−−−
This file shows the size of the generic SCSI (sg) buffer. At this point, you
can't tune it yet, but you can change it at compile time by editing
include/scsi/sg.h and changing the value of SG_BIG_BUFF.
If you use a scanner with SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) you might want to set
this to a higher value. Refer to the SANE documentation on this issue.
modprobe
−−−−−−−−
The location where the modprobe binary is located. The kernel uses this
program to load modules on demand.
2.4 /proc/sys/vm − The virtual memory subsystem
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation of the virtual
memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel. In addition, one of the files
(bdflush) has some influence on disk usage.
bdflush
−−−−−−−
This file controls the operation of the bdflush kernel daemon. It currently
contains nine integer values, six of which are actually used by the kernel.
They are listed in table 2−2.
Table 2−2: Parameters in /proc/sys/vm/bdflush
..............................................................................
Value Meaning
nfract Percentage of buffer cache dirty to activate bdflush
ndirty Maximum number of dirty blocks to write out per wake−cycle
nrefill Number of clean buffers to try to obtain each time we call refill
nref_dirt buffer threshold for activating bdflush when trying to refill
buffers.
dummy Unused
age_buffer Time for normal buffer to age before we flush it
age_super Time for superblock to age before we flush it
dummy Unused
dummy Unused
..............................................................................
nfract
−−−−−−
This parameter governs the maximum number of dirty buffers in the buffer
cache. Dirty means that the contents of the buffer still have to be written to
disk (as opposed to a clean buffer, which can just be forgotten about).
Setting this to a higher value means that Linux can delay disk writes for a
long time, but it also means that it will have to do a lot of I/O at once when
memory becomes short. A lower value will spread out disk I/O more evenly.

ndirty
−−−−−−
Ndirty gives the maximum number of dirty buffers that bdflush can write to the
disk at one time. A high value will mean delayed, bursty I/O, while a small
value can lead to memory shortage when bdflush isn't woken up often enough.
nrefill
−−−−−−−
This is the number of buffers that bdflush will add to the list of free
buffers when refill_freelist() is called. It is necessary to allocate free
buffers beforehand, since the buffers are often different sizes than the
memory pages and some bookkeeping needs to be done beforehand. The higher the
number, the more memory will be wasted and the less often refill_freelist()
will need to run.
nref_dirt
−−−−−−−−−
When refill_freelist() comes across more than nref_dirt dirty buffers, it will
wake up bdflush.
age_buffer and age_super
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Finally, the age_buffer and age_super parameters govern the maximum time Linux
waits before writing out a dirty buffer to disk. The value is expressed in
jiffies (clockticks), the number of jiffies per second is 100. Age_buffer is
the maximum age for data blocks, while age_super is for filesystems meta data.
buffermem
−−−−−−−−−
The three values in this file control how much memory should be used for
buffer memory. The percentage is calculated as a percentage of total system
memory.
The values are:
min_percent
−−−−−−−−−−−
This is the minimum percentage of memory that should be spent on buffer
memory.
borrow_percent
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
When Linux is short on memory, and the buffer cache uses more than it has been
allotted, the memory management (MM) subsystem will prune the buffer cache
more heavily than other memory to compensate.
max_percent
−−−−−−−−−−−
This is the maximum amount of memory that can be used for buffer memory.
freepages
−−−−−−−−−

This file contains three values: min, low and high:
min
−−−
When the number of free pages in the system reaches this number, only the
kernel can allocate more memory.
low
−−−
If the number of free pages falls below this point, the kernel starts swapping
aggressively.
high
−−−−
The kernel tries to keep up to this amount of memory free; if memory falls
below this point, the kernel starts gently swapping in the hopes that it never
has to do really aggressive swapping.
kswapd
−−−−−−
Kswapd is the kernel swap out daemon. That is, kswapd is that piece of the
kernel that frees memory when it gets fragmented or full. Since every system
is different, you'll probably want some control over this piece of the system.
The file contains three numbers:
tries_base
−−−−−−−−−−
The maximum number of pages kswapd tries to free in one round is calculated
from this number. Usually this number will be divided by 4 or 8 (see
mm/vmscan.c), so it isn't as big as it looks.
When you need to increase the bandwidth to/from swap, you'll want to increase
this number.
tries_min
−−−−−−−−−
This is the minimum number of times kswapd tries to free a page each time it
is called. Basically it's just there to make sure that kswapd frees some pages
even when it's being called with minimum priority.
swap_cluster
−−−−−−−−−−−−
This is probably the greatest influence on system performance.
swap_cluster is the number of pages kswapd writes in one turn. You'll want
this value to be large so that kswapd does its I/O in large chunks and the
disk doesn't have to seek as often, but you don't want it to be too large
since that would flood the request queue.
overcommit_memory
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
This file contains one value. The following algorithm is used to decide if
there's enough memory: if the value of overcommit_memory is positive, then
there's always enough memory. This is a useful feature, since programs often
malloc() huge amounts of memory 'just in case', while they only use a small
part of it. Leaving this value at 0 will lead to the failure of such a huge

malloc(), when in fact the system has enough memory for the program to run.
On the other hand, enabling this feature can cause you to run out of memory
and thrash the system to death, so large and/or important servers will want to
set this value to 0.
pagecache
−−−−−−−−−
This file does exactly the same job as buffermem, only this file controls the
amount of memory allowed for memory mapping and generic caching of files.
You don't want the minimum level to be too low, otherwise your system might
thrash when memory is tight or fragmentation is high.
pagetable_cache
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The kernel keeps a number of page tables in a per−processor cache (this helps
a lot on SMP systems). The cache size for each processor will be between the
low and the high value.
On a low−memory, single CPU system, you can safely set these values to 0 so
you don't waste memory. It is used on SMP systems so that the system can
perform fast pagetable allocations without having to acquire the kernel memory
lock.
For large systems, the settings are probably fine. For normal systems they
won't hurt a bit. For small systems ( less than 16MB ram) it might be
advantageous to set both values to 0.
swapctl
−−−−−−−
This file contains no less than 8 variables. All of these values are used by
kswapd.
The first four variables
* sc_max_page_age,
* sc_page_advance,
* sc_page_decline and
* sc_page_initial_age
are used to keep track of Linux's page aging. Page aging is a bookkeeping
method to track which pages of memory are often used, and which pages can be
swapped out without consequences.
When a page is swapped in, it starts at sc_page_initial_age (default 3) and
when the page is scanned by kswapd, its age is adjusted according to the
following scheme:
* If the page was used since the last time we scanned, its age is increased
by sc_page_advance (default 3). Where the maximum value is given by
sc_max_page_age (default 20).
* Otherwise (meaning it wasn't used) its age is decreased by sc_page_decline
(default 1).
When a page reaches age 0, it's ready to be swapped out.
The variables sc_age_cluster_fract, sc_age_cluster_min, sc_pageout_weight and
sc_bufferout_weight, can be used to control kswapd's aggressiveness in
swapping out pages.

Sc_age_cluster_fract is used to calculate how many pages from a process are to
be scanned by kswapd. The formula used is
(sc_age_cluster_fract divided by 1024) times resident set size
So if you want kswapd to scan the whole process, sc_age_cluster_fract needs to
have a value of 1024. The minimum number of pages kswapd will scan is
represented by sc_age_cluster_min, which is done so that kswapd will also scan
small processes.
The values of sc_pageout_weight and sc_bufferout_weight are used to control
how many tries kswapd will make in order to swap out one page/buffer. These
values can be used to fine−tune the ratio between user pages and buffer/cache
memory. When you find that your Linux system is swapping out too many process
pages in order to satisfy buffer memory demands, you may want to either
increase sc_bufferout_weight, or decrease the value of sc_pageout_weight.
2.5 /proc/sys/dev − Device specific parameters
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Currently there is only support for CDROM drives, and for those, there is only
one read−only file containing information about the CD−ROM drives attached to
the system:
>cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info
CD−ROM information, Id: cdrom.c 2.55 1999/04/25
drive name: sr0 hdb
drive speed: 32 40
drive # of slots: 1 0
Can close tray: 1 1
Can open tray: 1 1
Can lock tray: 1 1
Can change speed: 1 1
Can select disk: 0 1
Can read multisession: 1 1
Can read MCN: 1 1
Reports media changed: 1 1
Can play audio: 1 1
You see two drives, sr0 and hdb, along with a list of their features.
2.6 /proc/sys/sunrpc − Remote procedure calls
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
This directory contains four files, which enable or disable debugging for the
RPC functions NFS, NFS−daemon, RPC and NLM. The default values are 0. They can
be set to one to turn debugging on. (The default value is 0 for each)
2.7 /proc/sys/net − Networking stuff
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The interface to the networking parts of the kernel is located in
/proc/sys/net. Table 2−3 shows all possible subdirectories. You may see only
some of them, depending on your kernel's configuration.
Table 2−3: Subdirectories in /proc/sys/net
..............................................................................
Directory Content Directory Content
core General parameter appletalk Appletalk protocol

unix Unix domain sockets netrom NET/ROM
802 E802 protocol ax25 AX25
ethernet Ethernet protocol rose X.25 PLP layer
ipv4 IP version 4 x25 X.25 protocol
ipx IPX token−ring IBM token ring
bridge Bridging decnet DEC net
ipv6 IP version 6
..............................................................................
We will concentrate on IP networking here. Since AX15, X.25, and DEC Net are
only minor players in the Linux world, we'll skip them in this chapter. You'll
find some short info on Appletalk and IPX further on in this chapter. Review
the online documentation and the kernel source to get a detailed view of the
parameters for those protocols. In this section we'll discuss the
subdirectories printed in bold letters in the table above. As default values
are suitable for most needs, there is no need to change these values.
/proc/sys/net/core − Network core options
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
rmem_default
−−−−−−−−−−−−
The default setting of the socket receive buffer in bytes.
rmem_max
−−−−−−−−
The maximum receive socket buffer size in bytes.
wmem_default
−−−−−−−−−−−−
The default setting (in bytes) of the socket send buffer.
wmem_max
−−−−−−−−
The maximum send socket buffer size in bytes.
message_burst and message_cost
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
These parameters are used to limit the warning messages written to the kernel
log from the networking code. They enforce a rate limit to make a
denial−of−service attack impossible. A higher message_cost factor, results in
fewer messages that will be written. Message_burst controls when messages will
be dropped. The default settings limit warning messages to one every five
seconds.
netdev_max_backlog
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum number of packets, queued on the INPUT side, when the interface
receives packets faster than kernel can process them.
optmem_max
−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum ancillary buffer size allowed per socket. Ancillary data is a sequence
of struct cmsghdr structures with appended data.

/proc/sys/net/unix − Parameters for Unix domain sockets
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
There are only two files in this subdirectory. They control the delays for
deleting and destroying socket descriptors.
2.8 /proc/sys/net/ipv4 − IPV4 settings
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
IP version 4 is still the most used protocol in Unix networking. It will be
replaced by IP version 6 in the next couple of years, but for the moment it's
the de facto standard for the internet and is used in most networking
environments around the world. Because of the importance of this protocol,
we'll have a deeper look into the subtree controlling the behavior of the IPv4
subsystem of the Linux kernel.
Let's start with the entries in /proc/sys/net/ipv4.
ICMP settings
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
icmp_echo_ignore_all and icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Turn on (1) or off (0), if the kernel should ignore all ICMP ECHO requests, or
just those to broadcast and multicast addresses.
Please note that if you accept ICMP echo requests with a broadcast/multi\−cast
destination address your network may be used as an exploder for denial of
service packet flooding attacks to other hosts.
icmp_destunreach_rate, icmp_echoreply_rate, icmp_paramprob_rate and icmp_timeexeed_rate
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Sets limits for sending ICMP packets to specific targets. A value of zero
disables all limiting. Any positive value sets the maximum package rate in
hundredth of a second (on Intel systems).
IP settings
−−−−−−−−−−−
ip_autoconfig
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
This file contains the number one if the host received its IP configuration by
RARP, BOOTP, DHCP or a similar mechanism. Otherwise it is zero.
ip_default_ttl
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
TTL (Time To Live) for IPv4 interfaces. This is simply the maximum number of
hops a packet may travel.
ip_dynaddr
−−−−−−−−−−
Enable dynamic socket address rewriting on interface address change. This is
useful for dialup interface with changing IP addresses.
ip_forward
−−−−−−−−−−

Enable or disable forwarding of IP packages between interfaces. Changing this
value resets all other parameters to their default values. They differ if the
kernel is configured as host or router.
ip_local_port_range
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Range of ports used by TCP and UDP to choose the local port. Contains two
numbers, the first number is the lowest port, the second number the highest
local port. Default is 1024−4999. Should be changed to 32768−61000 for
high−usage systems.
ip_no_pmtu_disc
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Global switch to turn path MTU discovery off. It can also be set on a per
socket basis by the applications or on a per route basis.
ip_masq_debug
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Enable/disable debugging of IP masquerading.
IP fragmentation settings
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
ipfrag_high_trash and ipfrag_low_trash
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum memory used to reassemble IP fragments. When ipfrag_high_thresh bytes
of memory is allocated for this purpose, the fragment handler will toss
packets until ipfrag_low_thresh is reached.
ipfrag_time
−−−−−−−−−−−
Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory.
TCP settings
−−−−−−−−−−−−
tcp_ecn
−−−−−−−
This file controls the use of the ECN bit in the IPv4 headers, this is a new
feature about Explicit Congestion Notification, but some routers and firewalls
block trafic that has this bit set, so it could be necessary to echo 0 to
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn, if you want to talk to this sites. For more info
you could read RFC2481.
tcp_retrans_collapse
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Bug−to−bug compatibility with some broken printers. On retransmit, try to send
larger packets to work around bugs in certain TCP stacks. Can be turned off by
setting it to zero.
tcp_keepalive_probes
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Number of keep alive probes TCP sends out, until it decides that the
connection is broken.


tcp_keepalive_time
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
How often TCP sends out keep alive messages, when keep alive is enabled. The
default is 2 hours.
tcp_syn_retries
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Number of times initial SYNs for a TCP connection attempt will be
retransmitted. Should not be higher than 255. This is only the timeout for
outgoing connections, for incoming connections the number of retransmits is
defined by tcp_retries1.
tcp_sack
−−−−−−−−
Enable select acknowledgments after RFC2018.
tcp_timestamps
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Enable timestamps as defined in RFC1323.
tcp_stdurg
−−−−−−−−−−
Enable the strict RFC793 interpretation of the TCP urgent pointer field. The
default is to use the BSD compatible interpretation of the urgent pointer
pointing to the first byte after the urgent data. The RFC793 interpretation is
to have it point to the last byte of urgent data. Enabling this option may
lead to interoperatibility problems. Disabled by default.
tcp_syncookies
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Only valid when the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_SYNCOOKIES. Send out
syncookies when the syn backlog queue of a socket overflows. This is to ward
off the common 'syn flood attack'. Disabled by default.
Note that the concept of a socket backlog is abandoned. This means the peer
may not receive reliable error messages from an over loaded server with
syncookies enabled.
tcp_window_scaling
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Enable window scaling as defined in RFC1323.
tcp_fin_timeout
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The length of time in seconds it takes to receive a final FIN before the
socket is always closed. This is strictly a violation of the TCP
specification, but required to prevent denial−of−service attacks.
tcp_max_ka_probes
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Indicates how many keep alive probes are sent per slow timer run. Should not
be set too high to prevent bursts.

tcp_max_syn_backlog
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Length of the per socket backlog queue. Since Linux 2.2 the backlog specified
in listen(2) only specifies the length of the backlog queue of already
established sockets. When more connection requests arrive Linux starts to drop
packets. When syncookies are enabled the packets are still answered and the
maximum queue is effectively ignored.
tcp_retries1
−−−−−−−−−−−−
Defines how often an answer to a TCP connection request is retransmitted
before giving up.
tcp_retries2
−−−−−−−−−−−−
Defines how often a TCP packet is retransmitted before giving up.
Interface specific settings
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
In the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf you'll find one subdirectory for each
interface the system knows about and one directory calls all. Changes in the
all subdirectory affect all interfaces, whereas changes in the other
subdirectories affect only one interface. All directories have the same
entries:
accept_redirects
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
This switch decides if the kernel accepts ICMP redirect messages or not. The
default is 'yes' if the kernel is configured for a regular host and 'no' for a
router configuration.
accept_source_route
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Should source routed packages be accepted or declined. The default is
dependent on the kernel configuration. It's 'yes' for routers and 'no' for
hosts.
bootp_relay
~~~~~~~~~~~
Accept packets with source address 0.b.c.d with destinations not to this host
as local ones. It is supposed that a BOOTP relay daemon will catch and forward
such packets.
The default is 0, since this feature is not implemented yet (kernel version
2.2.12).
forwarding
−−−−−−−−−−
Enable or disable IP forwarding on this interface.
log_martians
−−−−−−−−−−−−

Log packets with source addresses with no known route to kernel log.
mc_forwarding
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Do multicast routing. The kernel needs to be compiled with CONFIG_MROUTE and a
multicast routing daemon is required.
proxy_arp
−−−−−−−−−
Does (1) or does not (0) perform proxy ARP.
rp_filter
−−−−−−−−−
Integer value determines if a source validation should be made. 1 means yes, 0
means no. Disabled by default, but local/broadcast address spoofing is always
on.
If you set this to 1 on a router that is the only connection for a network to
the net, it will prevent spoofing attacks against your internal networks
(external addresses can still be spoofed), without the need for additional
firewall rules.
secure_redirects
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Accept ICMP redirect messages only for gateways, listed in default gateway
list. Enabled by default.
shared_media
−−−−−−−−−−−−
If it is not set the kernel does not assume that different subnets on this
device can communicate directly. Default setting is 'yes'.
send_redirects
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Determines whether to send ICMP redirects to other hosts.
Routing settings
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route contains several file to control
routing issues.
error_burst and error_cost
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
These parameters are used to limit the warning messages written to the kernel
log from the routing code. The higher the error_cost factor is, the fewer
messages will be written. Error_burst controls when messages will be dropped.
The default settings limit warning messages to one every five seconds.
flush
−−−−−
Writing to this file results in a flush of the routing cache.
gc_elastic, gc_interval, gc_min_interval, gc_tresh, gc_timeout


−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Values to control the frequency and behavior of the garbage collection
algorithm for the routing cache.
max_size
−−−−−−−−
Maximum size of the routing cache. Old entries will be purged once the cache
reached has this size.
max_delay, min_delay
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Delays for flushing the routing cache.
redirect_load, redirect_number
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Factors which determine if more ICPM redirects should be sent to a specific
host. No redirects will be sent once the load limit or the maximum number of
redirects has been reached.
redirect_silence
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Timeout for redirects. After this period redirects will be sent again, even if
this has been stopped, because the load or number limit has been reached.
Network Neighbor handling
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Settings about how to handle connections with direct neighbors (nodes attached
to the same link) can be found in the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh.
As we saw it in the conf directory, there is a default subdirectory which
holds the default values, and one directory for each interface. The contents
of the directories are identical, with the single exception that the default
settings contain additional options to set garbage collection parameters.
In the interface directories you'll find the following entries:
base_reachable_time
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
A base value used for computing the random reachable time value as specified
in RFC2461.
retrans_time
−−−−−−−−−−−−
The time, expressed in jiffies (1/100 sec), between retransmitted Neighbor
Solicitation messages. Used for address resolution and to determine if a
neighbor is unreachable.
unres_qlen
−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum queue length for a pending arp request − the number of packets which
are accepted from other layers while the ARP address is still resolved.
anycast_delay

−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum for random delay of answers to neighbor solicitation messages in
jiffies (1/100 sec). Not yet implemented (Linux does not have anycast support
yet).
ucast_solicit
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum number of retries for unicast solicitation.
mcast_solicit
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum number of retries for multicast solicitation.
delay_first_probe_time
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Delay for the first time probe if the neighbor is reachable. (see
gc_stale_time)
locktime
−−−−−−−−
An ARP/neighbor entry is only replaced with a new one if the old is at least
locktime old. This prevents ARP cache thrashing.
proxy_delay
−−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum time (real time is random [0..proxytime]) before answering to an ARP
request for which we have an proxy ARP entry. In some cases, this is used to
prevent network flooding.
proxy_qlen
−−−−−−−−−−
Maximum queue length of the delayed proxy arp timer. (see proxy_delay).
app_solcit
−−−−−−−−−−
Determines the number of requests to send to the user level ARP daemon. Use 0
to turn off.
gc_stale_time
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Determines how often to check for stale ARP entries. After an ARP entry is
stale it will be resolved again (which is useful when an IP address migrates
to another machine). When ucast_solicit is greater than 0 it first tries to
send an ARP packet directly to the known host When that fails and
mcast_solicit is greater than 0, an ARP request is broadcasted.
2.9 Appletalk
−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The /proc/sys/net/appletalk directory holds the Appletalk configuration data
when Appletalk is loaded. The configurable parameters are:
aarp−expiry−time

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The amount of time we keep an ARP entry before expiring it. Used to age out
old hosts.
aarp−resolve−time
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The amount of time we will spend trying to resolve an Appletalk address.
aarp−retransmit−limit
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
The number of times we will retransmit a query before giving up.
aarp−tick−time
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Controls the rate at which expires are checked.
The directory /proc/net/appletalk holds the list of active Appletalk sockets
on a machine.
The fields indicate the DDP type, the local address (in network:node format)
the remote address, the size of the transmit pending queue, the size of the
received queue (bytes waiting for applications to read) the state and the uid
owning the socket.
/proc/net/atalk_iface lists all the interfaces configured for appletalk.It
shows the name of the interface, its Appletalk address, the network range on
that address (or network number for phase 1 networks), and the status of the
interface.
/proc/net/atalk_route lists each known network route. It lists the target
(network) that the route leads to, the router (may be directly connected), the
route flags, and the device the route is using.
2.10 IPX
−−−−−−−−
The IPX protocol has no tunable values in proc/sys/net.
The IPX protocol does, however, provide proc/net/ipx. This lists each IPX
socket giving the local and remote addresses in Novell format (that is
network:node:port). In accordance with the strange Novell tradition,
everything but the port is in hex. Not_Connected is displayed for sockets that
are not tied to a specific remote address. The Tx and Rx queue sizes indicate
the number of bytes pending for transmission and reception. The state
indicates the state the socket is in and the uid is the owning uid of the
socket.
The /proc/net/ipx_interface file lists all IPX interfaces. For each interface
it gives the network number, the node number, and indicates if the network is
the primary network. It also indicates which device it is bound to (or
Internal for internal networks) and the Frame Type if appropriate. Linux
supports 802.3, 802.2, 802.2 SNAP and DIX (Blue Book) ethernet framing for
IPX.
The /proc/net/ipx_route table holds a list of IPX routes. For each route it
gives the destination network, the router node (or Directly) and the network
address of the router (or Connected) for internal networks.

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Summary
−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Certain aspects of kernel behavior can be modified at runtime, without the
need to recompile the kernel, or even to reboot the system. The files in the
/proc/sys tree can not only be read, but also modified. You can use the echo
command to write value into these files, thereby changing the default settings
of the kernel.
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