On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 10:43:55PM +0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> 
> All the same, i'd like to point out that there is a minor documentation
> issue.  Some time ago, we decided that having duplicate descriptions
> of each and every sysctl variable in sysctl(3) and sysctl(8) is bad
> for maintainability, deleted them all from sysctl(8), and made sure
> users of sysctl(8) can understand the full listing in sysctl(3) by
> adding the full string-names used by sysctl(8) to the sysctl(3)
> manual page.
> 
> So after your patch, we would have to document in sysctl(3) that
> CTL_MACHDEP.CPU_LIDACTION = machdep.lidaction takes int on the C
> interface level and strings on the command line, and that
> 0=none, 1=suspend, 2=hibernate.
> 

that would be doable, but...

> While i don't know whether documenting *all* machdep variables in
> sysctl(3) would make sense, machdep.lidaction certainly seems
> important enough to document it.  Same for machdep.kbdreset.
> 

... at present sysctl(3) does not describe any machdep syscts at all. it
never has (or we removed them long ago and i forget). the theory was
that the machdep ctls were a moving target and, by definition, only
relevant to specific platforms. so sysctl(3) didn;t even attempt to
describe them, sysctl(8) listed some of them, and sysctl.conf described
some of them.

maybe there's a bigger discussion possible, but for now it would be
simple, and not inconsistent, to just keep that in the example /etc
file. no immediate doc change would be needed.

jmc

> Yours,
>   Ingo
> 

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