Data Structures

For each level of the MIB tree, the kernel header files provide a cpp(1) macro initialiser for an array of the following data structures:

struct ctlname {
	char	*ctl_name;	/* subsystem name */
	int	ctl_type;	/* type of name */
};

For example:

#define CTL_NAMES { \
	{ 0, 0 }, \
	{ "kern", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "vm", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "fs", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "net", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "debug", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "hw", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "machdep", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "user", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "ddb", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
	{ "vfs", CTLTYPE_NODE }, \
}

Each array element initialiser maps the correspondent MIB identifier. The ctl_name field provides a string name. The ctl_type field describes the identifier type, where possible values are:

For each of the types there are two functions provided to perform both read and write or only a read operation on the identifier (see the following subsection).

These data structures are used by the sysctl(8) program to provide mapping into MIB identifiers.

Functions

All of the functions perform a write provided that newp is not a NULL pointer and newlen specifies an appropriate data length. All read-only versions of the functions return EPERM if a write operation is requested.

The following helper functions are provided to aid operation on the kernel data variables referenced by the leaf nodes in the MIBs:

sysctl_int(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, size_t newlen, int *valp)

The variable referenced by valp is a 32-bit integer. Read or write returning the previous value in the user memory location pointed to by the oldp argument. The value pointed to by oldlenp has to be no less than four.

sysctl_rdint(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, int val)

A read-only version of the above.

sysctl_quad(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, size_t newlen, int64_t *valp)

The variable referenced is a 64-bit integer. Read or write returning the previous value in the user memory location pointed to by the oldp argument. The value pointed to by oldlenp has to be no less than eight.

sysctl_rdquad(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, int64_t val)

A read-only version of the above.

sysctl_string(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, size_t newlen, char *str, int maxlen)

The variable referenced by the str argument is a string of maximum length of maxlen. The old value is copied out into a user buffer pointed to by the oldp argument. If there is not enough space to store it, an ENOMEM is returned. If newlen is larger than maxlen, an EINVAL error is returned.

sysctl_tstring(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, size_t newlen, char *str, int maxlen)

A version of the above that truncates the old value that does not fit into the buffer provided by oldp instead of returning ENOMEM.

sysctl_rdstring(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, const char *str)

A read-only version of sysctl_string().

sysctl_struct(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, size_t newlen, void *sp, int len)

Assume the area pointed to by the sp argument is an opaque array of bytes of size len. Old and new length checks are performed and data is copied in and/or out.

sysctl_rdstruct(void *oldp, size_t *oldlenp, void *newp, const void *sp, int len)

A read-only version of the above.