There are lot of kernel parameters and those parameters can be viewed from /proc/sys/ directory. Modification of values of these parameters will persit only until the next reboot of the system.
We can modify these kernel parameter values manually. i.e. by echoing new values to files in /proc/sys/ [Each parameters have a file in /proc/sys/ directory].
sysctl provides CLI interface for editing/viewing these parameters. It has various options too.
I am going to exaplain little more about kernel parameters with an example.
hostname is a kernel parameter which stores hostname of the system. Its location is "/proc/sys/kernel/hostname"
The value for this parameter is loaded to kernel by rc.sysinit file during the boot process.
[root@ ~]# cat /etc/rc.sysinit
#!/bin/bash
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit - run once at boot time
#
# Taken in part from Miquel van Smoorenburg's bcheckrc.
#
HOSTNAME=$(/bin/hostname)
Note :I truncated the remaining portion of this file since currently we are only intrested in HOSTNAME
So while booting the OS we pass the value of hostname to kernel through rc.sysinit file and hence changing the hostname through /etc/sysconfig/network file needs rebooting the OS to take into effect.
Alternatively we can change the hostname without any reboot by following method.
[root@ ~]# hostname
host1.server2.com
[root@ ~]# vi /etc/sysconfig/network # Edit the value for HOSTNAME to host2.server2.com
[root@ ~]# sysctl -w kernel.hostname="host2.server2.com"
[root@ ~]# bash
[root@ ~]# hostname
host2.server2.com
This can also be done via echoing new value to /proc/sys/kernel/hostname
Like this:
echo host2.server2.com > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname
Note : I mean this article only for make you undestatnd about the kernel parameters and its values. The simplest way for modifying the hostname is by using /bin/hostname
Parameters available for sysctl
variable
The name of a key to read from. An example is kernel.ostype. The ’/’ separator is also accepted in place of a ’.’.
variable=value
To set a key, use the form variable=value, where variable is the key and value is the value to set it to. If the value contains quotes or characters which are parsed by the shell, you may need to enclose the value in double quotes. This requires the -w parameter to use.
-n Use this option to disable printing of the key name when printing values.
-e Use this option to ignore errors about unknown keys.
-N Use this option to only print the names. It may be useful with shells that have programmable completion.
-q Use this option to not display the values set to stdout.
-w Use this option when you want to change a sysctl setting.
-p Load in sysctl settings from the file specified or /etc/sysctl.conf if none given. Specifying – as filename means reading data from standard input.
-a Display all values currently available.
-A Display all values currently available in table form.
Examples:
/sbin/sysctl -a
/sbin/sysctl -n kernel.hostname
/sbin/sysctl -w kernel.domainname=”example.com”
/sbin/sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf
We can add persistance to the kernel values by editing/adding values in /etc/sysctl.conf
[root@host13 ~]# cat /etc/sysctl.conf
# Kernel sysctl configuration file for Red Hat Linux
#
# For binary values, 0 is disabled, 1 is enabled. See sysctl(8) and
# sysctl.conf(5) for more details.
# Controls IP packet forwarding
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0
# Controls source route verification
net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter = 1
# Do not accept source routing
net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_source_route = 0
# Controls the System Request debugging functionality of the kernel
kernel.sysrq = 0
# Controls whether core dumps will append the PID to the core filename.
# Useful for debugging multi-threaded applications.
kernel.core_uses_pid = 1
# Disable netfilter on bridges.
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 0
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables = 0
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-arptables = 0
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