From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stephen Hemminger Subject: Re: sysctl, argument parsing, possible bug Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 12:04:40 -0700 Message-ID: <20170808120440.713f1a38@xeon-e3> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: LKML , Linux Kernel Network Developers To: Massimo Sala Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Tue, 8 Aug 2017 20:26:36 +0200 Massimo Sala wrote: > I make another test with kernel 4.9.32-15.41 > > sysctl procps version 3.2.8 > > sysctl net.ipv4.conf.eth0.100.forwarding > error: "net.ipv4.conf.eth0.100.forwarding" is an unknown key > > > so I install busybox : > > BusyBox v1.19.3 > > busybox sysctl net.ipv4.conf.eth0.100.forwarding > net.ipv4.conf.eth0.100.forwarding = 0 > > It is working, as I expect reading busybox source sysctl.c > > > > Stephen, I test > sysctl net/ipv4/conf/eth0.100/forwarding > I confirm it works. > > > What is the problem ? > > As sysctl, also automation tools and scripts cannot be "netdev names > aware", and so they fail using the usual dot notation. > > > I don't pretend to change sysctl to read from the /proc/sys/ > directory, as busybox does. > > I suggest to add a remark to the man page of sysctl, reporting the > difference between the two tools and an example of the alternate > syntax : > sysctl net/ipv4/conf/eth0.100/forwarding > > > Thank you for your attention. > Best regards, Massimo Busybox has always been a restricted subset of the upstream standard tools. If you have problems with busybox take it up with those developers directly; this is not the right mailing list for that.