From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 3 20:45:06 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA2A41065672 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 20:45:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from david@catwhisker.org) Received: from bunrab.catwhisker.org (adsl-63-193-123-122.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.193.123.122]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79A4C8FC1C for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 20:45:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from david@catwhisker.org) Received: from bunrab.catwhisker.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bunrab.catwhisker.org (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id m33KQK0Q053982 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 13:26:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from david@bunrab.catwhisker.org) Received: (from david@localhost) by bunrab.catwhisker.org (8.13.3/8.13.1/Submit) id m33KQKNw053981 for hackers@freebsd.org; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 13:26:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from david) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 13:26:20 -0700 From: David Wolfskill To: hackers@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20080403202620.GG48868@bunrab.catwhisker.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="3oCie2+XPXTnK5a5" Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: Subject: Is describing sysctl variables useful? X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: hackers@freebsd.org List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:45:06 -0000 --3oCie2+XPXTnK5a5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable At work, I'm trying to get some measurements for what is going on on various systems, especially when developers are trying to use them. (The goal is to improve the situation; measurement is a rather early step in that process.) To that end, I've cobbled up a Perl script that acts as a "wrapper" around time(1) and uses that command to obtain the "rusage" (ref. getrusage(2)) information about the command in question. I've started to expand this to try to obtain information about the machine as a whole, in order to allow a comparison of the results from one run of a command to another to have some plausible meaning. For this, I thought that certain values reported by sysctl(8) might be of use. In the process of starting to investigate this, I noted that while some of the variables have decscriptions (ref. "sysctl -d"), others lack them. Since I'm likely to be sniffing around to figure out what these things are, would it be a useful exercise for me to submit PRs (in appropriately-sized chunks) to provide such descriptions? I have no desire to submit PRs merely for the exercise; I've submitted PRs before, so I'm unlikely to do it merely for the sake of novelty. :-} But if it stands a reasonable chance of being a useful thing for the project, I'm happy to help. Thoughts? Peace, david --=20 David H. Wolfskill david@catwhisker.org I submit that "conspiracy" would be an appropriate collective noun for cats. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key. --3oCie2+XPXTnK5a5 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAkf1PWsACgkQmprOCmdXAD0SiACgg0ZMukGGcRTnZWJs8Qn/QuoU fvoAnRMhQ9677AtTmWqaNfDj9MSO6rqH =Yv8W -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --3oCie2+XPXTnK5a5--