Subject: misc/28401: vm.maxslp is not really explained by sysctl(3) manual page
To: None <misc-bug-people@netbsd.org, gnats-admin@netbsd.org,>
From: None <arto@selonen.org>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 11/23/2004 18:48:00
>Number: 28401
>Category: misc
>Synopsis: vm.maxslp is not really explained by sysctl(3) manual page
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Responsible: misc-bug-people
>State: open
>Class: doc-bug
>Submitter-Id: net
>Arrival-Date: Tue Nov 23 18:48:00 +0000 2004
>Originator: Arto Selonen
>Release: NetBSD 2.99.10 from ~20041123 sources
>Organization:
>Environment:
NetBSD blah 2.99.10 NetBSD 2.99.10 (BLAH) #75: Tue Nov 23 10:34:08 EET 2004 blah@blah:/obj/sys/arch/i386/compile/BLAH i386
>Description:
'man 3 sysctl' says:
"VM_MAXSLP - The value of the maxslp kernel global variable."
which is not really helpful. It could at least point to
/usr/include/sys/param.h, where the following is offered:
(as it is not very obvious to somebody wondering 'sysctl vm'
output, and trying to interpret it once man pages fail)
/*
* The time for a process to be blocked before being very swappable.
* This is a number of seconds which the system takes as being a non-trivial
* amount of real time. You probably shouldn't change this;
* it is used in subtle ways (fractions and multiples of it are, that is, like
* half of a ``long time'', almost a long time, etc.)
* It is related to human patience and other factors which don't really
* change over time.
*/
#define MAXSLP 20
>How-To-Repeat:
Try to find out what vm.maxslp means without already knowing it.
Fail after reading man pages. Wonder where to look next.
>Fix:
Either add the description from header file to man page, or
at least add a reference to header file in the man page.