>> once i'm done, you'll be able to do this from the command line:
>> 
>>     sysctl -w //create=vender.foo,type=int,symbol=thing,flags=w 
>
>Please, what is the "symbol" field referring to?

the name of the thing being referenced.  for example, i have the
following in my sysctl.conf:

    //create=local
    //create=local.cpu_features,type=int,symbol=cpu_feature,flags=x
    //create=local.esm_debug,type=int,symbol=esm_debug,flags=w
    //create=local.audiodebug,type=int,symbol=audiodebug,flags=w
    //create=local.insecurelevel,type=int,symbol=securelevel,flags=aw

and they refer to these things:

    % nm /dev/ksyms | egrep 'A (cpu_feature|esm_debug|audiodebug|securelevel)'
    c044b9a0 A audiodebug
    c049f6cc A cpu_feature
    c0450d20 A esm_debug
    c044dbcc A securelevel

but typing in the address is (a) unwieldy and (b) not stable (ie,
likely to change if i rebuild my kernel), so what sysctl does is tell
the kernel the name of the thing i want to instrument, instead of just
telling it where it is.

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