<refsect1>
<title>Description</title>
- <para>At boot,
- <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-binfmt.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
- reads configuration files from the above directories
- to configure
- <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sysctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
- kernel parameters.</para>
+ <para>At boot,
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-sysctl.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ reads configuration files from the above directories
+ to configure
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sysctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ kernel parameters.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
- <title>Configuration Format</title>
+ <title>Configuration Format</title>
- <para>The configuration files contain a list of
- variable assignments, separated by newlines. Empty
- lines and lines whose first non-whitespace character
- is # or ; are ignored.</para>
+ <para>The configuration files contain a list of
+ variable assignments, separated by newlines. Empty
+ lines and lines whose first non-whitespace character
+ is # or ; are ignored.</para>
<para>Note that both / and . are accepted as label
separators within sysctl variable
entirely equivalent.</para>
<para>Each configuration file shall be named in the
- style of <filename><program>.conf</filename>.
+ style of <filename><replaceable>program</replaceable>.conf</filename>.
Files in <filename>/etc/</filename> override files
with the same name in <filename>/usr/lib/</filename>
and <filename>/run/</filename>. Files in
- <filename>/run</filename> override files with the same
+ <filename>/run/</filename> override files with the same
name in <filename>/usr/lib/</filename>. Packages
should install their configuration files in
<filename>/usr/lib/</filename>. Files in
administrator, who may use this logic to override the
configuration files installed by vendor packages. All
configuration files are sorted by their filename in
- alphabetical order, regardless in which of the
- directories they reside, to guarantee that a specific
- configuration file takes precedence over another file
- with an alphabetically earlier name, if both files
- contain the same variable setting.</para>
+ lexicographic order, regardless in which of the
+ directories they reside. If multiple files specify the
+ same variable name, the entry in the file with the
+ lexicographically latest name will be applied. It is
+ recommended to prefix all filenames with a two-digit
+ number and a dash, to simplify the ordering of the
+ files.</para>
<para>If the administrator wants to disable a
- configuration file supplied by the vendor the
+ configuration file supplied by the vendor, the
recommended way is to place a symlink to
<filename>/dev/null</filename> in
<filename>/etc/sysctl.d/</filename> bearing the
- same file name.</para>
+ same filename.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>