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
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 of which of the
+ directories they reside in. 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>
+
+ <para>The settings configured with
+ <filename>sysctl.d</filename> files will be applied
+ early on boot. The network interface-specific options
+ will also be applied individually for each network
+ interface as it shows up in the system. (More
+ specifically, that is
+ <filename>net.ipv4.conf.*</filename>,
+ <filename>net.ipv6.conf.*</filename>,
+ <filename>net.ipv4.neigh.*</filename> and <filename>net.ipv6.neigh.*</filename>)</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>