New sysctl(8) -f option supports reading entire settings file in one go

Contributed by Peter N. M. Hansteen on 2025-04-07 from the ctl my sys dept.

If you have ever been irked by having to enter a sequence of sysctl(8) commands to achieve things like enabling forwarding for IPv4 and IPv6 both, help is at hand.

In a recent commit, Klemens Nanni (kn@) added functionality to have the classic command read multiple settings from a file:

Subject:    CVS: cvs.openbsd.org: src
From:       Klemens Nanni <kn () cvs ! openbsd ! org>
Date:       2025-04-05 14:09:06
Message-ID: f3c322a675a4cd33 () cvs ! openbsd ! org
[Download RAW message or body]

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	kn@cvs.openbsd.org	2025/04/05 08:09:06

Modified files:
	sbin/sysctl    : sysctl.8 sysctl.c 

Log message:
Add [-f file] to apply sysctl.conf in one go

Intended as simpler alternative to scripting around a list of assignments
(or passing multiple on the command line), which is useful for the
occasional local edit-and-apply as well as config management tools handling
sysctl.conf(5) incl. comments.

deraadt millert like it

This change (predictably) also spurred a few changes to the rc scripts, and the whole thing will be available in a upcoming snapshots and the soon-to-arrive OpenBSD 7.7 release.

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