sysctl

Access kernel state information

Show all available variables and their values

sysctl -a

Show Apple model identifier

sysctl -n hw.model

Show CPU model

sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string

Show available CPU features (MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AES, etc)

sysctl -n machdep.cpu.feature

Set a changeable kernel state variable

sysctl -w name=value sysctl -w kern.maxfiles=15000