Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
ETHERS(5)		    BSD	File Formats Manual		     ETHERS(5)

NAME
     ethers -- ethernet	address	database

DESCRIPTION
     The ethers	database contains information regarding	known 48-bit ethernet
     addresses of hosts	on an Internetwork.  The data is stored	in a file
     called /etc/ethers	in the following format:

	   ethernet-address fully-qualified-host-name

     Items are separated by any	number of blanks and/or	tab characters.	 A
     ``#'' at the start	of a line indicates the	beginning of a comment that
     extends to	the end	of the line.  A	``+'' at the start of a	line will
     cause the ethers(3) library functions to use data stored in the NIS
     ethers.byname and ethers.byaddr maps in addition to the data in the
     /etc/ethers file.

     An	ethernet address is expressed in ASCII form as "x:x:x:x:x:x" where x
     is	a hexadecimal value between 0x00 and 0xFF.  The	address	values should
     be	in network order.  Hostnames specified in the /etc/ethers database
     should correspond to entries in the hosts(5) file.

     The ether_line() function in the standard C library can be	used to	break
     individual	lines in the /etc/ethers database into their individual	compo-
     nents: a binary Ethernet address stored as	an ether_addr structure, and a
     hostname stored as	a character string.

FILES
     /etc/ethers    The	ethers file resides in /etc.

SEE ALSO
     ethers(3),	yp(8)

HISTORY
     The ethers	format is based	on the format used in SunOS 4.1.x.

BSD				April 12, 1995				   BSD

NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ethers&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+6.3-RELEASE>

home | help