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

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

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

NAME
       ethers -- ethernet address database

DESCRIPTION
       The  ethers database contains information regarding known 48-bit	ether-
       net 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 individ-
       ual components: 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.

FreeBSD	14.3			April 12, 1995			     ETHERS(5)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ethers&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+14.3-RELEASE+and+Ports>

home | help