ETHERS(5)

NAME
ethers - Ethernet address to hostname database or NIS domain

DESCRIPTION

The ethers file contains information regarding the known (48 bit) Ethernet addresses of hosts on the Internet. For each host on an Ethernet, a single line should be present with the following information:

    Ethernet-address official-host-name

Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or TAB characters. A `#' indicates the beginning of a comment extending to the end of line.

The standard form for Ethernet addresses is ``x:x:x:x:x:x'' where x is a hexadecimal number between 0 and ff, representing one byte. The address bytes are always in network order. Host names may contain any printable character other than a SPACE, TAB, NEWLINE, or comment character. It is intended that host names in the ethers file correspond to the host names in the hosts(5) file.

The ether_line() routine from the Ethernet address manipulation library, ethers(3N) may be used to scan lines of the ethers file.

FILES
/etc/ethers

SEE ALSO
ethers(3N), hosts(5)

NOTES

The Network Information Service (NIS) was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP). The functionality of the two remains the same; only the name has changed.