PROTOCOLS(5)

NAME
protocols - protocol name data base

SYNOPSIS
/etc/protocols

DESCRIPTION

The protocols file contains information regarding the known protocols used in the TCP/IP. For each protocol a single line should be present with the following information:

    official-protocol-name protocol-number aliases

Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or TAB characters. A `#' indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the end of the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file.

Protocol names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, NEWLINE, or comment character.

EXAMPLE

The following example is taken from SunOS.

#
# Internet (IP) protocols
#
ip	0	IP	# internet protocol, pseudo protocol number
icmp	1	ICMP	# internet control message protocol
ggp	3	GGP	# gateway-gateway protocol
tcp	6	TCP	# transmission control protocol
pup	12	PUP	# PARC universal packet protocol
udp	17	UDP	# user datagram protocol

FILES
/etc/protocols

SEE ALSO
getprotoent(3N)

BUGS
A name server should be used instead of a static file. A binary indexed file format should be available for fast access.