ETHERS(5)                 FreeBSD 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
     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 13.1-RELEASE-p6         April 12, 1995         FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6