ethers(SFF)                     19 June 1992                     ethers(SFF)


 Name

    ethers - Ethernet address to hostname database

 Description

    The ethers file contains information regarding the known (48 bit) Ether-
    net addresses of hosts on the Internet.  This information is used by the
    RARP daemon, rarpd(ADMN).  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 SPACE 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(SFF) file.

 Files

    /etc/ethers

 See also

    hosts(SFF), rarpd(ADMN), RFC 903