Re: Content of /etc/ethers

[John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com>]

The man page for /etc/ethers (a file) is in net-tools.  The file does
not exist on my Sid system.

The man page:

  NAME
       ethers - Ethernet address to IP number database

  DESCRIPTION

  /etc/ethers contains 48 bit Ethernet addresses and their corresponding
  IP numbers, one line for each IP number:

  Ethernet-address  IP-number

       The two items are separated by any number of SPACE and/or TAB
       characters.  A # at the beginning of a line starts a comment
       which ex‐ tends to the end of the line.  The Ethernet-address is
       written as x:x:x:x:x:x, where x is a hexadecimal number between 0
       and ff which represents one byte of the address, which is in
       network byte order (big-endian).  The IP-number may be a hostname
       which can be resolved by DNS or a dot separated number.

  EXAMPLES
       08:00:20:00:61:CA  pal

  FILES
       /etc/ethers

  SEE ALSO
       arp(8), rarp(8)


>From the arp man page:

       -f filename, --file filename

       Similar to the -s option, only this time the address info is
       taken from file filename.  This can be used if ARP entries for a
       lot of hosts have to be set up.  The name of the data file is
       very often /etc/ethers, but this is not official. If no filename
       is specified /etc/ethers is used as default.


-- 
John Hasler 
john@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA