NETWORKS

Section: Linux System Administration (5)
Updated: 2008-09-04
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NAME

networks - network name information

DESCRIPTION

The file /etc/networks is a plain ASCII file that describes known DARPA networks and symbolic names for these networks. Each line represents a network and has the following structure:

: name number aliases ...

where the fields are delimited by spaces or tabs. Empty lines are ignored. The hash character (#) indicates the start of a comment: this character, and the remaining characters up to the end of the current line, are ignored by library functions that process the file.

The field descriptions are:

name: The symbolic name for the network. Network names can contain any printable characters except white-space characters or the comment character.
number: The official number for this network in numbers-and-dots notation (see inet(3)). The trailing ".0" (for the host component of the network address) may be omitted.
aliases: Optional aliases for the network.

This file is read by the route(8) and netstat(8) utilities. Only Class A, B, or C networks are supported, partitioned networks (i.e., network/26 or network/28) are not supported by this file.

FILES

/etc/networks: The networks definition file.

COLOPHON

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