NETWORKS(5) File Formats Manual NETWORKS(5)

networks — network name data base

The networks file contains information regarding the known networks which comprise the DARPA Internet. For each network a single line should be present with the following information:

official network name
network 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. This file is normally created from the official network data base maintained at the Network Information Control Center (NIC), though local changes may be required to bring it up to date regarding unofficial aliases and/or unknown networks.

Network number may be specified in the conventional ``.'' (dot) notation using the inet_network(3) routine from the Internet address manipulation library, inet(3). Network names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character.

Processes generally find network records using one of the getnetent(3) family of functions. On Mac OS X, these functions interact with the DirectoryService(8) daemon, which reads the /etc/networks file as well as searching other directory information services to determine network name and address information.

/etc/networks
 

getnetent(3), DirectoryService(8)

The networks file format appeared in 4.2BSD.

June 5, 1993 BSD 4.2