Content of /etc/ethers

From	Steve Keller <keller.steve@gmx.de>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.user
Subject	Content of /etc/ethers
Date	2024-01-04 02:30 +0100
Message-ID	<HSkIx-CE1-1@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

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Which tools read /etc/ethers, what do they expect in there, what do
they do with the contents?  Is it only used to show names to a user or
take names from a user instead of MAC addresses, like in tcpdump?

The Linux man page says the entries in /etc/ethers should be numeric
IP addresses or names which can be resolved by DNS, while the FreeBSD
man page says there should be fully qualified names in /etc/ethers
which should also be in /etc/hosts.

But does really some tool get a MAC address from somewhere, converts
it to a name using /etc/ethers, and then expects to resolve that name
into an IP address?

I would like to put names of hosts or interfaces in there, which don't
necessarily have an IP address or no entry in /etc/hosts or DNS, like
switches, access points or routers with multiple interfaces,
interfaces of a Linux bridge, etc.

And may the entry in /etc/ethers contain a '.' to separate a name and
an interface number or VLAN ID, like host.0 and host.1 for the LAN and
WLAN interface?

Steve

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Content of /etc/ethers Steve Keller <keller.steve@gmx.de> - 2024-01-04 02:30 +0100
  Re: Content of /etc/ethers Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-01-04 03:10 +0100
    Re: Content of /etc/ethers John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com> - 2024-01-04 03:30 +0100
      Re: Content of /etc/ethers Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2024-01-04 03:40 +0100
        Re: Content of /etc/ethers Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-01-04 04:00 +0100
          Re: Content of /etc/ethers Mike Castle <dalgoda+debian@gmail.com> - 2024-01-04 06:40 +0100
        Re: Content of /etc/ethers Kushal Kumaran <kushal@locationd.net> - 2024-01-04 04:30 +0100
  Re: Content of /etc/ethers Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2024-01-04 06:30 +0100
    Re: Content of /etc/ethers "Rick Thomas" <rick.thomas@pobox.com> - 2024-01-05 00:00 +0100
  Re: Content of /etc/ethers Fred <fred@blakemfg.com> - 2024-01-04 15:00 +0100

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