DESCRIPTION
ether_aton() converts the 48-bit Ethernet host address asc from the standard hex-digits-and-colons notation into binary data in network byte order and returns a pointer to it in a statically allocated buffer, which subsequent calls will overwrite. ether_aton returns NULL if the address is invalid. The ether_ntoa() function converts the Ethernet host address addr given in network byte order to a string in standard hex-digits-and-colons notation, omitting leading zeroes. The string is returned in a statically allocated buffer, which subsequent calls will overwrite.
The ether_ntohost() function maps an Ethernet address to the corresponding hostname in /etc/ethers and returns non-zero if it cannot be found.
The ether_hostton() function maps a hostname to the corresponding Ethernet address in /etc/ethers and returns non-zero if it cannot be found.
The ether_line() function parses a line in /etc/ethers format (ethernet address followed by whitespace followed by hostname; ’#’ introduces a comment) and returns an address and hostname pair, or non-zero if it cannot be parsed. The buffer pointed at by hostname must be sufficiently long, e.g., have the same length as line.
The functions ether_ntoa_r and ether_aton_r are re-entrant threadsafe versions of ether_ntoa and ether_aton respectively, and do not use static buffers.
The structure ether_addr is defined in net/ethernet.h as:
struct ether_addr {
u_int8_t ether_addr_octet[6];
}
BUGS
The glibc 2.2.5 implementation of ether_line() is broken.
"CONFORMING TO"
BSD 4.3, SunOS
"SEE ALSO"
ethers(5)
