libc/net/ethers.3

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.\" Copyright (c) 2007 Robert N. M. Watson
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.Dd October 30, 2007
.Dt ETHERS 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ethers ,
.Nm ether_line ,
.Nm ether_aton ,
.Nm ether_aton_r ,
.Nm ether_ntoa ,
.Nm ether_ntoa_r ,
.Nm ether_ntohost ,
.Nm ether_hostton
.Nd Ethernet address conversion and lookup routines
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/types.h
.In sys/socket.h
.In net/ethernet.h
.Ft int
.Fn ether_line "const char *l" "struct ether_addr *e" "char *hostname"
.Ft struct ether_addr *
.Fn ether_aton "const char *a"
.Ft struct ether_addr *
.Fn ether_aton_r "const char *a" "struct ether_addr *e"
.Ft char *
.Fn ether_ntoa "const struct ether_addr *n"
.Ft char *
.Fn ether_ntoa_r "const struct ether_addr *n" "char *buf"
.Ft int
.Fn ether_ntohost "char *hostname" "const struct ether_addr *e"
.Ft int
.Fn ether_hostton "const char *hostname" "struct ether_addr *e"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
These functions operate on ethernet addresses using an
.Vt ether_addr
structure, which is defined in the header file
.In net/ethernet.h :
.Bd -literal -offset indent
/*
 * The number of bytes in an ethernet (MAC) address.
 */
#define ETHER_ADDR_LEN		6

/*
 * Structure of a 48-bit Ethernet address.
 */
struct  ether_addr {
        u_char octet[ETHER_ADDR_LEN];
};
.Ed
.Pp
The function
.Fn ether_line
scans
.Fa l ,
an
.Tn ASCII
string in
.Xr ethers 5
format and sets
.Fa e
to the ethernet address specified in the string and
.Fa h
to the hostname.
This function is used to parse lines from
.Pa /etc/ethers
into their component parts.
.Pp
The
.Fn ether_aton
and
.Fn ether_aton_r
functions convert
.Tn ASCII
representation of ethernet addresses into
.Vt ether_addr
structures.
Likewise, the
.Fn ether_ntoa
and
.Fn ether_ntoa_r
functions
convert ethernet addresses specified as
.Vt ether_addr
structures into
.Tn ASCII
strings.
.Pp
The
.Fn ether_ntohost
and
.Fn ether_hostton
functions map ethernet addresses to their corresponding hostnames
as specified in the
.Pa /etc/ethers
database.
The
.Fn ether_ntohost
function
converts from ethernet address to hostname, and
.Fn ether_hostton
converts from hostname to ethernet address.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
The
.Fn ether_line
function
returns zero on success and non-zero if it was unable to parse
any part of the supplied line
.Fa l .
It returns the extracted ethernet address in the supplied
.Vt ether_addr
structure
.Fa e
and the hostname in the supplied string
.Fa h .
.Pp
On success,
.Fn ether_ntoa
and
.Fn ether_ntoa_r
functions return a pointer to a string containing an
.Tn ASCII
representation of an ethernet address.
If it is unable to convert
the supplied
.Vt ether_addr
structure, it returns a
.Dv NULL
pointer.
.Fn ether_ntoa
stores the result in a static buffer;
.Fn ether_ntoa_r
stores the result in a user-passed buffer.
.Pp
Likewise,
.Fn ether_aton
and
.Fn ether_aton_r
return a pointer to an
.Vt ether_addr
structure on success and a
.Dv NULL
pointer on failure.
.Fn ether_aton
stores the result in a static buffer;
.Fn ether_aton_r
stores the result in a user-passed buffer.
.Pp
The
.Fn ether_ntohost
and
.Fn ether_hostton
functions both return zero on success or non-zero if they were
unable to find a match in the
.Pa /etc/ethers
database.
.Sh NOTES
The user must ensure that the hostname strings passed to the
.Fn ether_line ,
.Fn ether_ntohost
and
.Fn ether_hostton
functions are large enough to contain the returned hostnames.
.Sh NIS INTERACTION
If the
.Pa /etc/ethers
contains a line with a single + in it, the
.Fn ether_ntohost
and
.Fn ether_hostton
functions will attempt to consult the NIS
.Pa ethers.byname
and
.Pa ethers.byaddr
maps in addition to the data in the
.Pa /etc/ethers
file.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ethers 5 ,
.Xr yp 8
.Sh HISTORY
This particular implementation of the
.Nm
library functions were written for and first appeared in
.Fx 2.1 .
Thread-safe function variants first appeared in
.Fx 7.0 .
.Sh BUGS
The
.Fn ether_aton
and
.Fn ether_ntoa
functions returns values that are stored in static memory areas
which may be overwritten the next time they are called.
.Pp
.Fn ether_ntoa_r
accepts a character buffer pointer, but not a buffer length.
The caller must ensure adequate space is available in the buffer in order to
avoid a buffer overflow.