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NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | HISTORY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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ether_aton(3) Library Functions Manual ether_aton(3)
ether_aton, ether_ntoa, ether_ntohost, ether_hostton, ether_line,
ether_ntoa_r, ether_aton_r - Ethernet address manipulation
routines
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
#include <netinet/ether.h>
char *ether_ntoa(const struct ether_addr *addr);
struct ether_addr *ether_aton(const char *asc);
int ether_ntohost(char *hostname, const struct ether_addr *addr);
int ether_hostton(const char *hostname, struct ether_addr *addr);
int ether_line(const char *line, struct ether_addr *addr,
char *hostname);
/* GNU extensions */
char *ether_ntoa_r(const struct ether_addr *addr, char *buf);
struct ether_addr *ether_aton_r(const char *asc,
struct ether_addr *addr);
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 zeros. 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 nonzero if it
cannot be found.
The ether_hostton() function maps a hostname to the corresponding
Ethernet address in /etc/ethers and returns nonzero 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
nonzero if it cannot be parsed. The buffer pointed to by hostname
must be sufficiently long βfor example, have the same length as
lineβ.
The functions ether_ntoa_r() and ether_aton_r() are reentrant
thread-safe 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 {
uint8_t ether_addr_octet[6];
}
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
attributes(7).
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ¬ββββββββββββββββ¬ββββββββββββ
β Interface β Attribute β Value β
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββΌββββββββββββββββΌββββββββββββ€
β ether_aton(), ether_ntoa() β Thread safety β MT-Unsafe β
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββΌββββββββββββββββΌββββββββββββ€
β ether_ntohost(), ether_hostton(), β Thread safety β MT-Safe β
β ether_line(), ether_ntoa_r(), β β β
β ether_aton_r() β β β
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ΄ββββββββββββββββ΄ββββββββββββ
None.
4.3BSD, SunOS.
In glibc 2.2.5 and earlier, the implementation of ether_line() is
broken.
ethers(5)
This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
user-space interface documentation) project. Information about
the project can be found at
β¨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/β©. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
β¨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTINGβ©.
This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.18.tar.gz
fetched from
β¨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/β© on
2026-05-24. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-
to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not
part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Linux man-pages 6.18 2026-02-08 ether_aton(3)
Pages that refer to this page: getent(1)
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