Installing and Administering LAN/9000 Software

Chapter 3 59
Manually Installing and Configuring LAN/9000
Activating Optional Network Features
command use the /etc/networks file. You must configure this file for
your host if you want route or netstat to use symbolic network names
instead of addresses.
You can create an /etc/networks file two ways:
• From scratch, entering the known nodes in the format shown below.
• By copying the file from another node.
If you copy an /etc/networks file from another host, you may need to
bring it up to date by adding unofficial aliases or unknown networks,
including your own network.
/etc/networks
Each network has a one line entry in the /etc/networks file. Each entry
in /etc/networks file takes the following form:
Syntax
network_name network_address [ alias ]...
Parameters
network_name Name of the internet network. Network names can
contain any printable character except spaces, newline,
or the comment character (#).
network_address Network address that uniquely identifies the
network. This address can be a subnet or supernet
address. It may also contain the netmask translation.
network_address must be in dot notation. See
Chapter 6 for details on network addresses.
alias Common name or names for the network. An alias is a
substitute for network_name . Alias names are optional.
/etc/networks Format
• Lines cannot start with a blank or tab character.
• Fields can have any number of blanks or tab characters separating
them.
• Comments are allowed and designated by a pound sign (#) character
preceding the comment text.