NAME

protocols − protocol name data base

SYNOPSIS

/etc/protocols

DESCRIPTION

The protocols file contains information regarding the known protocols used in the DARPA Internet.  For each protocol a single line should be present with the following information:

official protocol name

protocol number

aliases

Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters.  A “#” indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the end of the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file. 

Protocol names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character. 

EXAMPLE

The following example is taken from the Sun UNIX system. 

#
# Internet (IP) protocols
#
ip0IP# internet protocol, pseudo protocol number
icmp1ICMP# internet control message protocol
ggp2GGP# gateway-gateway protocol
tcp6TCP# transmission control protocol
pup12PUP# PARC universal packet protocol
udp17UDP# user datagram protocol

FILES

/etc/protocols

SEE ALSO

getprotoent(3N)

BUGS

A name server should be used instead of a static file.  A binary indexed file format should be available for fast access. 

Sun Release 3.2  —  Last change: 13 December 1983