On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 2:04 PM, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 4:56 AM, Martin Schulze <joey@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Michael Kerrisk wrote: >>> Hi Joey, >>> >>> I see that Debian downstream has a networks(5) page (below) that you >>> wrote some years back (before my time as maintainer). It seems >>> to me that it might make sense to take this page upstream. >>> What do you think? >> >> Great! I'd appreciate this! > > And your thoughts on this piece? > > [[ > PS The FreeBSD networks(5) page has some details not in your page > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=networks&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.0-RELEASE&format=html > Perhaps some of those details might also be usefully > covered in your page? > ]] Hi Joey, After reviewing the FreeBSD page, and doing a little testing, I made a few edits to the Debian downstream networks(5) page and have included it for man-pages-3.09. Could you please review the diff below? The most notable change is the substitution of "dotted-decimal" by "numbers-and-dots" notation, since getnetent(3) etc. do indeed accept that more general form, according to my tests. Cheers, Michael --- networks.5.orig 2008-09-04 15:52:03.000000000 +0200 +++ networks.5 2008-09-04 15:51:13.000000000 +0200 @@ -19,8 +19,9 @@ .\" License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free .\" Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, .\" USA. +.\" 2008-09-04, mtk, taken from Debian downstream, with a few light edits .\" -.TH NETWORKS 5 2001-12-22 "GNU/Linux" "Linux System Administration" +.TH NETWORKS 5 2008-09-04 "GNU/Linux" "Linux System Administration" .SH NAME networks \- network name information .SH DESCRIPTION @@ -36,27 +37,32 @@ where the fields are delimited by spaces or tabs. Empty lines are ignored. -If a line contains a hash mark (#), the hash mark and the remaining -part of the line are ignored. +The hash character (\fB#\fP) indicates the start of a comment: +this character, and the remaining characters up to +the end of the current line, +are ignored by library functions that process the file. The field descriptions are: .TP .I name The symbolic name for the network. +Network names can contain any printable characters execept +white-space characters or the comment character. .TP .I number -The official number for this network in dotted-decimal notation. -The trailing ".0" may be omitted. +The official number for this network in numbers-and-dots notation (see +.BR inet (3)). +The trailing ".0" (for the host component of the network address) may be omitted. .TP .I aliases Optional aliases for the network. .LP -This file is read by -.B route -or -.B netstat +This file is read by the +.BR route (8) +and +.BR netstat (8) utilities. Only Class A, B or C networks are supported, partitioned networks (i.e. network/26 or network/28) are not supported by this facility. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
