networks(5)

✨ networks(5) ✨

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for networks — like, the actual networks(5) one, filed under File Formats Manual. It's short, it's sweet, and it's literally just "hey here's how to write a file of network names." Let's get into it 🎀

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💖 NAME 💖

networks — network name information

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the file /etc/networks is a plain ASCII file (no fancy encodings, no drama, just text 💅) that describes known DARPA networks, plus symbolic names for those networks. Every single line = one network, and each line is shaped like this:

name number aliases ...

the fields get separated by spaces or tabs, whatever you vibe with. Empty lines? ignored, they're not the moment. And the hash character (#) kicks off a comment — that character, plus everything after it up to the end of the current line, gets straight-up ignored by the library functions that process this file. no cap 👑

here's the field breakdown, one by one:

• name — the symbolic name for the network. Network names can contain any printable characters except white-space characters or the comment character. that's the whole rule, go off I guess 🌈
• number — the official number for this network, in numbers-and-dots notation (peep inet(3) if you wanna know more). And here's a cute little shortcut: the trailing .0 — that's the host component of the network address — may be omitted. so you can be lazy about it. slay.
• aliases — optional aliases for the network. only if you want them, bestie, totally your call ✨

this file gets read by the route(8) and netstat(8) utilities. but listen — only Class A, B, or C networks are supported. partitioned networks (like network/26 or network/28) are not supported by this file. so if you were trying to do CIDR things here... yeah no, this file said not today 🙈

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📁 FILES 📁

• /etc/networks — the networks definition file. that's her. that's the one 🌸

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• getnetbyaddr(3)
• getnetbyname(3)
• getnetent(3)
• netstat(8)
• route(8)

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and that's the whole page, bestie, you ate that 💖 this icon of a manpage came from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08, and yes she is still serving networks(5) after all this time. periodt 👑🦋