NAME

dns-ethers - generate /etc/ethers entries from DNS tables

SYNOPSIS

dns-ethers [ option... ][ infile [ outfile ]]
dns-ethers -Help
dns-ethers -VERSion

DESCRIPTION

The dns-ethers program is used to generate the /etc/ethers entries from DNS tables.

If the input file is not named, or the name '-' is used, the standard input is read.

If the output file is not named, or the name '-' is used, the startdard output is written.

A fake DNS type of ``ether'' is used, instead of the usual ``in'' type, to enable the use of the ``a'' to store the addresses.

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

-Verbose

This option may be used to see what dns-ethers deciphers each resource record as.

-Help

This option may be used to get more information about how to used th dns-ethers program.

-VERSion

This option may be used to see what version of the dns-ethers program is running.

-Idirectory

This option may be used to set the search path for include files.

See the file man1/arglex.so.

See the file man1/exit.so.

EXAMPLE

The idea is that you have all of the information concerning each computer in the one file. This makes it less likely that something will be omitted, and simpler to change if the name or IP address changes.

Given a database file called ``example.com'' and which contains the following text


See the file man1/example.so.

You can generate the /etc/ethers file using the following command

% dns-ethers example.com /etc/ethers
%

Here is what you would see as the output


See the file man1/example.ethers.so.

Note that the output uses relative names.

Makefile

All of this can be automated using the following makefile fragment:

/etc/ethers: example.com
        dns-ethers example.com $@

By doing this, all you need to do is edit the example.com file, and the use the make(1) command to bring everything up-to-date.

If you were using NIS, NIS+ or LDAP you would update them, rather than the static file.

See the file man1/copyright.so.

See the file man1/author.so.