SERVICES(5) BSD File Formats Manual SERVICES(5)
NAME
services -- service name data base
DESCRIPTION
The services file contains information regarding the known services available in the Internet. For each service a single line should be
present with the following information:
official service name
port number
protocol name
aliases
Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters. The port number and protocol name are considered a single item; a ``/''
is used to separate the port and protocol (e.g. ``512/tcp''). A ``#'' indicates the beginning of a comment; subsequent characters up to the
end of the line are not interpreted by the routines which search the file.
Service names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character.
If ``db'' is specified as source in the nsswitch.conf(5), /var/db/services.db is searched. The database in /var/db/services.db needs to be
updated with services_mkdb(8) after changes to the services file have been applied.
NIS INTERACTION
Access to the NIS services.byname map can be enabled by adding a single ``+'' on a line by itself in the /etc/services file. This causes the
contents of the NIS services map to be inserted at the location where the ``+'' appears.
FILES
/etc/services The services file resides in /etc.
SEE ALSO
getservent(3), nsswitch.conf(5), services_mkdb(8)
HISTORY
The services file format appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
A name server should be used instead of a static file.
BSD
April 4, 2010 BSD
