---
name: "services"
section: "5"
platform: "macos"
package: "files"
version: "974.120.2"
release: "macOS 26.5"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/services"
---

# services(5)

service name data base

## NAME

**services** – service name data base

## DESCRIPTION

The **services** file contains information regarding the known services available in the DARPA 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.

## INTERACTION WITH DIRECTORY SERVICES

Processes generally find service records using one of the [getservent(3)](/getservent/3.md) family of functions, or using [getaddrinfo(3)](/getaddrinfo/3.md). On Mac OS X, these functions interact with the DirectoryService(8) daemon, which reads the /etc/services file as well as searching other directory information services to determine service name, protocol, and port information.

## FILES

- */etc/services*

  ## SEE ALSO

[getservent(3)](/getservent/3.md), [getaddrinfo(3)](/getaddrinfo/3.md), DirectoryService(8)

## HISTORY

The **services** file format appeared in 4.2BSD.