.\" $OpenBSD: getaddrinfo.3,v 1.3 1999/07/05 04:40:59 aaron Exp $ .\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1987, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" From: @(#)gethostbyname.3 8.4 (Berkeley) 5/25/95 .\" $Id: getaddrinfo.3,v 1.3 1999/07/05 04:40:59 aaron Exp $ .\" .Dd May 25, 1995 .Dt GETADDRINFO 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm getaddrinfo , .Nm freeaddrinfo , .Nm gai_strerror .Nd nodename-to-address translation in protocol-independent manner .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include .Fd #include .Ft int .Fn getaddrinfo "const char *nodename" "const char *servname" \ "const struct addrinfo *hints" "struct addrinfo **res" .Ft void .Fn freeaddrinfo "struct addrinfo *ai" .Ft "char *" .Fn gai_strerror "int ecode" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn getaddrinfo function is defined for protocol-independent nodename-to-address translation. It performs the functionality of .Xr gethostbyname 3 and .Xr getservbyname 3 , but in a more sophisticated manner. .Pp The .Li addrinfo structure is defined as a result of including the .Aq Pa netdb.h header: .Bd -literal -offset struct addrinfo { * int ai_flags; /* AI_PASSIVE, AI_CANONNAME, AI_NUMERICHOST */ int ai_family; /* PF_xxx */ int ai_socktype; /* SOCK_xxx */ int ai_protocol; /* 0 or IPPROTO_xxx for IPv4 and IPv6 */ size_t ai_addrlen; /* length of ai_addr */ char *ai_canonname; /* canonical name for nodename */ struct sockaddr *ai_addr; /* binary address */ struct addrinfo *ai_next; /* next structure in linked list */ }; .Ed .Pp The .Fa nodename and .Fa servname arguments are pointers to null-terminated strings or .Dv NULL . One or both of these two arguments must be a non-null pointer. In the normal client scenario, both the .Fa nodename and .Fa servname are specified. In the normal server scenario, only the .Fa servname is specified. A non-null .Fa nodename string can be either a node name or a numeric host address string (i.e., a dotted-decimal IPv4 address or an IPv6 hex address) A non-null .Fa servname string can be either a service name or a decimal port number. .Pp The caller can optionally pass an .Li addrinfo structure, pointed to by the third argument, to provide hints concerning the type of socket that the caller supports. In this .Fa hints structure all members other than .Fa ai_flags , .Fa ai_family , .Fa ai_socktype , and .Fa ai_protocol must be zero or a null pointer. A value of .Dv PF_UNSPEC for .Fa ai_family means the caller will accept any protocol family. A value of 0 for .Fa ai_socktype means the caller will accept any socket type. A value of 0 for .Fa ai_protocol means the caller will accept any protocol. For example, if the caller handles only TCP and not UDP, then the .Fa ai_socktype member of the hints structure should be set to .Dv SOCK_STREAM when .Fn getaddrinfo is called. If the caller handles only IPv4 and not IPv6, then the .Fa ai_family member of the .Fa hints structure should be set to .Dv PF_INET when .Fn getaddrinfo is called. If the third argument to .Fn getaddrinfo is a null pointer, this is the same as if the caller had filled in an .Li addrinfo structure initialized to zero with .Fa ai_family set to .Dv PF_UNSPEC . .Pp Upon successful return a pointer to a linked list of one or more .Li addrinfo structures is returned through the final argument. The caller can process each .Li addrinfo structure in this list by following the .Fa ai_next pointer, until a null pointer is encountered. In each returned .Li addrinfo structure the three members .Fa ai_family , .Fa ai_socktype , and .Fa ai_protocol are the corresponding arguments for a call to the .Fn socket function. In each .Li addrinfo structure the .Fa ai_addr member points to a filled-in socket address structure whose length is specified by the .Fa ai_addrlen member. .Pp If the .Dv AI_PASSIVE bit is set in the .Fa ai_flags member of the .Fa hints structure, then the caller plans to use the returned socket address structure in a call to .Fn bind . In this case, if the .Fa nodename argument is a null pointer, then the IP address portion of the socket address structure will be set to .Dv INADDR_ANY for an IPv4 address or .Dv IN6ADDR_ANY_INIT for an IPv6 address. .Pp If the .Dv AI_PASSIVE bit is not set in the .Fa ai_flags member of the .Fa hints structure, then the returned socket address structure will be ready for a call to .Fn connect .Pq for a connection-oriented protocol or either .Fn connect , .Fn sendto , or .Fn sendmsg .Pq for a connectionless protocol . In this case, if the .Fa nodename argument is a null pointer, then the IP address portion of the socket address structure will be set to the loopback address. .Pp If the .Dv AI_CANONNAME bit is set in the .Fa ai_flags member of the .Fa hints structure, then upon successful return the .Fa ai_canonname member of the first .Li addrinfo structure in the linked list will point to a null-terminated string containing the canonical name of the specified .Fa nodename . .Pp If the .Dv AI_NUMERICHOST bit is set in the .Fa ai_flags member of the .Fa hints structure, then a non-null .Fa nodename string must be a numeric host address string. Otherwise an error of .Dv EAI_NONAME is returned. This flag prevents any type of name resolution service (e.g., the DNS) from being called. .Pp All of the information returned by .Fn getaddrinfo is dynamically allocated: the .Li addrinfo structures, the socket address structures, and canonical node name strings pointed to by the addrinfo structures. To return this information to the system the function .Fn freeaddrinfo is called. The .Fa addrinfo structure pointed to by the .Fa ai argument is freed, along with any dynamic storage pointed to by the structure. This operation is repeated until a .Dv NULL .Fa ai_next pointer is encountered. .Pp To aid applications in printing error messages based on the .Dv EAI_xxx codes returned by .Fn getaddrinfo , .Fn gai_strerror is defined. The argument is one of the .Dv EAI_xxx values defined earlier and the return value points to a string describing the error. If the argument is not one of the .Dv EAI_xxx values, the function still returns a pointer to a string whose contents indicate an unknown error. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /etc/resolv.conf -compact .It Pa /etc/hosts .It Pa /etc/host.conf .It Pa /etc/resolv.conf .El .Sh DIAGNOSTICS Error return status from .Fn getaddrinfo is zero on success and non-zero on errors. Non-zero error codes are defined in .Aq Pa netdb.h , and as follows: .Pp .Bl -tag -width EAI_ADDRFAMILY -compact .It Dv EAI_ADDRFAMILY Address family for .Fa nodename not supported. .It Dv EAI_AGAIN Temporary failure in name resolution. .It Dv EAI_BADFLAGS Invalid value for .Fa ai_flags . .It Dv EAI_FAIL Non-recoverable failure in name resolution. .It Dv EAI_FAMILY .Fa ai_family not supported. .It Dv EAI_MEMORY Memory allocation failure. .It Dv EAI_NODATA No address associated with .Fa nodename . .It Dv EAI_NONAME .Fa nodename nor .Fa servname provided, or not known. .It Dv EAI_SERVICE .Fa servname not supported for .Fa ai_socktype . .It Dv EAI_SOCKTYPE .Fa ai_socktype not supported. .It Dv EAI_SYSTEM System error returned in .Va errno . .El .Pp If called with proper argument, .Fn gai_strerror returns a pointer to a string describing the given error code. If the argument is not one of the .Dv EAI_xxx values, the function still returns a pointer to a string whose contents indicate an unknown error. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr getnameinfo 3 , .Xr gethostbyname 3 , .Xr getservbyname 3 , .Xr hosts 5 , .Xr services 5 , .Xr hostname 7 , .Xr named 8 .Pp R. Gilligan, S. Thomson, J. Bound, and W. Stevens, ``Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6,'' RFC2553, March 1999. .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn getaddrinfo function is defined IEEE POSIX 1003.1g draft specification, and documented in .Dq Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6 .Pq RFC2533 . .Sh BUGS The text was shamelessly copied from RFC2553.