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GETADDRINFO(3)                                                          Linux Programmer's Manual                                                         GETADDRINFO(3)

NAME
       getaddrinfo, freeaddrinfo, gai_strerror - network address and service translation

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <netdb.h>

       int getaddrinfo(const char *restrict node,
                       const char *restrict service,
                       const struct addrinfo *restrict hints,
                       struct addrinfo **restrict res);

       void freeaddrinfo(struct addrinfo *res);

       const char *gai_strerror(int errcode);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       getaddrinfo(), freeaddrinfo(), gai_strerror():
           Since glibc 2.22:
               _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
           Glibc 2.21 and earlier:
               _POSIX_C_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION
       Given  node and service, which identify an Internet host and a service, getaddrinfo() returns one or more addrinfo structures, each of which contains an Internet
       address that can be specified in a call to bind(2) or connect(2).  The getaddrinfo() function combines the functionality provided  by  the  gethostbyname(3)  and
       getservbyname(3) functions into a single interface, but unlike the latter functions, getaddrinfo() is reentrant and allows programs to eliminate IPv4-versus-IPv6
       dependencies.

       The addrinfo structure used by getaddrinfo() contains the following fields:

           struct addrinfo {
               int              ai_flags;
               int              ai_family;
               int              ai_socktype;
               int              ai_protocol;
               socklen_t        ai_addrlen;
               struct sockaddr *ai_addr;
               char            *ai_canonname;
               struct addrinfo *ai_next;
           };

       The hints argument points to an addrinfo structure that specifies criteria for selecting the socket address structures returned in the list pointed  to  by  res.
       If hints is not NULL it points to an addrinfo structure whose ai_family, ai_socktype, and ai_protocol specify criteria that limit the set of socket addresses re‐
       turned by getaddrinfo(), as follows:

       ai_family
              This field specifies the desired address family for the returned addresses.  Valid values for this field include AF_INET and AF_INET6.  The  value  AF_UN‐
              SPEC  indicates that getaddrinfo() should return socket addresses for any address family (either IPv4 or IPv6, for example) that can be used with node and
              service.

       ai_socktype
              This field specifies the preferred socket type, for example SOCK_STREAM or SOCK_DGRAM.  Specifying 0 in this field indicates that socket addresses of  any
              type can be returned by getaddrinfo().

       ai_protocol
              This  field specifies the protocol for the returned socket addresses.  Specifying 0 in this field indicates that socket addresses with any protocol can be
              returned by getaddrinfo().

       ai_flags
              This field specifies additional options, described below.  Multiple flags are specified by bitwise OR-ing them together.

       All the other fields in the structure pointed to by hints must contain either 0 or a null pointer, as appropriate.

       Specifying hints as NULL is equivalent to setting ai_socktype and ai_protocol to 0;  ai_family  to  AF_UNSPEC;  and  ai_flags  to  (AI_V4MAPPED | AI_ADDRCONFIG).
       (POSIX  specifies  different  defaults  for ai_flags; see NOTES.)  node specifies either a numerical network address (for IPv4, numbers-and-dots notation as sup‐
       ported by inet_aton(3); for IPv6, hexadecimal string format as supported by inet_pton(3)), or a network hostname, whose network addresses are looked up  and  re‐
       solved.   If  hints.ai_flags contains the AI_NUMERICHOST flag, then node must be a numerical network address.  The AI_NUMERICHOST flag suppresses any potentially
       lengthy network host address lookups.

       If the AI_PASSIVE flag is specified in hints.ai_flags, and node is NULL, then the returned socket addresses will be suitable for bind(2)ing a  socket  that  will
       accept(2)  connections.  The returned socket address will contain the "wildcard address" (INADDR_ANY for IPv4 addresses, IN6ADDR_ANY_INIT for IPv6 address).  The
       wildcard address is used by applications (typically servers) that intend to accept connections on any of the host's network addresses.  If node is not NULL, then
       the AI_PASSIVE flag is ignored.

       If  the  AI_PASSIVE flag is not set in hints.ai_flags, then the returned socket addresses will be suitable for use with connect(2), sendto(2), or sendmsg(2).  If
       node is NULL, then the network address will be set to the loopback interface address (INADDR_LOOPBACK for IPv4  addresses,  IN6ADDR_LOOPBACK_INIT  for  IPv6  ad‐
       dress); this is used by applications that intend to communicate with peers running on the same host.

       service  sets the port in each returned address structure.  If this argument is a service name (see services(5)), it is translated to the corresponding port num‐
       ber.  This argument can also be specified as a decimal number, which is simply converted to binary.  If service is NULL, then the port  number  of  the  returned
       socket  addresses will be left uninitialized.  If AI_NUMERICSERV is specified in hints.ai_flags and service is not NULL, then service must point to a string con‐
       taining a numeric port number.  This flag is used to inhibit the invocation of a name resolution service in cases where it is known not to be required.

       Either node or service, but not both, may be NULL.

       The getaddrinfo() function allocates and initializes a linked list of addrinfo structures, one for each network address that matches node and service, subject to
       any restrictions imposed by hints, and returns a pointer to the start of the list in res.  The items in the linked list are linked by the ai_next field.

       There are several reasons why the linked list may have more than one addrinfo structure, including: the network host is multihomed, accessible over multiple pro‐
       tocols (e.g., both AF_INET and AF_INET6); or the same service is available from multiple socket types (one SOCK_STREAM address and  another  SOCK_DGRAM  address,
       for  example).  Normally, the application should try using the addresses in the order in which they are returned.  The sorting function used within getaddrinfo()
       is defined in RFC 3484; the order can be tweaked for a particular system by editing /etc/gai.conf (available since glibc 2.5).

       If hints.ai_flags includes the AI_CANONNAME flag, then the ai_canonname field of the first of the addrinfo structures in the returned list is set to point to the
       official name of the host.

       The remaining fields of each returned addrinfo structure are initialized as follows:

       * The  ai_family,  ai_socktype, and ai_protocol fields return the socket creation parameters (i.e., these fields have the same meaning as the corresponding argu‐
         ments of socket(2)).  For example, ai_family might return AF_INET or AF_INET6; ai_socktype might return SOCK_DGRAM or SOCK_STREAM; and ai_protocol returns  the
         protocol for the socket.

       * A pointer to the socket address is placed in the ai_addr field, and the length of the socket address, in bytes, is placed in the ai_addrlen field.

       If  hints.ai_flags includes the AI_ADDRCONFIG flag, then IPv4 addresses are returned in the list pointed to by res only if the local system has at least one IPv4
       address configured, and IPv6 addresses are returned only if the local system has at least one IPv6 address configured.  The loopback address  is  not  considered
       for this case as valid as a configured address.  This flag is useful on, for example, IPv4-only systems, to ensure that getaddrinfo() does not return IPv6 socket
       addresses that would always fail in connect(2) or bind(2).

       If hints.ai_flags specifies the AI_V4MAPPED flag, and hints.ai_family was specified as AF_INET6, and no matching IPv6  addresses  could  be  found,  then  return
       IPv4-mapped  IPv6 addresses in the list pointed to by res.  If both AI_V4MAPPED and AI_ALL are specified in hints.ai_flags, then return both IPv6 and IPv4-mapped
       IPv6 addresses in the list pointed to by res.  AI_ALL is ignored if AI_V4MAPPED is not also specified.

       The freeaddrinfo() function frees the memory that was allocated for the dynamically allocated linked list res.

   Extensions to getaddrinfo() for Internationalized Domain Names
       Starting with glibc 2.3.4, getaddrinfo() has been extended to selectively allow the incoming and outgoing hostnames to be transparently converted to and from the
       Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) format (see RFC 3490, Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)).  Four new flags are defined:

       AI_IDN If this flag is specified, then the node name given in node is converted to IDN format if necessary.  The source encoding is that of the current locale.

              If  the  input name contains non-ASCII characters, then the IDN encoding is used.  Those parts of the node name (delimited by dots) that contain non-ASCII
              characters are encoded using ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE) before being passed to the name resolution functions.

       AI_CANONIDN
              After a successful name lookup, and if the AI_CANONNAME flag was specified, getaddrinfo() will return the canonical name of the node corresponding to  the
              addrinfo structure value passed back.  The return value is an exact copy of the value returned by the name resolution function.

              If  the  name is encoded using ACE, then it will contain the xn-- prefix for one or more components of the name.  To convert these components into a read‐
              able form the AI_CANONIDN flag can be passed in addition to AI_CANONNAME.  The resulting string is encoded using the current locale's encoding.

       AI_IDN_ALLOW_UNASSIGNED, AI_IDN_USE_STD3_ASCII_RULES
              Setting these flags will enable the IDNA_ALLOW_UNASSIGNED (allow unassigned Unicode code points) and IDNA_USE_STD3_ASCII_RULES (check output to make  sure
              it is a STD3 conforming hostname) flags respectively to be used in the IDNA handling.

RETURN VALUE
       getaddrinfo() returns 0 if it succeeds, or one of the following nonzero error codes:

       EAI_ADDRFAMILY
              The specified network host does not have any network addresses in the requested address family.

       EAI_AGAIN
              The name server returned a temporary failure indication.  Try again later.

       EAI_BADFLAGS
              hints.ai_flags contains invalid flags; or, hints.ai_flags included AI_CANONNAME and name was NULL.

       EAI_FAIL
              The name server returned a permanent failure indication.

       EAI_FAMILY
              The requested address family is not supported.

       EAI_MEMORY
              Out of memory.

       EAI_NODATA
              The specified network host exists, but does not have any network addresses defined.

       EAI_NONAME
              The node or service is not known; or both node and service are NULL; or AI_NUMERICSERV was specified in hints.ai_flags and service was not a numeric port-
              number string.

       EAI_SERVICE
              The requested service is not available for the requested socket type.  It may be available through another socket type.  For example, this error could oc‐
              cur  if  service  was  "shell"  (a  service  available  only  on  stream  sockets), and either hints.ai_protocol was IPPROTO_UDP, or hints.ai_socktype was
              SOCK_DGRAM; or the error could occur if service was not NULL, and hints.ai_socktype was SOCK_RAW (a socket type that does not support the concept of  ser‐
              vices).

       EAI_SOCKTYPE
              The  requested socket type is not supported.  This could occur, for example, if hints.ai_socktype and hints.ai_protocol are inconsistent (e.g., SOCK_DGRAM
              and IPPROTO_TCP, respectively).

       EAI_SYSTEM
              Other system error; errno is set to indicate the error.

       The gai_strerror() function translates these error codes to a human readable string, suitable for error reporting.

FILES
       /etc/gai.conf

ATTRIBUTES
       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

       β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”¬β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”¬β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
       β”‚Interface                                                                                                                  β”‚ Attribute     β”‚ Value              β”‚
       β”œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”Όβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”Όβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€
       β”‚getaddrinfo()                                                                                                              β”‚ Thread safety β”‚ MT-Safe env locale β”‚
       β”œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”Όβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”Όβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€
       β”‚freeaddrinfo(), gai_strerror()                                                                                             β”‚ Thread safety β”‚ MT-Safe            β”‚
       β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”΄β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”΄β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.  The getaddrinfo() function is documented in RFC 2553.

NOTES
       getaddrinfo() supports the address%scope-id notation for specifying the IPv6 scope-ID.

       AI_ADDRCONFIG, AI_ALL, and AI_V4MAPPED are available since glibc 2.3.3.  AI_NUMERICSERV is available since glibc 2.3.4.

       According to POSIX.1, specifying hints as NULL should cause ai_flags to be assumed as 0.  The GNU C library instead assumes a value of (AI_V4MAPPED | AI_ADDRCON‐
       FIG) for this case, since this value is considered an improvement on the specification.

EXAMPLES
       The  following programs demonstrate the use of getaddrinfo(), gai_strerror(), freeaddrinfo(), and getnameinfo(3).  The programs are an echo server and client for
       UDP datagrams.

   Server program

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <string.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <netdb.h>

       #define BUF_SIZE 500

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           struct addrinfo hints;
           struct addrinfo *result, *rp;
           int sfd, s;
           struct sockaddr_storage peer_addr;
           socklen_t peer_addr_len;
           ssize_t nread;
           char buf[BUF_SIZE];

           if (argc != 2) {
               fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s port\n", argv[0]);
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           memset(&hints, 0, sizeof(hints));
           hints.ai_family = AF_UNSPEC;    /* Allow IPv4 or IPv6 */
           hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_DGRAM; /* Datagram socket */
           hints.ai_flags = AI_PASSIVE;    /* For wildcard IP address */
           hints.ai_protocol = 0;          /* Any protocol */
           hints.ai_canonname = NULL;
           hints.ai_addr = NULL;
           hints.ai_next = NULL;

           s = getaddrinfo(NULL, argv[1], &hints, &result);
           if (s != 0) {
               fprintf(stderr, "getaddrinfo: %s\n", gai_strerror(s));
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* getaddrinfo() returns a list of address structures.
              Try each address until we successfully bind(2).
              If socket(2) (or bind(2)) fails, we (close the socket
              and) try the next address. */

           for (rp = result; rp != NULL; rp = rp->ai_next) {
               sfd = socket(rp->ai_family, rp->ai_socktype,
                       rp->ai_protocol);
               if (sfd == -1)
                   continue;

               if (bind(sfd, rp->ai_addr, rp->ai_addrlen) == 0)
                   break;                  /* Success */

               close(sfd);
           }

           freeaddrinfo(result);           /* No longer needed */

           if (rp == NULL) {               /* No address succeeded */
               fprintf(stderr, "Could not bind\n");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* Read datagrams and echo them back to sender. */

           for (;;) {
               peer_addr_len = sizeof(peer_addr);
               nread = recvfrom(sfd, buf, BUF_SIZE, 0,
                       (struct sockaddr *) &peer_addr, &peer_addr_len);
               if (nread == -1)
                   continue;               /* Ignore failed request */

               char host[NI_MAXHOST], service[NI_MAXSERV];

               s = getnameinfo((struct sockaddr *) &peer_addr,
                               peer_addr_len, host, NI_MAXHOST,
                               service, NI_MAXSERV, NI_NUMERICSERV);
               if (s == 0)
                   printf("Received %zd bytes from %s:%s\n",
                           nread, host, service);
               else
                   fprintf(stderr, "getnameinfo: %s\n", gai_strerror(s));

               if (sendto(sfd, buf, nread, 0,
                           (struct sockaddr *) &peer_addr,
                           peer_addr_len) != nread)
                   fprintf(stderr, "Error sending response\n");
           }
       }

   Client program

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <netdb.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <string.h>

       #define BUF_SIZE 500

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           struct addrinfo hints;
           struct addrinfo *result, *rp;
           int sfd, s;
           size_t len;
           ssize_t nread;
           char buf[BUF_SIZE];

           if (argc < 3) {
               fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s host port msg...\n", argv[0]);
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* Obtain address(es) matching host/port. */

           memset(&hints, 0, sizeof(hints));
           hints.ai_family = AF_UNSPEC;    /* Allow IPv4 or IPv6 */
           hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_DGRAM; /* Datagram socket */
           hints.ai_flags = 0;
           hints.ai_protocol = 0;          /* Any protocol */

           s = getaddrinfo(argv[1], argv[2], &hints, &result);
           if (s != 0) {
               fprintf(stderr, "getaddrinfo: %s\n", gai_strerror(s));
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* getaddrinfo() returns a list of address structures.
              Try each address until we successfully connect(2).
              If socket(2) (or connect(2)) fails, we (close the socket
              and) try the next address. */

           for (rp = result; rp != NULL; rp = rp->ai_next) {
               sfd = socket(rp->ai_family, rp->ai_socktype,
                            rp->ai_protocol);
               if (sfd == -1)
                   continue;

               if (connect(sfd, rp->ai_addr, rp->ai_addrlen) != -1)
                   break;                  /* Success */

               close(sfd);
           }

           freeaddrinfo(result);           /* No longer needed */

           if (rp == NULL) {               /* No address succeeded */
               fprintf(stderr, "Could not connect\n");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* Send remaining command-line arguments as separate
              datagrams, and read responses from server. */

           for (int j = 3; j < argc; j++) {
               len = strlen(argv[j]) + 1;
                       /* +1 for terminating null byte */

               if (len > BUF_SIZE) {
                   fprintf(stderr,
                           "Ignoring long message in argument %d\n", j);
                   continue;
               }

               if (write(sfd, argv[j], len) != len) {
                   fprintf(stderr, "partial/failed write\n");
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               }

               nread = read(sfd, buf, BUF_SIZE);
               if (nread == -1) {
                   perror("read");
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               }

               printf("Received %zd bytes: %s\n", nread, buf);
           }

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO
       getaddrinfo_a(3), gethostbyname(3), getnameinfo(3), inet(3), gai.conf(5), hostname(7), ip(7)

GNU                                                                            2021-08-27                                                                 GETADDRINFO(3)