dns Getting started with dns Performing name lookups in C

Example

The getaddrinfo() function is the recommended POSIX function for interfacing with the system resolver. Depending on system configuration it will perform name lookups in the DNS, /etc/hosts, mDNS, etc.

It is preferred over the deprecated gethostbyname() family of functions because it supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing, and can also perform service name lookups at the same time (e.g. mapping http to port 80)

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

...

struct addrinfo hints;
struct addrinfo *result;
int r;

memset(&hints, 0, sizeof(hints));
hints.ai_family = AF_UNSPEC;           // allow IPv4 or IPv6
hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_STREAM;       // make a stream (TCP) connection

r = getaddrinfo(hostname, "http", &hints, &result);
if (r != 0) {
    fprintf(stderr, "getaddrinfo: %s\n", gai_strerror(r));
} else {
    // iterate over the linked list
    for (struct addrinfo *rp = result; rp != NULL; rp = rp->ai_next) {
        // use rp fields to create a socket and connect to it 
    }
    freeaddrinfo(result);
}