.\"

.\" Copyright 1998 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

.\" Copyright (C) 2004-2010 by Daniel Stenberg

.\"

.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this

.\" software and its documentation for any purpose and without

.\" fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright

.\" notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright

.\" notice and this permission notice appear in supporting

.\" documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in

.\" advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the

.\" software without specific, written prior permission.

.\" M.I.T. makes no representations about the suitability of

.\" this software for any purpose.  It is provided "as is"

.\" without express or implied warranty.

.\"

.TH ARES_INIT 3 "5 March 2010"

.SH NAME

ares_init_options \- Initialize a resolver channel

.SH SYNOPSIS

.nf

#include <ares.h>

struct ares_options {

  int flags;

  int timeout; /* in seconds or milliseconds, depending on options */

  int tries;

  int ndots;

  unsigned short udp_port;

  unsigned short tcp_port;

  int socket_send_buffer_size;

  int socket_receive_buffer_size;

  struct in_addr *servers;

  int nservers;

  char **domains;

  int ndomains;

  char *lookups;

  ares_sock_state_cb sock_state_cb;

  void *sock_state_cb_data;

  struct apattern *sortlist;

  int nsort;

  int ednspsz;

};

int ares_init_options(ares_channel *\fIchannelptr\fP,

                      struct ares_options *\fIoptions\fP,

                      int \fIoptmask\fP)

.fi

.SH DESCRIPTION

The \fBares_init_options(3)\fP function initializes a communications channel

for name service lookups.  If it returns successfully,

\fBares_init_options(3)\fP will set the variable pointed to by

\fIchannelptr\fP to a handle used to identify the name service channel.  The

caller should invoke \fIares_destroy(3)\fP on the handle when the channel is

no longer needed.

The \fIoptmask\fP parameter generally specifies which fields in the structure pointed to

by \fIoptions\fP are set, as follows:

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_FLAGS

.B int \fIflags\fP;

.br

Flags controlling the behavior of the resolver.  See below for a

description of possible flag values.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_TIMEOUT

.B int \fItimeout\fP;

.br

The number of seconds each name server is given to respond to a query on the

first try.  (After the first try, the timeout algorithm becomes more

complicated, but scales linearly with the value of \fItimeout\fP.)  The

default is five seconds. This option is being deprecated by

\fIARES_OPT_TIMEOUTMS\fP starting in c-ares 1.5.2.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_TIMEOUTMS

.B int \fItimeout\fP;

.br

The number of milliseconds each name server is given to respond to a query on

the first try.  (After the first try, the timeout algorithm becomes more

complicated, but scales linearly with the value of \fItimeout\fP.)  The

default is five seconds. Note that this option is specified with the same

struct field as the former \fIARES_OPT_TIMEOUT\fP, it is but the option bits

that tell c-ares how to interpret the number. This option was added in c-ares

1.5.2.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_TRIES

.B int \fItries\fP;

.br

The number of tries the resolver will try contacting each name server

before giving up.  The default is four tries.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_NDOTS

.B int \fIndots\fP;

.br

The number of dots which must be present in a domain name for it to be

queried for "as is" prior to querying for it with the default domain

extensions appended.  The default value is 1 unless set otherwise by

resolv.conf or the RES_OPTIONS environment variable.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_UDP_PORT

.B unsigned short \fIudp_port\fP;

.br

The port to use for queries over UDP, in network byte order.

The default value is 53 (in network byte order), the standard name

service port.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_TCP_PORT

.B unsigned short \fItcp_port\fP;

.br

The port to use for queries over TCP, in network byte order.

The default value is 53 (in network byte order), the standard name

service port.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_SERVERS

.B struct in_addr *\fIservers\fP;

.br

.B int \fInservers\fP;

.br

The list of IPv4 servers to contact, instead of the servers specified in

resolv.conf or the local named. In order to allow specification of either

IPv4 or IPv6 name servers, the

.BR ares_set_servers(3)

function must be used instead.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_DOMAINS

.B char **\fIdomains\fP;

.br

.B int \fIndomains\fP;

.br

The domains to search, instead of the domains specified in resolv.conf

or the domain derived from the kernel hostname variable.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_LOOKUPS

.B char *\fIlookups\fP;

.br

The lookups to perform for host queries.

.I lookups

should be set to a string of the characters "b" or "f", where "b"

indicates a DNS lookup and "f" indicates a lookup in the hosts file.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_SOCK_STATE_CB

.B void (*\fIsock_state_cb\fP)(void *data, int s, int read, int write);

.br

.B void *\fIsock_state_cb_data\fP;

.br

A callback function to be invoked when a socket changes state.

.I s

will be passed the socket whose state has changed;

.I read

will be set to true if the socket should listen for read events, and

.I write

will be set to true if the socket should listen for write events.

The value of

.I sock_state_cb_data

will be passed as the

.I data

argument.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_SORTLIST

.B struct apattern *\fIsortlist\fP;

.br

.B int \fInsort\fP;

.br

A list of IP address ranges that specifies the order of preference that

results from \fIares_gethostbyname\fP should be returned in.  Note that

this can only be used with a sortlist retrieved via

\fBares_save_options(3)\fP (because

.B struct apattern

is opaque); to set a fresh sort list, use \fBares_set_sortlist(3)\fP.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_SOCK_SNDBUF

.B int \fIsocket_send_buffer_size\fP;

.br

The send buffer size to set for the socket.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_SOCK_RCVBUF

.B int \fIsocket_receive_buffer_size\fP;

.br

The receive buffer size to set for the socket.

.TP 18

.B ARES_OPT_EDNSPSZ

.B int \fIednspsz\fP;

.br

The message size to be advertized in EDNS; only takes effect if the

.B ARES_FLAG_EDNS

flag is set.

.br

.PP

The \fIoptmask\fP parameter also includes options without a corresponding

field in the

.B ares_options

structure, as follows:

.TP 23

.B ARES_OPT_ROTATE

Perform round-robin selection of the nameservers configured for the channel

for each resolution.

.TP 23

.B ARES_OPT_NOROTATE

Do not perform round-robin nameserver selection; always use the list of

nameservers in the same order.

.PP

The

.I flags

field should be the bitwise or of some subset of the following values:

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_USEVC

Always use TCP queries (the "virtual circuit") instead of UDP

queries.  Normally, TCP is only used if a UDP query yields a truncated

result.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_PRIMARY

Only query the first server in the list of servers to query.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_IGNTC

If a truncated response to a UDP query is received, do not fall back

to TCP; simply continue on with the truncated response.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_NORECURSE

Do not set the "recursion desired" bit on outgoing queries, so that the name

server being contacted will not try to fetch the answer from other servers if

it doesn't know the answer locally. Be aware that ares will not do the

recursion for you.  Recursion must be handled by the application calling ares

if \fIARES_FLAG_NORECURSE\fP is set.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_STAYOPEN

Do not close communications sockets when the number of active queries

drops to zero.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_NOSEARCH

Do not use the default search domains; only query hostnames as-is or

as aliases.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_NOALIASES

Do not honor the HOSTALIASES environment variable, which normally

specifies a file of hostname translations.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_NOCHECKRESP

Do not discard responses with the SERVFAIL, NOTIMP, or REFUSED

response code or responses whose questions don't match the questions

in the request.  Primarily useful for writing clients which might be

used to test or debug name servers.

.TP 23

.B ARES_FLAG_EDNS

Include an EDNS pseudo-resource record (RFC 2671) in generated requests.

.SH RETURN VALUES

\fBares_init_options(3)\fP can return any of the following values:

.TP 14

.B ARES_SUCCESS

Initialization succeeded.

.TP 14

.B ARES_EFILE

A configuration file could not be read.

.TP 14

.B ARES_ENOMEM

The process's available memory was exhausted.

.TP 14

.B ARES_ENOTINITIALIZED

c-ares library initialization not yet performed.

.SH NOTES

When initializing from

.B /etc/resolv.conf,

\fBares_init_options(3)\fP reads the \fIdomain\fP and \fIsearch\fP directives

to allow lookups of short names relative to the domains specified. The

\fIdomain\fP and \fIsearch\fP directives override one another. If more that

one instance of either \fIdomain\fP or \fIsearch\fP directives is specified,

the last occurrence wins. For more information, please see the

.BR resolv.conf (5)

manual page.

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR ares_init(3),

.BR ares_destroy(3),

.BR ares_dup(3),

.BR ares_library_init(3),

.BR ares_save_options(3),

.BR ares_set_servers(3),

.BR ares_set_sortlist(3)

.SH AUTHOR

Greg Hudson, MIT Information Systems

.br

Copyright 1998 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

.br

Copyright (C) 2004-2010 by Daniel Stenberg.