InternetConnect function

Opens an File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or HTTP session for a given site.

Syntax

HINTERNET InternetConnect(
  _In_ HINTERNET     hInternet,
  _In_ LPCTSTR       lpszServerName,
  _In_ INTERNET_PORT nServerPort,
  _In_ LPCTSTR       lpszUsername,
  _In_ LPCTSTR       lpszPassword,
  _In_ DWORD         dwService,
  _In_ DWORD         dwFlags,
  _In_ DWORD_PTR     dwContext
);

Parameters

hInternet [in]

Handle returned by a previous call to InternetOpen.

lpszServerName [in]

Pointer to a null-terminated string that specifies the host name of an Internet server. Alternately, the string can contain the IP number of the site, in ASCII dotted-decimal format (for example, 11.0.1.45).

nServerPort [in]

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) port on the server. These flags set only the port that is used. The service is set by the value of dwService. This parameter can be one of the following values.

Value	Meaning
INTERNET_DEFAULT_FTP_PORT	Uses the default port for FTP servers (port 21).
INTERNET_DEFAULT_GOPHER_PORT	Uses the default port for Gopher servers (port 70). Note  Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 R2 and earlier only.
INTERNET_DEFAULT_HTTP_PORT	Uses the default port for HTTP servers (port 80).
INTERNET_DEFAULT_HTTPS_PORT	Uses the default port for Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS) servers (port 443).
INTERNET_DEFAULT_SOCKS_PORT	Uses the default port for SOCKS firewall servers (port 1080).
INTERNET_INVALID_PORT_NUMBER	Uses the default port for the service specified by dwService.

 

lpszUsername [in]

Pointer to a null-terminated string that specifies the name of the user to log on. If this parameter is NULL, the function uses an appropriate default. For the FTP protocol, the default is "anonymous".

lpszPassword [in]

Pointer to a null-terminated string that contains the password to use to log on. If both lpszPassword and lpszUsername are NULL, the function uses the default "anonymous" password. In the case of FTP, the default password is the user's email name. If lpszPassword is NULL, but lpszUsername is not NULL, the function uses a blank password.

dwService [in]

Type of service to access. This parameter can be one of the following values.

Value	Meaning
INTERNET_SERVICE_FTP	FTP service.
INTERNET_SERVICE_GOPHER	Gopher service. Note  Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 R2 and earlier only.
INTERNET_SERVICE_HTTP	HTTP service.

 

dwFlags [in]

Options specific to the service used. If dwService is INTERNET_SERVICE_FTP, INTERNET_FLAG_PASSIVE causes the application to use passive FTP semantics.

dwContext [in]

Pointer to a variable that contains an application-defined value that is used to identify the application context for the returned handle in callbacks.

Return value

Returns a valid handle to the session if the connection is successful, or NULL otherwise. To retrieve extended error information, call GetLastError. An application can also use InternetGetLastResponseInfo to determine why access to the service was denied.

Remarks

The following table describes the behavior for the four possible settings of lpszUsername and lpszPassword.

For FTP sites, InternetConnect actually establishes a connection with the server; for others, the actual connection is not established until the application requests a specific transaction.

For maximum efficiency, applications using the HTTP protocols should try to minimize calls to InternetConnect and avoid calling this function for every transaction requested by the user. One way to accomplish this is to keep a small cache of handles returned from InternetConnect; when the user makes a request to a previously accessed server, that session handle is still available.

After the calling application has finished using the HINTERNET handle returned by InternetConnect, it must be closed using the InternetCloseHandle function.

Note  When a request is sent asynchronous mode (the dwFlags parameter of InternetOpen specifies INTERNET_FLAG_ASYNC), and the dwContext parameter is zero (INTERNET_NO_CALLBACK), the callback function set with InternetSetStatusCallback on the connection handle will not be called, however, the call will still be performed in asynchronous mode.

Examples of InternetConnect usage can be found in the following topics.

• Handling Authentication
• Asynchronous Example Application

Like all other aspects of the WinINet API, this function cannot be safely called from within DllMain or the constructors and destructors of global objects.

Requirements

See also

Enabling Internet Functionality

WinINet Functions