CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME(3)

✨ CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME page — it's part of the libcurl Library Functions Manual, and it's literally all about the name of the service you use for auth. let's get into it 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME — the authentication service name, aka "what do i call myself when i show up to the auth party" 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME, char *name);

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so basically, you pass a char pointer as the parameter, and it points at a string holding the name of the service — and that name gets used for the DIGEST-MD5, SPNEGO and Kerberos 5 authentication mechanisms. iykyk 🔥

the default service names are "ftp", "HTTP", "imap", "ldap", "pop" and "smtp". what this option does is let you change them. slay, customization 👑

the application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option — so you can let it go, no strings attached (literally) 🧚

and if you use this option multiple times? the last set string just overrides the previous ones, no drama. set it to NULL to disable its use again. periodt 💀

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⭐ DEFAULT ⭐

See above — the defaults are literally listed up there in the description, bestie 🙈

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🌈 PROTOCOLS 🌈

this functionality affects ftp, http, imap, ldap, pop3 and smtp 🫶

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🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME, "custom");
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
  }
}

look at that little "custom" service name living its main character life ✨

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🎀 AVAILABILITY 🎀

Added in curl 7.43.0 — vintage but iconic 💜

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💅 RETURN VALUE 💅

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (that's 0) means everything was OK 😌 — non-zero means an error occurred, and you should go see libcurl-errors(3) for the tea 😭

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• CURLOPT_PROXY(3)
• CURLOPT_PROXYTYPE(3)
• CURLOPT_PROXY_SERVICE_NAME(3)

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and that's the whole vibe check, bestie 💖 this page came to you from libcurl, dated 2026-10-12, and yes the page name is also CURLOPT_SERVICE_NAME(3) because we keep it consistent around here 🦋 mwah, go set some service names ✨