Question

On WP 7.1 the Socket class is missing methods like Socket.Connect(string, int) that would make this straight-forward. The available alternative Socket.ConnectAsync apparently needs a numerical IP address (passed with the SocketAsyncEventArgs object).

Moreover, methods like Dns.GetHostEntry are also missing, so you cannot easily get an IP address given a host name.

Answer 1

It turns out that connecting to a host with a given host name is actually quite easy. Contrary to what the questions suggests, SocketAsyncEventArgs.RemoteEndPoint can be assigned either an IPEndPoint or a DnsEndPoint object:

var args = new SocketAsyncEventArgs();
args.RemoteEndPoint = new DnsEndPoint(hostName, port);
args.Completed += ... // Add your completion handler here
Socket.ConnectAsync(SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp, args);