nanog mailing list archives

Re: Yahoo and IPv6


From: Mark Andrews <marka () isc org>
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 23:07:26 +1000


In message <03C70CDE-8169-437B-8394-26F839413893 () muada com>, Iljitsch van Beijn
um writes:
On 11 mei 2011, at 2:39, Karl Auer wrote:

On Wed, 2011-05-11 at 10:19 +1000, Mark Andrews wrote:
For the record Apple's current iChat (the OS (10.6.7) is completely
up to date) fails such a test.  It will try IPv6 and not fallback
to IPv4.  End users shouldn't be seeing these sorts of errors.

Hm, I've had a very hard time finding any IPv6-capable servers to let my =
iChat talk to...

Well I found this bug because the jabber server was IPv4 only and
the box it is on got a AAAA address.  The jabber server is now
running dual stack with the IPv6 ports being forwarded to the IPv4
ports.  It's not optimal but it works.

Is that possibly a failure of the underlying resolver library? Do =
other
applications on the same platform behave correctly?

Apple's Mail application used to do this, but after many years they =
fixed this, it will now fall back to IPv4 without trouble. This isn't a =
resolver issue, as the resolver can't know whether IPv6 connectivity =
does or doesn't work. The resolver simply gives applications that don't =
explicitly ask for a particular address type all of the addresses of all =
types for which the system currently has connectivity, I think as =
determined by the presence of a default route, maybe the presence of an =
address also matters.
 
What applications need to do when they connect to a remote server is to =
try the next address when the first one fails and cycle through all =
addresses before giving up. Of course with IPv4 having multiple =
addresses is extremely rare so IPv4 applications typically don't bother =
with this, so it has to be addressed when IPv6ifying applications.=

This is basic RFC 1123 multihome support.

Also see https://www.isc.org/community/blog/201101/how-to-connect-to-a-multi-homed-server-over-tcp

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: marka () isc org


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