nanog mailing list archives

RE: Android (lack of) support for DHCPv6


From: Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike () swm pp se>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 08:59:56 +0200 (CEST)

On Tue, 9 Jun 2015, Tony Hain wrote:

I filed a platform bug on this back in the ICS timeframe, and it still
persists. As I recall, there are 2 flags provided by the OS related to RA
handling. Rather than using the one that sets a preference between the Cell
vs. Wifi interface, at least Samsung (possibly others) have chosen to use
the other flag that says to completely ignore the WiFi RA if an RA on the
Cell interface has ever occurred. This means devices that have no IPv6 on
their Cell interface will appear to work fine on WiFi.

I just re-verified (same Nexus4 using 5.1.1 on swedish mobile provider Tele2):

I disable wifi.
I have dual stack on my mobile bearer (PDP context). Verified with 10/10 for both ipv4 and ipv6 on test-ipv4.com (no 464xlat though, this is NAT44:ed IPv4 and native IPv6 on the mobile side).
I enable wifi.
After a few seconds the Nexus4 connects to my home wifi and starts using it, I get 10/10 for IPv4 on test-ipv4.com and 9/10 for IPv6 because my provider DNS resolver doesn't support native IPv6 lookups.

I claim that there is a platform bug, because there is never a reason to ignore the WiFi RA. Use the other flag to set a preference if that is needed, but ignoring the RA just breaks things in unexpected ways. LC has did a hand-wave that the "ignore RA" flag is needed for battery life, but beyond that we appear to be stuck in a world where Clueless OEMs believe in breaking one network when another might exist.

Well, it's not present on my Google device anyhow.

--
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike () swm pp se


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