Re: Should we enable IPv6 support by default?

[Rick Jones <rick.jones2 () hp com>]

Gert Doering wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 10:09:33AM -0800, Rick Jones wrote:
>
> > > What is the reason for having optional IPv6 in the first place (besides
> > > OSes that don't provide all necessary header files)?  Memory savings?
> >
> > ISTR there were some "funnies" on some OSes where IPv6 was "pre-enabled" 
> > but not actually enabled unless something else was added.  
>
>
> tcpdump is not actually *doing* any IPv6.  All it does is "read packets,
> print their contents".  Which is completely independent of the question
> "will the operating system provide IPv6 support?".
>
> It's not like tcpdump is trying to actually *use* IPv6.
>
> (I can do tcpdump to look at "spanning tree" packets.  Or Cisco CDP.  Neither
> is supported in my operating system...)

Right - there was just some sort of assumption made in (at this point 
anyway) much older tcpdump (perhaps libpcap) source that if a certain 
IPv6ish thing was around then the rest of it would be there.  My dimm 
memory from back then has many multi-bit errors.

rick
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