IPv6 Network - Applications - deally, it shouldn’t matter to an application whether it runs over IPv4 or IPv6. Unfortunately, for many applications, it does matter. There are two possible reasons for this. Some of the Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) that applications use to interact with the network had to be changed to support IPv6. Another group of applications needs to look more closely at IP addresses. For instance, some applications use access restrictions based on the IP address.

Other applications, such as peer-to-peer applications, require hosts to refer to either themselves, their communication partner, or a third party. Often the size of an IPv4 address is hard coded in the communication protocol, so the protocol must be changed and applications must be updated before IPv6 can be used. Despite these difficulties, lots of applications run over IPv6, but in many instances, this isn’t readily apparent. Often, an application’s IPv6 prowess is only advertised in a throwaway line in the release notes, if at all.

After looking at API issues, I will focus in this chapter on IPv6-enabled applications. It’s impossible to discuss them all, or even discuss examples of each type of application, so if a specific application or application type isn’t mentioned, this doesn’t mean there is no IPv6- enabled version. This is especially true for open source software, because even if the primary developers didn’t include IPv6 support, there is often an IPv6 patch available elsewhere. The purpose of this chapter is merely to provide some examples of popular software or protocolsthat are compatible with IPv6.

Tags: Network, Networking, Add more tags...,

or Close

Comment an article   Name   E-mail    Title Available characters: 4000  Notify me of follow-up comments Enter what you see:

No comment posted