IPv6 Transition Implementation Draft

Implementation Stages

• Discuss and agree to the native changes required to our code. As a basis for this discussion, I would suggest the list of changes pulled together from Microsoft's IPv6 scan tool, the division of tasks lists (below), as well as the Linux and Windows sample code.
• Investigate the build changes that will be required for this. My Visual C++ 6 (the latest service release) does not seem to include support for IPv6, and it's unclear to whether this is true in general. This suggests that Intel might need to move our native build environment to VS2k3 in order to support IPv6.

• Deploy build environment changes (if needed) to support IPv6 that were identified in stage 1.
• Smoke test AC w/ updated build environment (if needed).
• Rewrite native/Java socket code to move it from using IPv4-only API, to using IPv4/IPv6 agnostic API code (e.g. using sockaddr_storage rather than sockaddr_in, using getnameinfo/getaddrinfo rather than gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr, etc). However, only the function calls should change: at this stage, we should not implement any changes to the code that are not merely API translations + simple changes to support those translations.

• Investigate which IPv4/IPv6 equipment combinations we need to support.
• Investigate network equipment for testing.

• Developers begin investigating their code and note any IPv6 changes that require more than just API translation + simple changes (e.g.  changes to code logic, rather than merely changes to code form. For instance, adding additional XML commands to support  changed IP address formats, updating existing XML commands, adding additional Hyades commands to the Hyades protocol to support IP addresses of more than 4 byte, etc.). However as noted, they should not begin making these changes until stage 4.

• At the end of this stage we should have an updated and working AC that uses the IPv4/IPv6 agnostic socket API code only.

• Test updated AC w/ our standard test environment to ensure it continues to work w/ the updated socket code (that is, with the IPv4->IPv6 API translation changes.)
• Test IPv4 functionality with updated AC on two dual stack windows machines.
• Deploy network equipment for IPv6.

• At the end of this stage we should have tested the AC, and have fixed any identified bugs.

• Developers implement remaining changes in the code, that is, the the tasks identified in stage 1 that were larger than merely API translation.

• At the end of this stage IPv6 code changes should be complete.

• Test final AC w/ dual IPv4/IPV6 (confirmed to work during stage 3).
• Test final AC w/ the expected support IPv4/IPv6 combinations that were identified in stage 1.

• Final Release.

IPv6 Native Code Changes

• Replace sockaddr_in with sockaddr_storage
• Replace inet_addr with getaddrinfo(...). (using the AI_NUMERICHOST constant. See sample code)
• Replace gethostbyname with getaddrinfo
• Replace hostent with addrinfo
• Replace AF_INET with code that checks both AF_INET and AF_INET6. See MS/Linux code for details.
• Replace in_addr with code that checks both in_addr and in6_addr.
• Replace inet_ntoa(..) with getnameinfo (with NI_NUMERICHOST flag, which is cross-platform)
• Replace gethostbyaddr with getnameinfo (with NI_NUMERICHOST flag)
• Replace INADDR_ANY, "use getaddrinfo with nodename=NULL and AI_PASSIVE instead"

Division of Tasks (Java)

Division of Tasks (C/C++)

• TransportSupportSocket.c, TransportSupport.c, TransportOSCalls_win.c, TransportOSCalls_linux.c

• SocketListener.c

• TPTPCBE.cpp

• TPTP_INetAddress.cpp
• TCPDataServer.cpp
• ConnectionImpl.cpp

• ClientCTL.c
• nativeFileServer.c

• RASocket.c

• Additional changes required to support IPv6 with the addition of new Hyades binary commands.

Reference URLs