Available IPv6 functions

IBM® is implementing IPv6 on IBM i gradually. IPv6 functions are transparent to existing TCP/IP applications and coexist with IPv4 functions.

These are the main IBM i features that are affected by IPv6:

Configuration

• By default, IPv6 is started when you start TCP/IP. If you do not want to start IPv6 when TCP/IP starts, you can set the STRIP6 parameter on the Start TCP/IP (STRTCP) command to *NO. You can then start IPv6 at a later time by specifying STRIP6 (*YES) on a second STRTCP command.
• If you configure IPv6, you are sending IPv6 packets over an IPv6 network. See Scenario: Creating an IPv6 local area network for a scenario that describes a situation in which you configure IPv6 on your network.
• You can configure virtual IPv6 interfaces, and perform an IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration. For more information about these features, see Configuring IPv6.
• You can now use the character-based interface in addition to System i® Navigator to configure and customize TCP/IP.

Sockets

Develop and test sockets applications using IPv6 application programming interfaces (APIs) and tools. IPv6 enhances sockets so that applications can use IPv6 using a new address family, which is AF_INET6. These enhancements do not affect existing IPv4 applications. You can create applications that use concurrent IPv4 and IPv6 traffic or IPv6-only traffic.

Domain Name System (DNS)

DNS supports AAAA addresses and a new domain IP6.ARPA for reverse lookups (IP-to-name). An application might elect to accept IPv6 addresses from DNS (or not) and then use IPv6 to communicate (or not).

Troubleshooting TCP/IP

Use standard troubleshooting tools such as PING, netstat, trace route and communications trace for IPv6 networks. These tools now support the IPv6 address format. See TCP/IP troubleshooting to solve problems for both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.