Subject: TCP v. TCP6 interop
To: None <tech-net@netbsd.org>
From: Chris Jones <chris@cjones.org>
List: tech-net
Date: 06/18/2003 11:00:23
I'm seeing some really weird behavior on a couple of hosts on my 
network.  Basically, there's an established TCP connection, and one host 
thinks it's TCP4, while the other one thinks it's TCP6.  I was under the 
impression that these two protocols aren't supposed to work together 
without the aid of a translator (faith or stf or whatever).  Here are 
the details:

gamera is running NetBSD 1.6, legolas is running NetBSD 1.6.1.  Both 
have IPv6 in their kernels, but it hasn't been configured on this 
network.  Gamera's running cyrus-imapd out of pkgsrc, without the IPv6 
patch.

gamera# netstat -a | grep imap
tcp      0      0  gamera.imap        legolas.59015          ESTABLISHED
tcp      0      0  *.imap             *.*                    LISTEN

legolas$ netstat -a | grep imap
tcp6     0      0  legolas.59015      gamera.imap            ESTABLISHED

What's going on here?  Even though I have no IPv6 DNS entries, legolas 
is using IPv6.  Is the 4-in-6 address translation automatic, then?

Chris

-- 
Chris Jones               chris@cjones.org                www.cjones.org