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MacOSX ain’t got no DHCPv6

Mac OS X doesn’t support DHCPv6; it’s just plain missing from the base operating system. DHCPv6 would be useful for setting the IPv6 nameserver address, which incidentally is stored in /etc/named.conf. As things stand, DNS lookups will always go out via IPv4. Most IPv4 name servers happily respond to queries for IPv6 AAAA records, so this isn’t a disaster. It’s just annoying.
A port of the WIDE/KAME DHCPv6 probably will work, as Leopard’s (and Panther’s AFAIK) IPv6  stack is based on FreeBSD’s KAME project. The WIDE/KAME source builds fine on MacOSX 10.5 (Leopard) — just download it, type ./configure, and make, and stand back. But I haven’t tried installing it (via sudo make install) yet, as I want to see where it inserts itself in the base OS. I’ll let you know if I succeed.
Windows does support IPv6, although it’s buggy up until Vista/W2008 SP2. Still, it would be great for Macs to have this, as it’s a key component of being an enterprise player.

Mac OS X doesn’t support DHCPv6; it’s just plain missing from the base operating system. DHCPv6 would be useful for setting the IPv6 nameserver address, which incidentally is stored in /etc/named.conf. As things stand, DNS lookups will always go out via IPv4. Most IPv4 name servers happily respond to queries for IPv6 AAAA records, so this isn’t a disaster. It’s just annoying.

A port of the WIDE/KAME DHCPv6 probably will work, as Leopard’s (and Panther’s AFAIK) IPv6  stack is based on FreeBSD’s KAME project. The WIDE/KAME source builds fine on MacOSX 10.5 (Leopard) — just download it, type ./configure, and make, and stand back. But I haven’t tried installing it (via sudo make install) yet, as I want to see where it inserts itself in the base OS. I’ll let you know if I succeed.

Windows does support IPv6, although it’s buggy up until Vista/W2008 SP2. Still, it would be great for Macs to have this, as it’s a key feature for being an enterprise player.

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