VirtualHost directive and IPv6

[it...@iijlab.net]

	Hello, this is Jun-ichiro Hagino of KAME project.
	As some of you may know I'm working on IPv6 support for apache.
	The patch can be found at ftp://ftp.kame.net/pub/kame/misc/.

	I have some trouble about syntax of <VirtualHost> directive.
	It takes multiple "host" or "host:port" as argument.  However, as
	IPv6 address will be written as colon-separated hexadecimals,
	we cannot use "host:port" for IPv6 addresses (it is ambiguous).

	For other directives I've extended apache to take "host port"
	(instead of "host:port"), but for <VirtualHost> it is not possible
	as it takes multiple "host:port" ("host port" will be recognized as
	two targets).

	I would like to know about your opinion on how I should update the
	syntax.  We have several choices here:
	- introduce new separater, like "host/port"
	- disable multiple "host:port" against VirtualHost directive,
	  and let the user <VirtualHost host port> syntax.
	- some others

	Thanks,

itojun

Re: VirtualHost directive and IPv6

[Martin Kraemer <Ma...@mch.sni.de>]

On Tue, Jun 15, 1999 at 04:14:22PM +0900, itojun@iijlab.net wrote:
> 	It takes multiple "host" or "host:port" as argument.  However, as
> 	IPv6 address will be written as colon-separated hexadecimals,
> 	we cannot use "host:port" for IPv6 addresses (it is ambiguous).

That's exactly what I expected since I first heard that IPv6 uses
colons between its hex values. All applications which separate IP addresses
from other information by ':'s suffer from this problem, not just apache.

I wonder how the IPv6 people solved the ambiguity for the rest of the
IPv4 applications which "mis-" use the ':' ?!?!

For apache, I'd accept '@' or '/' or whatever, but the change should be
(for 1.3.7) only used for IPv6 addresses, to keep the compatibility for
the IPv4 customers.

    Martin
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Re: VirtualHost directive and IPv6

[Manoj Kasichainula <ma...@io.com>]

On Tue, Jun 15, 1999 at 04:14:22PM +0900, itojun@iijlab.net wrote:
> 	I have some trouble about syntax of <VirtualHost> directive.
> 	It takes multiple "host" or "host:port" as argument.  However, as
> 	IPv6 address will be written as colon-separated hexadecimals,
> 	we cannot use "host:port" for IPv6 addresses (it is ambiguous).
[snip]
> 	I would like to know about your opinion on how I should update the
> 	syntax.  We have several choices here:
> 	- introduce new separater, like "host/port"
> 	- disable multiple "host:port" against VirtualHost directive,
> 	  and let the user <VirtualHost host port> syntax.
> 	- some others

The decision depends on which version you're aiming the patch for. For
a 1.3.7, I don't think any config file format changes would be
allowed. I don't know enough about the colon-separated form of IPv6
addresses; how many different fields are there?

This is a gross hack, but maybe you could count the number of fields
and determine the protocol version based on that?

10.1.2.3:80 = 2 fields => IPv4 with port
01:23:45:67:89:ab:cd:ef:80 = 9 fields => IPv6 with port
01:23:45:67:89:ab:cd:ef = 8 fields => IPv6 without port

Another way would be to prefix all IPv6 addresses with "IPv6:".

For a 2.0 release, anything is possible. I wouldn't disable multiple
"host:port"'s, though.

-- 
Manoj Kasichainula - manojk at io dot com - http://www.io.com/~manojk/
"Some people have entirely too much free time on their hands."
  - Gene Spafford (spaf)