BuildForge Help

Networking Requirements for IPv6 Support

The Build Forge system can run on IPv6 and mixed IPv6/IPv4 networks with some restrictions.

The Build Forge system can run on IPv6 networks and heterogeneous IPv4/IPv6 networks. Support is mostly transparent, but there are some requirements and restrictions:
Know the address configuration of machines where you install the Management Console and agents
The main requirement for IPv6 support is that your machines and network are configured correctly to support IPv6. If there are network configuration problems, then host names and addresses specified from within the Build Forge system will not resolve correctly.
Use the correct address format when entering IP addresses within Build Forge
There are only a few places within Build Forge where administrators or users enter a host name or IP address:
  • During installation, administrators specify a host name or IP address that the Management Console uses to communicate with the license server (Standard and Enterprise Editions) and the database.
  • In the agent configuration (bfagent.conf file), there is an optional setting to restrict connections to the agent to a particular address or range of addresses.
  • Users enter a URL in a browser in order to view the Management Console user interface. The URL consists of the host name or IP address of the machine where the Management Console is running. For example, to access Management Console installed on a machine named BFmachine that has both an IPv4 and IPv6 address configured, a user could enter any of the following in the web browser address bar:
    • http://BFmachine/
    • http://localhost/
    • http://127.0.0.1/ (IPv4 loopback address)
    • http://::127.0.0.1/, http://0:0:0:0:0:0:127.0.0.1/(IPv6 abbreviations of an IPv4 loopback address), or simply http://::1/ (IPv6 compressed notation for the loopback address)

The IPv4 and IPv6 address formats differ in format as well as length:

  • IPv4 format: 32 bits, specified as four decimal-separated decimal values, for example 255.255.255.255
  • IPv6 format: 128 bits, specified as eight colon-separated hexadecimal values, for example FE80:0000:0000:0000:0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329. There are a number of conventions for using the higher order fields. There are also rules for abbreviation. Build Forge does not perform any interpretation of IP addresses, they are passed directly to the network. Therefore any legal and valid abbreviation should work. Please see other references for more information on IPv6 address conventions.
Put components that do not support IPv6 on a host machine with an IPv4 address
The following components do not support IPv6. They must be installed on a machine that has an IPv4 address.
  • Rational License Server, the license server for Build Forge Standard and Enterprise Editions
  • DB2 database: the PHP database drivers do not yet support IPv6.
  • MySQL database: the PHP database drivers do not yet support IPv6.
  • Oracle database other than 11g: the PHP database drivers do not yet support IPv6.
  • Windows: due to a limitation in the way Apache binaries were compiled and released by The Apache Foundation, the standard installation of Management Console does not support IPv6 on Windows platforms.

    To support IPv6, the Apache source must be compiled using the flag -D APR_HAVE_IPV6. At present the Windows binaries of Apache (2.2.8) have not been compiled with this flag.

    If you need IPv6 support for the Management Console on Windows platforms, contact IBM Customer Support for Rational for assistance in replacing the Apache binaries.