Are there any "good" tools for IPv6 address management?
"There's so many bits they don't need managing"
brandon
> > Are there any "good" tools for IPv6 address management?
>
Is there a "BCP" (convention, whatever) for storing IPv6 addresses
into SQL databases? Particularly where you need to mix them with IPv4
addresses.
I know postgresql has an ipv6 type but I was hoping for something more
portable. The best I could come up with was packed decimal(39) and
assume that if more than 32 bits are set it's IPv6 (ignoring the
special case of all zeros etc.) The other would be to just use 4
unsigned long ints similarly but it makes comparison and other ops
clunky.
>
> > Are there any "good" tools for IPv6 address management?
>Is there a "BCP" (convention, whatever) for storing IPv6 addresses
into SQL databases? Particularly where you need to mix them with IPv4
addresses.
PostgreSQL supports this. Check out the data types.
(yes, 8.2 is the latest, but google to the first hit is easier)
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/datatype-net-types.html#DATATYPE-INET
I know postgresql has an ipv6 type but I was hoping for something more
portable. The best I could come up with was packed decimal(39) and
assume that if more than 32 bits are set it's IPv6 (ignoring the
special case of all zeros etc.) The other would be to just use 4
unsigned long ints similarly but it makes comparison and other ops
clunky.
um, lots of folks have written modules for almost every
language to do ip/subnet comparisons for both v4 and v6. While
I can understand the desire to use locally derived code, etc..
it does make sense to not reinvent the wheel daily 
OT:
Speaking of which, someone know of something like the
multicast beacon software that works for unicast stuff that is "free"?
I've wanted to make some udp-like probe matrix like this
and with all the folks that are asking about cogent, l3, etc.. outages
was thinking that a user community of this type of a test matrix could
be interesting Think like the "internet health report" but with more
sites (possibly hundreds).
- jared
I am a PostgreSQL weenie, I admit, but if you can at all use it, I
strongly suggest you use the inet and cidr datatypes in PostgreSQL for
this. Alternatives often give up the data rigour that you get from a
datatype. Portability is often a target that forces you to give up
all the nice features that you got when you chose your RDBMS.
I suppose in other systems, you could put a trigger on a varchar() or
whatever field that would validate the address on the way in. That's
what I'd do if I had to give up the datatype.
A