[Distutils] PyPI lost IPv6 support?

[Wichert Akkerman]

On 10 Jun 2014, at 15:09, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10 June 2014 22:59, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
>> On Jun 10, 2014, at 7:44 AM, Daniele Sluijters <daniele.sluijters at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> PyPi not being available over IPv6 anymore is not "we're not willing
>>> to do extra work to enable it", it's a regression. I understand that
>>> this is not something the PSF can solve but it should at least push
>>> Fastly to roll out IPv6.
>> 
>> I'm pretty sure the thing is that there are many more important things that are
>> of a higher priority than IPv6 support. While IPv6 support is nice to have, it
>> also doesn't generally matter unless there is someone trying to connect to
>> PyPI who has no IPv4 connectivity. I don't believe it to be likely that there
>> is many, if any, people who do not have IPv4 connectivity else they'd be unable
>> to reach vast parts of the internet.
> 
> The thread prompted me to go back and check the status of IPv4
> availability, at least in APAC, since IANA originally ran out of /8
> blocks a few years back. It turns out APNIC is still parcelling out
> their last /8 block, and the IANA's reclamation of unused IPv4 blocks
> also freed up some addresses for reallocation. (I tried to look up the
> status for Africa as well, but didn't find any clear statement in a
> quick search).

If I remember correctly there are some mobile networks in Asia who only do IPv6 internally. Gandi offers IPv6-only servers that are cheaper than servers with ipv4 connectivity. So while right now not having IPv4 connectivity is unlikely, it does happen and will only become more common. People are also introducing monstrosities like carrier-grade NAT to delay the inevitable, but we really should not encourage that madness and just add IPv6. It generally is very easy to do.

> It's something we'll want to keep an eye on, but yeah, at this point
> in time, when connecting an IPv6-only system to the internet, PyPI is
> likely to be long way down the "it isn't working" priority list.

I have an ipv6-only VM, and it works wonderfully: it can send email, pull Debian updates, serve IPv6 websites and it has my remote backups and git-annex repositories.

Wichert.