Detecting IPv6 support

[Martin v. Löwis]

Pekka Pessi <Pekka.Pessi at nokia.com> writes:

> 	Speaking of IPv6: is the IPv6 enabled on the Pythonlabs Windows
> 	distribution by default (sorry, I don't have a Windows box in my
> 	use at the moment)? Does Python support the older IPv6 stacks
> 	for NT4 and W2K?

No. It requires routines that are not available in the "stock"
winsock2.dll. When Pythonlabs Python 2.2 was released, it also
required an installation of the preview IPv6 release, which could not
be redistributed freely.

At the moment, you need CVS Python, and VC.NET, to get IPv6 suport on
Windows. This then works both with the released XP, and the MS
research IPv6 stack.

> 	What is the recommended method of finding out if Python and
> 	the underlying OS support IPv6? I can, for instance, create an
> 	IPv6 socket with a Python version that does *not* support
> 	IPv6.

What system is this? If you can create an IPv6 socket, why does it not
support IPv6 (i.e. how do you know it does not support IPv6)? If you
do .listen(), .getsockname() on that socket, what does it tell you?

Regards,
Martin