Support for IPv6

PATROL Agent supports IPv6 along with IPv4. PATROL Agent communicates with its Client or Server services through the Internet protocol. The following table shows the combination of the communication that happens between IPv6, IPv4, and DUAL configuration environments.

PATROL Agent > Client/Server services	IPv4	IPv6	DUAL
IPv4	Yes	No	Yes
IPv6	No	Yes	Yes
DUAL	Yes	Yes	Yes

Contents

BindToAddress pconfig variable

You can set the value of the BindToAddress pconfig variable to an IPv4 address and IPv6 address, as per your requirement. If PATROL Agent is installed in a DUAL environment, by default, it starts listening on IPv4 (0.0.0.0) and IPv6 ([::]). If you want PATROL Agent to listen to a specific IPv6 address, you can set the value in the BindToAddress pconfig variable.

For example, "/AgentSetup/BindToAddress" = { REPLACE = "2001:500:100:1100:5993:180e:8da5:78ec"}

You can specify more than one address separated by commas. PATROL Agent considers valid values only from the first two entries and ignores the other entries. If you provide first two values as IPv4 address, then only first valid value is considered, that means PATROL Agent gets one IPv4 address to bind with. The same is applicable for the IPv6 address too.

For more information about the BindToAddress pconfig variable, see Specify network card IP address.

Communication with PatrolCli

PATROL command-line interface (PatrolCli) now supports communication with the IPv6 PATROL Agent. The ping command uses TCP/IP protocol to ping a host.

You can set the connection preference for communication between the PatrolCli and PATROL Agent in the patrol.conf file.

The values for ippreference can be set as follows:

IPv4: Connect only with IPv4 PATROL Agents
IPv6: Connect only with IPv6 PATROL Agents
IPv4,IPv6: Preferably, connect to IPv4. If connection with IPv4 fails, connect to IPv6. This is the default preference set.
IPv6,IPv4: Preferably, connect to IPv6. If connection with IPv6 fails, connect to IPv4.

Example

[PEM]
clientsetting
port =
ippreference = IPv6,IPv4
end

Communication with pconfig utility

The pconfig utility now supports communication with the IPv6 PATROL Agent. The pconfig utility uses TCP/IP protocol to communicate with the PATROL Agent.

You can now set the connection preference for communication between the pconfig utility and PATROL Agent in the patrol.conf file.

The values for ippreference can be set as:

IPv4: Connect only with IPv4 PATROL Agents
IPv6: Connect only with IPv6 PATROL Agents
IPv4,IPv6: Preferably connect to IPv4. If connection with IPv4 fails, connect to IPv6. This is the default preference set.
IPv6,IPv4: Preferably connect to IPv6. If connection with IPv6 fails, connect to IPv4.

Example

[PCONFIG]
clientsetting
port =
ippreference = IPv6,IPv4
end

Access Control List

The /AgentSetup/accessControlList variable controls which users are authorized to connect to an agent in which modes from which hosts.

For each access control list (ACL), the format is a comma-separated list of entries. Each entry has the following format:

UserName/HostName/Mode

In the HostName, you can specify an IPv6 address as the host name from which users are authorized to connect to the PATROL Agent. For more information about defining access control lists using IPv6 address, see HostName.

PSL functions

The following PSL functions support IPv6, in PATROL Agent:

PSL function	Enhancement
gethostinfo()	Returns an IPv4 or an IPv6 address depending on the environment
sopen()	Opens sessions with an IPv6 node depending on the environment This function contains the ippreference parameter (optional) that defines the preference of connection. If this parameter is not defined, the default communication preference set is to connect to IPv4 first and then IPv6.
remote_open()	Establishes a communication session with a PATROL Agent running in an IPv6 environment from PATROL Agent running in a DUAL or IPv6 environment Note: From version 3.9.00 of PATROL Agent, this function does not support the UDP protocol. Default protocol for this function is TCP. The underlying communication protocol is TCP even if you specify UDP.

For more information about the PSL functions, see PSL Built-in Functions.