Completely missing IPv6 support

[JiriS]

After our company bought the Plesk Panel, it came as quite a surprise that IPv6 support is just not there. In fact, setting up things for IPv6 (manually outside of Plesk of course) even breaks(*1) Plesk! Who would expect something like this from what is supposed to be leading product on the market?

The thing is, almost everything needed is IPv6 ready:

- Windows 2008 - full support
- IIS http(s) - full support
- IIS ftp - full support with FTP Publishing Service 7.5, which unfortunately isn't fully supported by Plesk (*2), although available for almost a year
- hMailserver 5.3 - full support and completely unsupported by Plesk
- BIND bundled with Plesk - seems that no IPv6 transport support is compiled in, but can at least serve AAAA records just fine
- Plesk 9.3, newest and greatest - no IPv6 support whatsoever

Nobody expects that everything can be made ready overnight. Just please fix the obvious bugs like (*1), add AAAA records to DNS editor and we'll be happy. For a while at least. You can't avoid it anyway. Surely you don't think that IPv6 is something that will go away, do you?

Trouble (*1):

<b>Source:</b> Microsoft JET Database Engine<br/><b>Description:</b> The field is too small to accept the amount of data you attempted to add. Try inserting or pasting less data.
---------------------- Debug Info -------------------------------
0: common_func.php3:160
com->execute(string 'insert into sessions (sess_id, type, login, ip_address, login_time, click_time) VALUES ('fa581928898becf1f4cf7b1559bb41f6', '1', 'admin', '2001:aaaa:bbbb:cccc::1', '2010-01-26 00:56:44', '2010-01-26 00:56:44')', NULL null)
1: common_func.php3:160
db_query(string 'insert into sessions (sess_id, type, login, ip_address, login_time, click_time) VALUES ('fa581928898becf1f4cf7b1559bb41f6', '1', 'admin', '2001:aaaa:bbbb:cccc::1', '2010-01-26 00:56:44', '2010-01-26 00:56:44')')
2: class.Session.php:357
Session->registerSession(integer '1', string 'admin', string '2001:aaaa:bbbb:cccc::1', string '', boolean false)
3: cmd_loginup.php:259
createSessionCommon(integer '1', string 'admin', boolean true, boolean false, string '', boolean false)
4: cmd_loginup.php:387
createSessionAdmin(string 'admin', string '********', boolean false, string '', boolean true)
5: cmd_loginup.php:132
createSession(string 'admin', string '********')
6: login_up.php3:27

Trouble (*2):

Error: Unable to reconfigure ftp server. ftpmng --update-explicit-ssl failed: Input string was not in a correct format.
In mscorlib module
Exception type: System.FormatException
at System.Number.StringToNumber(String str, NumberStyles options, NumberBuffer& number, NumberFormatInfo info, Boolean parseDecimal)
at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
at CIIS7ServerManagerBase.GetFtpSites(CIIS7ServerManagerBase* )

 

[IgorG]

We have already submitted request for adding IPv6 support for Plesk. I hope it will be implemented to the one of nearest Plesk versions. I have forwarded your message to developers too. Now I can suggest you try following method for adding AAAA records - http://blog.experimentalworks.net/2009/01/ipv6-aaaa-records-with-plesk-the-hackish-way/
I hope it will help.

 

[JiriS]

I already found that page while googling for some solution, but it's for Linux version. I also found few other slightly disturbing threads on your forum, suggesting that AAAA records support is being requested since 2005 at least...

I tried to look into Plesk's database (psa.mdb on Windows) and it's possible to add AAAA records into "dns_recs" table just fine. They even show correctly in Plesk (but can't be edited there of course). But when DNSMng.exe is called to export zone to BIND, it ignores them. Probably there is some type checking included, unlike in Linux version described in article.

Anyway, it looks to me, that after all those years, you're almost there. Two more hours to finish it? Or three? I believe in you.

 

[IgorG]

Could you please clarify a little bit one thing - why you want IPv6 only for DNS records? What about other things like vhosts with IPv6 addresses, mail settings with IPv6 addresses, etc? In other words - how supporting AAAA DNS records only can satisfy you? If we just add AAAA support only - how it will help you? Could you please describe it a little bit?
Thank you.

 

[JiriS]

It's a misunderstanding, I'd love to have complete IPv6 support of course, the sooner the better. I just understand that getting it all at once is not very likely, so I'd like to have at least bare minimum and I'm willing to set up some things manually outside of Plesk for now to make it work. Few examples:

For www vhosts I do not need IPv6-only ones, but IPv6 in addition to IPv4, so I can just add IPv6 listening address in IIS manager and it works great.

Similar for main domain where Plesk administration is running, but I can't currently do that because you have too small ip_address field in sessions table and when client connects over IPv6, the address won't fit (see trouble 1 in first post)

Mail is even easier than www. E.g. for MailEnable 4 I can just add few values into registry and I have IPv6 capable mail server. New hMailserver can do it too, but you support only old version.

But for all of above I need AAAA records in DNS. Yes, I could ditch Plesk's DNS server and that nice editor in administration and run independent DNS server, but it gets to the point where it's too much work.

 

[IgorG]

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I will forward it to responsible persons and I hope full IPv6 support will be implemented soon.