IPv6 Readiness for Java Developers

Question

ARIN recommends IPv6 readiness by January 2012 (3 days!!!). I was wondering what implications (if any) does this mean for Java developers or Java EE server admins (GlassFish, Tomcat, etc.)?

I believe Java 1.4+ provides IPv6, but not sure if its something that all happens automagically underneath the "Java hood" or if there are real, manual changes that us Java folk will have to look out for. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You might want to take a look at the Networking IPv6 User Guide for JDK/JRE 5.0 for a good reference.

As long as you stick to pure Java functions, most (all?) Java applications are prepared for IPv6 without changing a single line of code, or even recompiling, since Java 1.4.

However, as praseodym below points out, there is one exception: if you are storing, using or manipulating raw IPv4 addresses (which are 32-bit) you will need to make changes to allow for 128-bit IPv6 addresses.