The only_v6 flag of the with_bind_address method is not honoured

[bugnano]

I have a ServerConfig builder that looks like this:

    let config = ServerConfig::builder()
        .with_bind_address(bind_address, false)
        .with_certificate(certificate)
        .keep_alive_interval(Some(Duration::from_secs(3)))
        .build();

So the only_v6 flag is false (side note: it's not good API design to pass boolean parameters to a function, because if I read that function without reading its documentation, what does false mean? It's better to use an enum in this case, but I digress).

The output of the command ss -ulpen is as follows:

UNCONN                    0                         0                                                     [::1]:4433                                                  [::]:*                        users
(("beam.smp",pid=7804,fd=20)) uid:1000 ino:54876 sk:9 cgroup:/user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/app.slice/app-org.gnome.Terminal.slice/vte-spawn-394db383-bbc8-4b17-adb2-a74b89adb521.scope v6only:1 <->

Note the v6only:1 part in the output.

[BiagioFesta]

side note: it's not good API design to pass boolean parameters to a function

Completely agree. Thanks for the feedback and I am going to change that.

---

I cannot find any good reference/documentation for now (starting from https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/ipv6.7.html), but not all configurations and platforms support IPV6_V6ONLY.

In particular, I have found loopback binding (LOCALHOST) does not support dual-stack. I see [::1]:4433 in your example.

Could you please confirm me that it instead works with INADDR_ANY?

[bugnano]

I confirm that binding to :: binds dualstack:

UNCONN                    0                         0                                                         *:4433                                                     *:*                        users:(("beam.smp",pid=5151,fd=20)) uid:1000 ino:48796 sk:3001 cgroup:/user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/app.slice/app-org.gnome.Terminal.slice/vte-spawn-f3042582-c0bb-4356-8771-3b1f28ecadd8.scope v6only:0 <->

Notice the v6only:0 flag.

While I know that there exists the with_bind_config function, I was wondering whether it would be possible to call the server builder with with_bind_address multiple times, 1 for 127.0.0.1 and the other for ::1 in the case for localhost.
Specifically, I'm using:

let mut addrs_iter = (host, port).to_socket_addrs()?;

the to_socket_addrs returns an iterator of socket addresses, so when I set host to localhost, it returns both the address for 127.0.0.1, and the one for ::1.

So in reality my request would be to be able to bind to multiple addresses, as many as returned by to_socket_addrs.
This could be useful, for example, also if a host has both an A and an AAAA DNS record, and the server would bind to both addresses.
Is something like that possible?

[BiagioFesta]

This crate does not allow that directly, but yeah it is possible.

Like its underlying transport, an Endpoint represent a single point of binding (thus, a single socket).

However, nothing stops you from having multiple endpoints for your server.

Something like:

    let socket_addresses = vec![
        SocketAddr::new(Ipv4Addr::LOCALHOST.into(), 4433),
        SocketAddr::new(Ipv6Addr::LOCALHOST.into(), 4433),
        SocketAddr::new(Ipv4Addr::UNSPECIFIED.into(), 4433),
        SocketAddr::new(Ipv6Addr::UNSPECIFIED.into(), 4433),
    ];

    // Vec<Endpoint<Server>>
    let endpoints = socket_addresses
        .into_iter()
        .map(|address| {
            let config = ServerConfig::builder()
                .with_bind_address(address, false)  // No dual stack, as we have multiple bindings
                .with_certificate(Certificate::load("cert.pem", "key.pem")?)
                .build();
            Ok(Endpoint::server(config)?)
        })
        .collect::<Result<Vec<_>>>()?;

     loop {
        let (accepting, ..) = select_all(endpoints.iter().map(|ep| Box::pin(ep.accept()))).await;
        accepting.await...
     }

Each Endpoint::accept() produces a Future so you can select one of them in different ways.

• futures::select_all
• tokio::JoinSet
• ...

[bugnano]

However, nothing stops you from having multiple endpoints for your server.

True, but isn't building multiple sockets less efficient than having only one?
I mean I'd like to have something like IpBindConfig::LocalDual, but more flexible.
Is IpBindConfig::LocalDual binding 2 endpoints internally and hiding the complexity, or does it work differently?

[BiagioFesta]

I am not aware about any performance penalties about binding multiple sockets.

And in any case, binding multiple addresses necessarily require binding multiple sockets (generally).

IpBindConfig::LocalDual does not actually bind two sockets (nor internally creates multiple endpoint), it just leverages OS Dual-stack IP implementations (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4213). The OS binds 1 socket anyway and let that same port to also redirect IPv4 connections (merely because of transition v6->v4).

[bugnano]

On further testing, binding with:

    let config = ServerConfig::builder()
        .with_bind_config(wtransport::config::IpBindConfig::LocalDual, port)
        .with_certificate(certificate)
        .keep_alive_interval(Some(Duration::from_secs(3)))
        .build();

the output of ss -ulpen is as follows:

UNCONN       0             0                            [::1]:4433                        [::]:*           users:(("beam.smp",pid=3550,fd=20)) uid:1000 ino:36858 sk:b cgroup:/user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/app.slice/app-org.gnome.Terminal.slice/vte-spawn-401c8b2f-e4d3-4ecc-8f97-b1f9626dd142.scope v6only:1 <->

So the v6only:1 flag is still set, and I don't see any 127.0.0.1 binding for IPv4.
This might be a separate bug, but it confirms your point that for binding to localhost both on IPv4 and IPv6 we need 2 sockets indeed.

EDIT: To calrify, I tested connecting from the browser using [::1]:4433 and it worked, and using 127.0.0.1:4433 and it didn't work.

Thank you for the example code btw.

[BiagioFesta]

This might be a separate bug, but it confirms your point that for binding to localhost both on IPv4 and IPv6 we need 2 sockets indeed.

I am not sure that could be classified as bug. As said, dual-stack is OS implementation details and might not be supported for localhost.

In fact, I would change the API in this patch: #54

The dual-stack configuration will be more explicit:

/// Configuration for IPv6 dual stack.
#[derive(Debug, Copy, Clone)]
pub enum Ipv6DualStackConfig {
    /// Do not configure dual stack. Use OS's default.
    OsDefault,

    /// Deny dual stack. This is equivalent to `IPV6_V6ONLY`.
    ///
    /// Socket will only bind for IPv6 (IPv4 port will still be available).
    Deny,

    /// Allow dual stack.
    ///
    /// Please note that not all configurations/platforms support dual stack.
    Allow,
}

Where Ipv6DualStackConfig::Allow suggests to allow (not enable) the dual stack. Not guaranteed