Re: Installer Feature Request: Add an option to manually disable IPv6 by calling dhcpcp -4

[Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>]

On Sun, Jan 05, 2025 at 09:41:36PM +0100, Thomas Dettbarn wrote:
> BE THAT AS IT MAY, and as admirable as insisting on proper IPv6 discipline
> is:
> It is frustrating as HELL for a casual NetBSD user like me.
> 
> The easiest Hotfix I could think of would be disabling IPv6 inside the
> installer,
> IF THE USER WANTS IT. I have not have a look at the source of the installer,
> (yet, i do not know where they are.... casual user... ), but my instincts as
> a
> developer tell me that it should be possible to add an option such as
> "autoconfigure IPv6" and "autoconfigure IPv4 only" to it somewhere. The
> former would then run "dhcpcd" in the background, whilst the latter calls
> "dhcpcd -4".

I am not completely opposed to a special knob in the installer to avoid IPv6,
and this all is not about "insisting on proper IPv6 discipline".

I would prefer an automatic runtime solution instead of a manual fix
though, which could be something super usefull (for other situations as
well) like ftp(1) implementing happy-eyeballs

If we would fix it at the installer level the installed VM later will have
the exact same problem, so we need to persist the fix in the generated
configuration. That is a bad idea however if you are installing on a
notebook and move to a different network later. All this dhcp stuff is
designed to make things fully automatic, and it "usually" works, unless
your local network is *seriously* broken.

I don't understand how you get in the problematic situation at all, all
VM instances I run myself don't show this symptom.

Martin