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Configure WebSphere Application Server with IPv6 or IPv4 for InfoSphere Information Server

Question & Answer


Question

How do you force WebSphere Application Server to use an IPv6 or IPv4 address for InfoSphere Information Server applications?

Answer

InfoSphere Information Server deploys a set of WebSphere applications. It inherits the IPv6 support from the application server on which the applications are deployed. WebSphere Application Server supports both IPv6-only and IPv4/IPv6 mixed-mode.

In an IPv4/IPv6 mixed environment, you can set the "java.net.preferIPv4Stack" and "java.net.preferIPv6Addresses" JVM properties to force WebSphere Application Server to use an IPv4 or IPv6 socket to communicate.
java.net.preferIPv4Stack=true for using IPv4
java.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true for using IPv6

By default, the JVM native socket is the IPv6 socket that also supports IPv4-mapped addresses. Although Windows does not support this "dual-stack", JVM emulates the dual-stack behavior. Therefore the JVM utilizes the correct socket according to the IP without setting these properties.

Setting these properties is not recommended by WebSphere since it could disrupt normal WebSphere Application Server functions. For example, all JVMs in the cell need to have the same setting for these two properties.

Frequently the IPv6 issue is caused by network mis-configuration. For example, IPv4 of the host is disabled, but the DNS still returns an IPv4 address when looking up the host.

Follow this link (http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/net/ipv6_guide/index.html#ipv6-networking) for more details about these two JVM properties.

To set the properties in WebSphere Application Server:

  • For WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, add the Java virtual machine custom properties from the WebSphere admin console as follows:
    • For the Deployment manager, System Administration > Deployment manager > Java and process management > Process definition > Java virtual machine > Custom Properties
    • For the Node agent, System Administration > Node agent > nodeagent > Java and process management > Process definition > Java virtual machine > Custom Properties

    For more information, see this topic:
    http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v6r1/topic/com.ibm.websphere.nd.doc/info/ae/ae/xrun_jvm.html

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Document Information

Modified date:
16 June 2018

UID

swg21498126