At what point should I support IPV6 in my php scripts?

Question

I've got quite a bit of PHP code laying around and am wondering at what point should I start upgrading the scripts to support IPV6.

I know IPV6 has been on the 'list of things to do' for a long, long time but really have never seen a clear transition path on when I need to start supporting it.

G-Man

Answer 1

IPv6 has widespread adoption in some countries (e.g. Japan, China, Korea) and some large organisations (an IPv6 workshop I did 6 years ago suggested IPv6 support was required for all networking gear sold to the US govt for example).

I think the short answer to your question is... "When a significant proportion of your target audience uses IPv6".

For a public internet site, the answer to that is likely "probably never". IPv6 was meant to solve the "we're running out of IPv4 addresses" problem. Since instead of IPv6, most organisations have gone down the network address translation route, greatly extending the life of the IPv4 address space.

Answer 2

I think the short answer to your question is... "Before a significant proportion of your target audience uses IPv6".

If you're developing a commercial app, "Before your competition supports IPv6".

Answer 3

Once you start seeing a person or two using ipv6 I would suggest switching, but why wait? Ipv6 will be replacing ipv4 entirely someday so why not help speed up that replacement.