#445047 Irssi handling of IPv6 servers idiosyncratic

Package:
irssi
Source:
irssi
Description:
terminal based IRC client
Submitter:
Juliusz Chroboczek
Date:
2025-08-17 17:47:18 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
Tags:
#445047#5
Date:
2007-10-02 20:28:38 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

When specifying a server that has both A and AAAA DNS entries, irssi
will only connect to the IPv4 address; the IPv6 address will only be
used if the ``-6'' flag is specified on the /server command.

This is annoying when connecting from an IPv6-only network.

I suggest that irssi should treat all the addresses of a server as
a group, and connect to whichever is reachable at a given time.  The
same should be true when a connection dies and the server is
recontacted to allow for mobility between the IPv4 and IPv6 internets.

You can test with

  irc.geeknode.org

which is reachable using both IPv4 and IPv6.

Thanks for your help,

                                        Juliusz
#445047#20
Date:
2011-03-05 11:40:29 UTC
From:
To:
It also does not prefer IPv6 over IPv4 by default.  Instead you need to
set resolve_prefer_ipv6 to on.  That seems like a bug to me, too.

Kind regards
Philipp Kern
#445047#29
Date:
2016-02-06 18:08:43 UTC
From:
To:
Upstream is currently trying to improve the situation, if you are
interested in helping out we welcome you to test the current git
version from https://github.com/irssi/irssi.git and remark your
findings on the discussion at https://github.com/irssi/irssi/pull/410

Thanks,
Nei
#445047#38
Date:
2021-02-05 06:41:25 UTC
From:
To:
Hi.

This still appears to be broken:

[(status)] /connect localhost 6697
06:40 -!- Irssi: Connection lost to localhost
06:40 -!- Irssi: Looking up localhost
06:40 -!- Irssi: Connecting to localhost [127.0.0.1] port 6697
06:40 -!- Irssi: Connection to localhost established



This is wrong, it should connect to ::1

Same with external servers, irssi still preferse IPv4 for some reasons.

Regards,
Witold