java.net.NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces does not work properly on AIX with IPv6

[Alan Bateman]

Jonathan Lu wrote:
> Hi net-devs,
>
> I've got a problem on AIX operating system when IPv6 is enabled,which 
> can be easily reproduced by attached test case NetworkInterfaceTest.java.
> On AIX paltform, the /proc file system behaves differently from Linux, 
> so we cannot just read required lines from /proc/net/if_inet6 but to 
> call ioctl to get needed information. A patch is available for 
> OpenJDK8 code base, see attachment patch.diff.
>
> Is anybody interested in this topic?
>
> I'm quite aware of the fact that so far there's no publicly available 
> building scripts for OpenJDK8 on AIX operating system, but before 
> everything settles down, is anybody willing to review the patch? any 
> ideas about how to integrate it?
>
> Best regards!
>
This patch adds AIX specific code and I guess the bigger question is 
whether this is the start of a stream of patches to add an AIX port (or 
portions of) to OpenJDK. If so then I think it needs wider discussion. 
The Porters Group (cc'ed) sponsor several porting projects in OpenJDK 
and should be able to advise. If the intention is to get an AIX port 
into OpenJDK then a possible route is to propose an AIX porting project, 
similar to the BSD and MacOX X porting projects.

-Alan.