IPv6 not working in Samba

[Andris]

Hi,

I can't access router's samba through router's ipv6 address. It seams samba is not listening on it. Is there a workaround?

Andris.

 

[ColinTaylor]

You'd need to create a /jffs/scripts/smb.postconf script that modifies the interfaces= entry in /etc/smb.conf

 

[popxunga]

Hi @ColinTaylor
Because sooner or later I'll have my router behind some CG-NAT network, I decided to do some early testing with IPV6 on my AC88U that is running the lastest 386.11 Merlin firmware version.
First thing I noticed is that resolving any Samba share by name fails.
Considering that the recommendation above was made 5 years ago, can you confirm if it is still required ?
If yes where can I get the smb.postconf and/or some documentation on this subject ?
Can you confirm as well if ipv6 connectivity to OpenVPN server is supported ?
Thanks in advance ?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Hi @ColinTaylor
Because sooner or later I'll have my router behind some CG-NAT network, I decided to do some early testing with IPV6 on my AC88U that is running the lastest 386.11 Merlin firmware version.
First thing I noticed is that resolving any Samba share by name fails.
Considering that the recommendation above was made 5 years ago, can you confirm if it is still required ?
If yes where can I get the smb.postconf and/or some documentation on this subject ?
Can you confirm as well if ipv6 connectivity to OpenVPN server is supported ?
Thanks in advance ?

Sorry, I don't use IPv6 (or that class of router) so I don't know whether it's still required.

Custom scripts are described in the wiki here. For specific Samba options check the official documentation on their website.

First thing I noticed is that resolving any Samba share by name fails.

Do you mean share name or server name? Check that it's not a name (DNS) resolution issue by using the server's IP address instead of its host name.

 

[popxunga]

Sorry, I don't use IPv6 (or that class of router) so I don't know whether it's still required.

Custom scripts are described in the wiki here. For specific Samba options check the official documentation on their website.


Do you mean share name or server name? Check that it's not a name (DNS) resolution issue by using the server's IP address instead of its host name.

Thanks ...

I should have written server name and not share name because this looks like a sort of DNS issue.

With ipv6 disabled, \\<router_hostname>\<sharename> works.

With ipv6 enabled, \\<router_hostname>\<sharename> doesn't work.
But with ipv6 enabled, if I replace the <router_hostname> with the <router_ipv4address> it works.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thanks ...

I should have written server name and not share name because this looks like a sort of DNS issue.

With ipv6 disabled, \\<router_hostname>\<sharename> works.

With ipv6 enabled, \\<router_hostname>\<sharename> doesn't work.
But with ipv6 enabled, if I replace the <router_hostname> with the router <router_ipv4address> it works.

That's what I was thinking. IIRC when you enable IPv6 on your LAN most clients will prioritise IPv6 DNS servers over IPv4 servers. If your IPv6 setup is telling your clients to use a public IPv6 DNS server rather than the router you will loose the ability to resolve local names.

So for example, in theory not only would nslookup RT-AX86U not work but nslookup johns-pc would also fail.

 

[popxunga]

That's the case.
Didn't test yet if adding a simple entry in the hosts table will help, but are you aware of any alternatives to get either ipv4 name resolution prioritized vs ipv6, or to get the samba server (or any other local host) name resolved via ipv6?

 

[ColinTaylor]

The problem IMHO with IPv6 is that there's about a hundred ways to skin a cat.

Try this approach by creating a gai.conf file.

IPv6 precedes IPv4 translation

Not really a DDNS issue indeed. Still, for a domain with both IPv4 and IPv6 the router translates IPv6 first. That was my issue. If IPv6 was updated by DDNS as well, it would not be an issue. here is what i use to get my current ipv6 address in the inadyn update process /bin/nvram get...

www.snbforums.com

EDIT: Just to clarify, this changes to order of IPv6 vs IPv4 results returned by the router's DNS server, possibly solving the issue in post #2. It does not change which DNS server the client is using. For that we'd need to know more about your IPv6 setup.

 

[sfx2000]

Because sooner or later I'll have my router behind some CG-NAT network, I decided to do some early testing with IPV6 on my AC88U that is running the lastest 386.11 Merlin firmware version.

Quick question - are you putting your Samba host out there on the Internet?

CGNAT has no bearing on LAN side of the router, and there, it really doesn't matter if you're IPv4 or IPv6...

 

[sfx2000]

That's what I was thinking. IIRC when you enable IPv6 on your LAN most clients will prioritise IPv6 DNS servers over IPv4 servers. If your IPv6 setup is telling your clients to use a public IPv6 DNS server rather than the router you will loose the ability to resolve local names.

Shouldn't matter actually - LAN side can and should resolve to both IPv4 and IPv6 - depends on how Samba itself is set up in a few different places, and also how the clients are...

Out of the box - Win10/11, if on a "private" network should do service/device discovery, and that doesn't use DNS for lookups...

Where things can go awry is having an ancient Samba server set up as a master browser - that can be problematic, as it will become the source of "truth" for host lookups for CIFS/SMB...

In a perfect world, the router, if the SMB host, would do SMB3, and be done with it, but sadly this is not the case...

If it were not for marketing purposes - removing services like Samba and Netatalk from AsusWRT would solve a lot of problems - heck, even more modern services like Avahi (Bonjour) are half-implemented on AsusWRT - the avahi client is there, but the libnss-mdns side needed for resolution is missing...

Netatalk - could be removed as Macs don't use AppleTalk any more, that's been deprecated for a long time
Samba - it's just old, and getting Samba 3 into the AsusWRT firmware is a tough job - I think even RMerlin's build is Samba 2...

Take these out and it frees up space in the firmware image and helps reduce complexity...

 

[ColinTaylor]

Shouldn't matter actually - LAN side can and should resolve to both IPv4 and IPv6

Except it does matter if the client isn't using the local DNS server. That's why I said "If your IPv6 setup is...". We've seen exactly this problem before.

Out of the box - Win10/11, if on a "private" network should do service/device discovery, and that doesn't use DNS for lookups...

I made the same observation here. But sometimes it depends on exactly how you're accessing the shares (and whether the router is running WSD) as to what discovery method Windows uses.

 

[sfx2000]

Except it does matter if the client isn't using the local DNS server. That's why I said "If your IPv6 setup is...". We've seen exactly this problem before.

Gosh, why the heck does this only happen on Asus?

Scratching head here...

 

[popxunga]

Quick question - are you putting your Samba host out there on the Internet?

No, I'm not.

 

[popxunga]

CGNAT has no bearing on LAN side of the router, and there, it really doesn't matter if you're IPv4 or IPv6...

Sure...but it matters if you want to connect from outside to an OpenVPN server that's running on your LAN.

 

[sfx2000]

Sure...but it matters if you want to connect from outside to an OpenVPN server that's running on your LAN.

that's basic routing config on OVPN...