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Suggestion for easy solution for the IPv6-related timeout problem

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Alexei Khlebnikov

19 Sep, 2018 03:27 PM

The discussion http://help.rubygems.org/discussions/problems/31074-timeout-error has been closed, even though the problem has not been solved. I guess that it happened, because the Support Staff wants to fix the problem properly, i.e. set up IPv6 routing properly or something like that, but do not have time for the proper solution so far.

Thus I'd like to propose an easy solution. If you can not provide reliable access to rubygems via IPv6 - just remove its IPv6 addresses from the DNS!

Particularly, you can remove these DNS records:

rubygems.org.           578     IN      AAAA    2a04:4e42::70
rubygems.org.           578     IN      AAAA    2a04:4e42:600::70
rubygems.org.           578     IN      AAAA    2a04:4e42:400::70
rubygems.org.           578     IN      AAAA    2a04:4e42:200::70

And then rubygems.org will be available via IPv4 only, but at least it will be available! Maybe you don't realize, but timeout on IPv6 basically blocks access via IPv4 as well! Now api.rubygems.org repository is inaccessible without tricks for many people for several months! The result is that people laugh at Ruby and choose Python instead. :(

If you still want to provide access via IPv6 in test mode - please consider doing it via another hostname, for example ipv6.rubygems.org.

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by kerrizor on 29 Sep, 2018 08:27 PM

   

   Thanks for writing in. We believe the issue with IPv6 is not on our side, as our configuration appears to be correct; do you have specific information that points to an issue on our side?

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2. kerrizor closed this discussion on 29 Sep, 2018 08:27 PM.

3. Alexei Khlebnikov re-opened this discussion on 01 Oct, 2018 11:48 AM

4. 2 Posted by Alexei Khlebnik... on 01 Oct, 2018 11:48 AM

   

   I provided some findings in
   http://help.rubygems.org/discussions/problems/31074-timeout-error ,
   including doing some test that Aditya asked me to do.

   I can add that I could successfully ping, tcptraceroute and tcp-connect
   to ports 80 and 443 for the destination IP 151.101.0.70, but the same
   failed for 2a04:4e42::70.

   I can successfully ping, tcptraceroute and tcp-connect to ports 80 and
   443 for the destination IP 2a00:1450:400f:80c::2004, address of
   www.google.com. So my IPv6 setup seems to work.

    > our configuration appears to be correct

   It can very well be so, but, for example, routing may be broken
   somewhere in the middle. Maybe it's a misconfiguration on some
   Internet-backbone router, I don't know. But the practical outcome is
   that gem is unusable. And I'd make it usable first, then investigate the
   problem, as it can take much time.

   I am also reminding that it is not only me who has this issue. See, for
   example, these threads on Stack Overflow:

   https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49800432/gem-cannot-access-rubygems-org
   https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44763226/installing-gems-fails-with-timeout-error
   https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49227187/error-while-executing-gem-gemremotefetcherunknownhosterror-timed-out

   On 29. sep. 2018 22:27, kerrizor wrote:

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5. Support Staff 3 Posted by kerrizor on 07 Oct, 2018 04:35 PM

   

   Thanks for the additional information, Alexei. I've raised this internally, and we'll continue to investigate.

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6. 4 Posted by kingsdeb on 12 Dec, 2018 08:45 AM

   

   More than 3 months and still this issue exist ?
   gem is unusable. I had to disable ipv6 and then make it work.

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7. 5 Posted by Alexei Khlebnik... on 12 Dec, 2018 10:10 AM

   

   Let me say some words in defense of the RubyGems' technical team. They may indeed have set up everything correctly ON THEIR SERVERS. The problem may very well be in the IPv6 routing setup between a gem user and api.rubygems.org.

   According to https://tools.keycdn.com/ipv6-ping , api.rubygems.org is accessible via IPv6 from several locations of the world.

   Still, api.rubygems.org is inaccessible for many gem users, thus all these issue threads here and on StackOverflow exist.

   Thus I am repeating my suggestion to move IPv6 addresses to another hostname, for example ipv6.rubygems.org, until the existing IPv6-related issues are resolved, wherever they have to be resolved - at the routing backbone, at hosting provider, or wherever else.

   kerrizor> I've raised this internally, and we'll continue to investigate.

   Can I ask how is it going with the investigation?

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8. Support Staff 6 Posted by kerrizor on 15 Dec, 2018 01:11 AM

   

   Alexei, I haven't heard any updates on this recently, but will ping Daniel R and see what the news is.

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9. kerrizor closed this discussion on 15 Dec, 2018 01:11 AM.