IPv6 and Dual-Stack in Portworx Backup

Applicable to Classic mode only

Starting with version 3.2.0, Portworx Backup supports IPv6-only and dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) networking in Classic mode on OpenShift (OCP) and vanilla Kubernetes clusters. This page lists the supported platforms and known limitations.

Supported platforms

IPv6 and dual-stack networking is qualified on the following platform versions:

Platform	IPv6-only	Dual-stack
OpenShift (OCP)	4.18.20, 4.22.15	4.18.20
Vanilla Kubernetes	1.37.1	1.35.0, 1.37

IPv6 and dual-stack networking is qualified with FlashBlade S3 and FlashBlade NFS backup locations. Support for a backup location does not depend on the backup location vendor, as long as the backup location is reachable over the IP family that your clusters use.

IPv6 limitations

The following limitations apply when you use IPv6-only or dual-stack networking:

• Federated mode: Portworx Backup does not support IPv6-only or dual-stack networking in Federated mode.
• Portworx Central license server and Portworx Monitor: The Portworx Central license server and Portworx Monitor do not support IPv6.
• Usage-based licensing: The Pure Storage licensing service (Zuora) does not support IPv6. On an IPv6-only cluster, use a NAT64 and DNS64 gateway to reach the licensing service, or use the offline billing mode.
• Adding application clusters: Portworx Backup cannot add an application cluster that the Portworx Backup cluster cannot reach over a common IP family, for example, an IPv4-only application cluster from an IPv6-only Portworx Backup cluster. Ensure that the Portworx Backup cluster can reach each application cluster before you add the application cluster. If the Portworx Backup cluster has never connected to an application cluster, Portworx Backup lists the application cluster in the Failed state and displays the following error: failed to validate access to the cluster [example-cluster-name], with given credential and kubeconfig.
• Backup locations: Portworx Backup does not check whether your application clusters can reach a backup location over the same IP family. If the application clusters cannot reach the backup location, backups fail.
• Restores across IP families: A restore from a dual-stack cluster to an IPv4-only or IPv6-only cluster can end in Partial Success, because Kubernetes Services with incompatible IP family settings fail to apply. Restores between IPv4-only and IPv6-only clusters are not supported.
• Linkerd: If you use Linkerd for mutual TLS, set disableIPv6=false when you install Linkerd. For more information, see Enable mutual TLS.

On an IPv6-only cluster, Portworx Backup uses IPv6. On a dual-stack cluster, Portworx Backup uses the default IP family of the cluster. You do not need to set any IPv6-specific parameters when you install Portworx Backup. Where an address is expected, you can enter an IPv4 address, an IPv6 address, or an FQDN.