ThingSpeak: missing IPv6 compatibility

Hello,

it is planned to add IPv6 capability to ThingSpeak?

For several IOT protocolls that is necessary. Currently we want to connect 6LoWPAN nodes but can't because of the missing IPv6 compatibility.

Regards

Olaf Hagendorf

[Vinod]

Can you provide more documentation on the LoWPAN nodes? What specific IPv6 functionality are needed for you to use ThingSpeak with these nodes?

Answer 1

[Olaf Hagendorf]

We are using Mbed OS on our microcontroller with an 6LoWPAN network stack. 6LoWPAN can only speak IPv6.

The DNS record of www.thingspeak.com contains only the a record with IPv4 address but not an aaaa record with IPv6 address.

We used an gateway IPv6 to IPv4 (DNS64 - https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/dns64)

With this it was possible to communicate with thingsspeak but native support would be much better. And using DNS64 is not officially supported by Mbed OS and need internal library changes.

Answer 2

[Vinod]

It sounds like you're using a ststic IP address in your nodes. Static IP is not recommended for a number of reasons. Would it not be possible to use the DNS resolver to resolve https://api.thingspeak.com?

https://os.mbed.com/docs/mbed-os/v5.9/reference/dns-resolver.html

Using the hostname is the recomended approach for both IPv4 and IPv6 edge nodes.

Answer 3

[Olaf Hagendorf]

No, we don't use a static address. We are using api.thingspeak.com.

But a dns request with this domain name doesn't give an IPv6 address. You can check it by yourself e.g. with https://dnschecker.org/all-dns-records-of-domain.php

You'll get an a record with the IPv4 address but not an aaaa record which delivers the IPv6 address.

Another possibilty would be nslookup. The result is shown here:

So, the domain name api.thingspeak.com doesn't have a public available IPv6 address.

With an dual stack system you don't notice it. But 6LoWPAN is a single stack protocoll, no IPv4 only IPv6.

[Vinod]

We'll look into adding the aaaa record for thingspeak.com and api.thingspeak.com. I'll post back on this thread when completed.

[Olaf Hagendorf]

Thanks a lot.