[BUG] Cannot use IPv6 for remote harvester or between any Chia services in config.yaml

Discussed in https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain/discussions/8552

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^{Originally posted by cross September 21, 2021} chia-blockchain 1.2.3, Ubuntu 20. installed from the .deb distribution here.

I have a harvester I’m trying to connect to a farmer peer in the same building. I have other harvesters connected via IPv4. This newest harvester is on a segmented IPv4 network, so I’m specifying the IPv6 address of the farmer as follows in my config.yml:

harvester:
  chia_ssl_ca:
    crt: config/ssl/ca/chia_ca.crt
    key: config/ssl/ca/chia_ca.key
  farmer_peer:
    host: 2000:3000:4000:5000::101
    port: 8447
  logging: *id001
  network_overrides: *id002

But, when I start chia start harvester -r the following appears on my terminal:

chia_harvester: started
user@host:~$ Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "chia/server/start_harvester.py", line 57, in <module>
  File "chia/server/start_harvester.py", line 53, in main
  File "chia/server/start_service.py", line 255, in run_service
  File "asyncio/runners.py", line 44, in run
  File "asyncio/base_events.py", line 616, in run_until_complete
  File "chia/server/start_service.py", line 249, in async_run_service
  File "chia/server/start_service.py", line 171, in run
  File "chia/server/start_service.py", line 145, in start
  File "chia/server/start_service.py", line 146, in <listcomp>
  File "chia/server/reconnect_task.py", line 12, in start_reconnect_task
socket.gaierror: [Errno -9] Address family for hostname not supported
[1752] Failed to execute script start_harvester

Do I have the syntax wrong, or does IPv6 connections to farmer have an issue?

(netstat -an | grep 8447 on the farmer shows tcp6 0 0 :::8447 :::* LISTEN amongst tcp LISTEN and ESTABLISHED connections via IPv4. And I’ve verified I can establish the tcp connection using telnet to that IPv6 address, port 8447.)</div>

[emlowe]

If your harvester is on Linux/MacOS - it’s pretty easy. Just run pip install -e ".[dev]", then edit your python, save the file, and run it inside the venv. So

• sh install.sh
• source ./activate
• pip install -e ".[dev]" - the install.sh may already do this, but it doesn’t hurt
• Edit and save your changes
• chia start harvester

You only need to do the first 3 steps once, then you can edit python and make whatever changes you want as many times as needed.

This can also be done on Windows, but it’s a little more work to set. We have new powershell scripts to help setup though you can look at install.ps1.

[emlowe]

It has the advantage that it also eliminates a lookup call - one could argue it should already have been doing this.