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Storing IP address in MySQL database (IPv4 AND IPv6)

Asked 2012-05-14T19:34:03.110
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Ok, now I'm aware that similar questions have probably been asked a million times but I'm a real novice at this and I'd really appreciate your help here.

Basically, I want to store the visitors IP address in a MySQL for later retrieval and verification. I firstly need to know what type of field I need to use to store the IP address in. I would also like to make the system compatible with IPv6 addresses if possible.

Thanks in advance

php mysql ip ipv6 ipv4
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There is no integral type in MySQL big enough to store an IPv6 address. The most compact way to store it is as something like BINARY(16). If you just need to store and retrieve addresses and you don't need to perform logical operations on them (e.g. netmask operations to query for which IP addresses come under a covering prefix) then that will be enough. If you need to do logical or bit operations, you will need to be fancier: you will need to store IPv6 addresses in two separate 64-bit integer columns.

answered 2012-05-14T19:38:24.483

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