Mildly cursed factoid about UNC paths:
- UNC Paths can contain IP addresses such as \\192.168.1.1\share
- IPv6 addresses are supported as well
- IPv6 addresses contain colons
- can't have colons in Windows paths since colons are reserved for drive letters
So Microsoft came up with the the ipv6-literal.net domain that's special-cased by Windows so you can to write IPv6 addresses in UNC paths as 2a0e-3c0--21.ipv6-literal.net without it hitting any resolvers.
Lukas
npub1ug…x2fnz
2025-07-18 17:04:30 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1ugnhd6y8vrfx25l04qtsljyev8p7jrceutnm3ppky387hjteejvskx2fnzSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-07-18 17:04:30 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "83ac0bb40c009917ac79dc4a221ba4bcf6410211cde481540b4389b648ceffe8",
"pubkey": "e22776e88760d26553efa8170fc89961c3e90f19e2e7b88436244febc979cc99",
"created_at": 1752858270,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://chaos.social/@karotte/114875319621020657",
"web"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://chaos.social/users/karotte/statuses/114875319621020657",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://chaos.social/users/karotte/statuses/114875319621020657",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "Mildly cursed factoid about UNC paths:\n\n - UNC Paths can contain IP addresses such as \\\\192.168.1.1\\share\n - IPv6 addresses are supported as well\n - IPv6 addresses contain colons\n - can't have colons in Windows paths since colons are reserved for drive letters\n\nSo Microsoft came up with the the ipv6-literal.net domain that's special-cased by Windows so you can to write IPv6 addresses in UNC paths as 2a0e-3c0--21.ipv6-literal.net without it hitting any resolvers.",
"sig": "46e4c91f4827e1d3d79afd936c75c5e67a97c1739aca309812d096a3e54da3e17bf08af77c6225a901bb983efd8890d399dae9d8cd4973d7a0307edde2750b27"
}