Supabase & Your Network: IPv4 and IPv6 compatibility

[TheOtherBrian1]

This is a copy of a troubleshooting article on Supabase's docs site. It may be missing some details from the original. View the original article.

Network compatibility with your Supabase database

The internet uses a system called the Internet Protocol (IP) to route communication between devices. There are two main versions:

• IPv4: Introduced in 1980, it's the original version.
• IPv6: Launched in 1999, it offers a much larger address space and is the preferred future-proof option.

Supabase and IPv6:

All Supabase databases provide a direct connection string that maps to an IPv6 address.

Working with IPv6 incompatible hosts:

Here are your options if your server platform doesn't support IPv6:

• Use the Supavisor Connection String (available in the Dashboard).
• Use the Supabase Client libraries, which are IPv4 compatible.
• Enable the dedicated IPv4 Add-On (available to Pro and above organizations)

Note: the IPv4 Add-On costs an hour, which equates to ~ if left on for a full month (~720 hours)

Checking IPv6 support:

The majority of services are IPv6 compatible. However, there are a few prominent ones that only accept IPv4 connections:

• Retool
• Vercel
• GitHub Actions
• Render

If you're still unsure if your network supports IPv6, you can run this cURL command on your deployment server:

curl -6 https://ifconfig.co/ip

If the command returns an IPv6 address, the network is IPv6 compatible.

Finding your database's IP address:

To determine your current IP address, you can use an IP address lookup website or the terminal command:

nslookup db.<PROJECT_REF>.supabase.co

This command queries the domain name servers to find the IP address of the given hostname.

Example IPv6 Address: 2a05:d014:1c06:5f0c:d7a9:8616:bee2:30df

Identifying your connections:

The pooler and direct connection strings can be found on the dashboard by clicking Connect.

"Note uses an IPv6 address by default

# Example connection string
postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@db.ajrbwkcuthywfihaarmflo.supabase.co:5432/postgres

Supavisor in transaction mode (port 6543)

# Example transaction string
postgresql://postgres.ajrbwkcuthywddfihrmflo:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@aws-0-us-east-1.pooler.supabase.com:6543/postgres

Supavisor in session mode (port 5432)

# Example session string
postgresql://postgres.ajrbwkcuthywfddihrmflo:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@aws-0-us-east-1.pooler.supabase.com:5432/postgres