Routing header reversal in Linux kernel

["Sérgio Gomes" <sergiomdgomes@gmail.com>]

Greetings!

I am a final year student in Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon,
Portugal, and part of my final project requires the use of IPv6
routing headers.

In particular, I need the route reversal to work. Now, as it didn't, I
began analysing the source code, and found a comment, stating that it
was a known problem with the IPv6 standard (as I was aware) and that a
way had been built around it via a constant, to avoid the whole AH
mess the RFC imposes.

So I was hoping someone could help me with something. The problem is
that even if I remove that verification, it does not work --
specifically, it looks as though the kernel is prepared to reverse
routing headers on a listening socket (i.e., a passive one), but not
on an active
socket (that is, one making the connection). My terminology is
probably wrong, but I hope you got my point.

However, I have only looked into this now, so I barely understand the
IPv6 implementation in the Linux kernel. I was hoping that you would
be able to shed some light into the subject, namely: is it at all
possible to have a TCP socket initiate a connection, receive a SYN+ACK
from the remote socket that includes a routing header, and reverse
this header for the remaining packets in the TCP connection?

Thanks!

Sérgio Gomes