Alpine image unable to resolve more than 63 IP addresses for domain (`java.net.InetAddress`)

Question

I'm using:

• Docker image: alpine:3.18.3,
• Java: openjdk11-jre:

openjdk version "11.0.20" 2023-07-18
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.20+8-alpine-r0)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.20+8-alpine-r0, mixed mode)

Problem description:

When I try to use java.net.InetAddress#getAllByName to get all IP addresses for host with more than 63 addresses I'm getting exception:

java.net.UnknownHostException: 70ips.test-domain.com: Name has no usable address
    at java.base/java.net.Inet6AddressImpl.lookupAllHostAddr(Native Method)
    at java.base/java.net.InetAddress$PlatformNameService.lookupAllHostAddr(InetAddress.java:930)
    at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAddressesFromNameService(InetAddress.java:1543)
    at java.base/java.net.InetAddress$NameServiceAddresses.get(InetAddress.java:848)
    at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName0(InetAddress.java:1533)
    at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName(InetAddress.java:1386)
    at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName(InetAddress.java:1307)
    at com.issue.Main.main(Main.java:27)

It looks that the native implementation of java.net.InetAddress#getAllByName in libnet is failing. I encountered this problem only for Alpine image. For other Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) it seems that there is no such a problem. The problem does not appear when the host is resolved for less than 64 IP addresses.

Reproduce the problem:

1. Create record of type A using Route 53 in AWS see documentation with host 70ips.test-domain.com and 70 IPs as a value;

2. Create Java code which resolves IP addresses for that host:

   import java.net.InetAddress;
   import java.net.UnknownHostException;
   import java.util.Arrays;
   import java.util.stream.Collectors;
   
   public class TestApp {
   
     public static void main(String[] args) throws UnknownHostException {
       final String host = "70ips.test-domain.com";
   
       final InetAddress[] all = InetAddress.getAllByName(host);
   
       printResults(all, host);
     }
   
     private static void printResults(InetAddress[] all, String host) {
       final String addressesAsString = Arrays.stream(all)
         .map(InetAddress::getHostAddress)
         .collect(Collectors.joining(", ", "\n", ""));
       final String msg = String.format(
         "URL: '%s'. InetAddresses[%s]: %s",
         host,
         all.length,
         addressesAsString
       );
       System.out.println(msg);
     }
   }
   

3. Create Docker image based on Alpine image using Dockerfile like:

   FROM alpine:3.18.3
   RUN sed -ie "s/https/http/g" /etc/apk/repositories
   RUN apk add \
         --no-cache \
         --repository http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.14/main \
         ca-certificates
   RUN apk add openjdk11-jre
   COPY target/app-jar-with-dependencies.jar app.jar
   CMD ["sh", "-c", "exec java -jar app.jar"]
   

4. Run the docker container using command: docker run <image_name>;

5. In logs there will be exception:

   java.net.UnknownHostException: 70ips.test-domain.com: Name has no usable address
       at java.base/java.net.Inet6AddressImpl.lookupAllHostAddr(Native Method)
       at java.base/java.net.InetAddress$PlatformNameService.lookupAllHostAddr(InetAddress.java:930)
       at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAddressesFromNameService(InetAddress.java:1543)
       at java.base/java.net.InetAddress$NameServiceAddresses.get(InetAddress.java:848)
       at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName0(InetAddress.java:1533)
       at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName(InetAddress.java:1386)
       at java.base/java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName(InetAddress.java:1307)
       at com.issue.Main.main(Main.java:27)
   

Questions:

1. Is 63 IP addresses some known limitation?
2. Do you know how can I fix the issue?

Expected and actual outcome:

I tried to use java.net.InetAddress#getAllByName to get all IP addresses for host with more than 63 addresses. I expected to get the array of IP addresses for given host. Actually I got exception java.net.UnknownHostException with "Name has no usable address" message.