Provide advanced socket API support so that applications such as "ping", "traceroute", and other such applications can be developed with the Java 2 Standard Edition without restoring to platform specific native code.

At this time there are currently no standard APIs for developing portable
advanced socket applications.

Specific requirements that will be examined are :-

- Support for ICMP, ICMPv6, IGMP, IGMPv6 socket types.

- Advanced Sockets API for IPv6 (RFC 2292).

- An API for some common uses like Ping & Traceroute as a convenience.