Native IPv6: First steps

Today I made my first native IPv6 connection. I've been running Teredo/Miredo on my laptop for quite a while now, and I thought it was time to get a real IPv6 connection. I could use IPv6 autoconfiguration, but on a server you need a fixed IP.

Needed software

Install required packages that are not included in the Fedora default install:
yum install iproute2 ndisc6

Configuring manually

Configuring the network is not that much different from configuring an IPv4 address.

IPv4IPv6
ip addr add 1.2.3.4/24 dev eth0ip addr add 2001:1BE8:DEAD:BEEF::1a1a/64 dev eth0
ip route add default via 1.2.3.254ip route add default via 2001:1BE8:DEAD:BEEF::1

Now test it by pinging/tracerouting some known IPv6 services:

[root@localhost ~]# ping6 ipv6.google.com
PING ipv6.google.com(2a00:1450:8003::69) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2a00:1450:8003::69: icmp_seq=1 ttl=58 time=7.19 ms
64 bytes from 2a00:1450:8003::69: icmp_seq=2 ttl=58 time=7.52 ms
64 bytes from 2a00:1450:8003::69: icmp_seq=3 ttl=58 time=6.98 ms
64 bytes from 2a00:1450:8003::69: icmp_seq=4 ttl=58 time=7.44 ms
^C
--- ipv6.google.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.989/7.287/7.525/0.227 ms
[root@localhost ~]# tracert6 ipv6.google.com
traceroute to ipv6.google.com (2a00:1450:8003::69) from 2001:1be8:dead:beef::1a1a, 30 hops max, 60 bytes packets
1 2001:1be8:dead:beef::1 (2001:1be8:3f03:541::1) 1.024 ms 0.970 ms 1.036 ms
2 2001:1be8::310:1 (2001:1be8::310:1) 2.618 ms 2001:1be8::300:1 (2001:1be8::300:1) 2.583 ms 2001:1be8::310:1 (2001:1be8::310:1) 2.527 ms
3 pr61.ams04.net.google.com (2001:7f8:1::a501:5169:1) 2.865 ms 2.536 ms 2.184 ms
4 2001:4860::1:0:4b3 (2001:4860::1:0:4b3) 2.801 ms 3.156 ms 24.731 ms
5 2001:4860::2:0:66e (2001:4860::2:0:66e) 7.021 ms 6.830 ms 96.541 ms
6 2001:4860:0:1::31 (2001:4860:0:1::31) 7.092 ms 7.367 ms 12.089 ms
7 2a00:1450:8003::69 (2a00:1450:8003::69) 6.996 ms 7.550 ms 7.341 ms

Configure at boot time

Step 1. Enable IPv6 networking

vim /etc/sysconfig/network
then add (or replace):
NETWORKING_IPV6=yes

Step 2. Configure IPv6 addresses

vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
then add the following lines:
IPV6INIT=yes
IPV6ADDR=2001:1BE8:DEAD:BEEF::1a1a/64
IPV6_DEFAULTGW=2001:1BE8:DEAD:BEEF::1

Step 3. Test

Run service network restart or reboot to test.
Warning: if you do this remotely, you may lose the connection. I first locked myself out of my test machine, but I always got a KVM switch attached or VMWare console.

Security

Please remember that using IPv6 also means that there's a new entrance to your network. Use ip6tables to set up a firewall.

Ubuntu/Debian

I'm running RedHat-based software on all of my machines. Above information may be useful for Ubuntu/Debian users, but it's not tested and I'm not supporting it.

Servers: RedHat Enterprise Linux/CentOS is more suitable for servers, as there's a lot of professional level support available. I think that's important, because if I say, get a car accident, I want the servers to be managable by another professional.

Desktops/Laptops: RPM packages are pretty exchangable between RedHat-based platforms. That's a good reason to run Fedora on the desktop.
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