IPv6: is that a TV channel?

happygeek 0 708 Views

According to thinkbroadband.com, there is significant confusion amongst broadband providers not only as to whether they support IPv6 but also as to what it actually is. Surprising, when you consider that IPv6 has been available since 1998 and much written about - including here on DaniWeb for many years now. Not surprising, when you consider that only a handful of niche broadband service providers actually support it at the moment.

That didn't stop several of the sales teams at broadband providers from incorrectly claiming to be supporting it though, while others responded with such remarks as "is it Internet Explorer 6" and "Never been asked, I'm just looking at Wikipedia right now". If that were not bad enough, one broadband ISP replied to the question of IPv6 support with "we support IP version 5" despite this never having been an official protocol (we're currently on IPv4) and the absolute classic which would be funnier if it were not so sad of “is that a TV channel?”

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com, says "there is clearly a lot of confusion about IPv6 within the sales and support teams working for many service providers. We found that very few operators had heard about IPv6. The fact is that ISPs should be preparing their customer support teams for queries about IPv6 as consumers become more aware of it and begin to look into how it is going to affect them".

You might think that ISPs would at least be running IPv6 trials in preparation for the inevitable.

Dani AI

Generated

Practical, short answer to the question raised by : there are three useful ways to run an IPv6 trial today (native, tunneled, or local-only), and a few quick pitfalls to avoid — ’s 6to4 suggestion can work but anycast 6to4 is now deprecated and unreliable. (See RFC 7526.)
(1) Native dual‑stack: if the ISP actually offers IPv6, ask for native IPv6 or DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation (PD) and enable IPv6 on the home/office router so clients get global addresses. IPv6 is a standards protocol; native dual‑stack is the simplest production path. (RFC 8200).
(2) Tunnel broker: for immediate global IPv6 without waiting for the ISP, create a tunnel with a broker (Hurricane Electric’s Tunnelbroker is widely used). Registration gives a routed prefix and example per‑platform commands; the common Linux flow is: enable IPv6 forwarding, create the tunnel interface and assign the broker’s addresses, add the default IPv6 route, then run radvd or DHCPv6 for LAN hosts. Example commands (replace addresses from your broker): 

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1
sudo ip -6 addr add 2001:db8::2/64 dev sit0
sudo ip -6 route add ::/0 dev sit0
# minimal radvd.conf:
interface eth0 {
  AdvSendAdvert on;
  prefix 2001:db8::/64 { AdvOnLink on; AdvAutonomous on; };
};

See Hurricane Electric Tunnelbroker for automated config snippets.
(3) Local lab (no Internet): use Unique Local Addresses (ULA, fc00::/7) to experiment with IPv6 routing and services without global reachability; do not publish ULA addresses in the global DNS (see RFC 4193).

Troubleshooting notes: allow ICMPv6 (Neighbor Discovery and RA must pass), check ip -6 neigh, ping6/traceroute6, and verify OS firewalls (Windows has IPv6 enabled by default; ensure ICMPv6 rules permit ND). For step‑by‑step Linux examples and radvd usage, see the Linux IPv6 guides.

References: RFC 7526 (6to4 deprecation), Hurricane Electric Tunnelbroker, RFC 8200 (IPv6), RFC 4193 (ULA), and a Linux IPv6 tutorial for radvd/config examples.

Member Avatar for cjcook149
cjcook149 0 Newbie Poster

How do you run a trial of IPv6?

Member Avatar for reubenhwk
reubenhwk 0 Newbie Poster

Setup a 6to4 network! Don't bother waiting on your idiot ISP.

Member Avatar for Tauseefkhan
Tauseefkhan 0 Newbie Poster

nice post thank for this information

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