IPv6 up and running on Fedora

Sun 03 April 2011

I'm coming to you through the shiny and "new" IPv6 Internet.  No, seriously, I am!  I'm sure there are many people in the community that have jumped on the IPv6 bandwagon but I just made the leap this weekend.

I'm using the "IPv6 development and tunnel broker" SixXS and it was actually quite easy to make it all happen.  After completing the paperwork for obtaining an account I read ahead and discovered that SixXS uses the program AICCU for the client-side of the IPv6 tunnel.  Fedora already has this packaged and in the repos so it's an easy install.  After applying for a tunnel and being approved I modified the config file and started AICCU up.  I did a quick ifconfig and found a new interface there waiting for me with an IPv6 address and everything.  Very cool.

I visited a test site to see how prepared I would be for World IPv6 Day and discovered that I was almost there.  The only problem was my ISP's DNS server wouldn't serve up AAAA responses (it's not aware of the IPv6 world just yet).  That wasn't going to stop me, though.  I installed BIND9 and did a quick hardening of the settings and two minutes later Wireshark showed AAAA queries and responses and IPv6 traffic flowing. What was surprising to me was that a quick visit to fedoraproject.org yielded a trip down the IPv6 Internet instead of IPv4!

I was surprised at how quick, easy, and painless it was to jump on the IPv6 highway.  Maybe more people will also find out how easy it really is to do the same!

By Sparks, Category: Computers

Tags: IPv6 / networking /