Setting up IPv6 on LM 21.1

[jave]

Hi
I'm a little bit confused as how to setup IPv6 on my LM 21.1 PC.

So far I think I have succeeded in getting an IPv6 address for my PC from my modem/router, but when I go to https://test-ipv6.com/ it fails.

My ISP has referred me to Google, as they don't officially offer support for IPv6 YET. So I'm here asking for advice.

I don't really need IPv6 - just doing this for fun and games. Thank you to all that reply.

[Midnight True]

Please tell us what version of Mint you are using.

In Xfce, Right click on Wifi Icon ---> Edit Connections ---> Choose the wifi SSID you want to configure ---> Click the gear icon on the lower left ---> IPv6 Settings

[jave]

Please tell us what version of Mint you are using.

Yes, of course. LM 21.1 Cinnamon 64bit

[Coggy]

To find out what's currently happening, please can you post the output of ip addr, ip -6 route, ip route get 1234:: and host google.com - this should help work out what's wrong. Then folk can think about the why, and what to do.

[jave]

ok here goes...

ip addr:

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jave@ryzen9:~$ ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp4s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 18:c0:4d:95:43:8b brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.1.50/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global noprefixroute enp4s0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 2401:d002:1103:a101::1/128 scope global dynamic noprefixroute 
       valid_lft 8138sec preferred_lft 8138sec
    inet6 fe80::ac7a:2c5c:5dac:1aaa/64 scope link noprefixroute 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

ip -6 route:

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jave@ryzen9:~$ ip -6 route
::1 dev lo proto kernel metric 256 pref medium
2401:d002:1103:a101::1 dev enp4s0 proto kernel metric 100 pref medium
fe80::/64 dev enp4s0 proto kernel metric 1024 pref medium

ip route get 1234::

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jave@ryzen9:~$ ip route get 1234::
RTNETLINK answers: Network is unreachable

host google.com:

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jave@ryzen9:~$ host google.com
google.com has address 142.250.76.110
google.com has IPv6 address 2404:6800:4006:813::200e
google.com mail is handled by 10 smtp.google.com.

[Coggy]

OK, here's what I can get from your reply:

1: Your interface does have a good IPv6 address, but it is marked noprefixroute - I think this is your problem.
2: You don't have an IPv6 default route - probably because of 1:
3: 1234:: is not reachable because you have no default route.
4: DNS is working - you successfully resolved Google's address (some DNS servers don't tell you IPv6 addresses).

This is where I reach the end of my knowledge. How did you get that IPv6 address? Here's one article I found that might help:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... orkmanager

[RowlandP]

I don't really need IPv6 - just doing this for fun and games.

But why ?
I do not understand why anyone internally would need IPv6 ?
If you use the 10.0.0.0 range, you can have over 16 million computers, printers, routers etc, do you have that many ?
I can understand why IPv6 is required for the internet, but internally ???

[jave]

I don't really need IPv6 - just doing this for fun and games.

But why ?
I do not understand why anyone internally would need IPv6 ?
If you use the 10.0.0.0 range, you can have over 16 million computers, printers, routers etc, do you have that many ?
I can understand why IPv6 is required for the internet, but internally ???

No of course I don't have over 16 million devices. Like I said, just for fun and games.

[Couch_Potato]

@jave

Did you resolve your issue? I struggling getting is working right as well.

[RowlandP]

After this thread was opened, I did some investigation about IPv6, I knew it had been in development for some time, but didn't know just how long. It was first started in 1998, yes 25 years ago and it still hasn't replaced IPv4.This is probably because, instead of just extending IPv4, they, in my opinion, tried to be really clever and come up with something entirely new and wasn't really compatible with IPV4. Yes there was a need for larger numbers out there on the internet, but they way they have gone about it is, in my opinion, a damn awful mess. If you want to have another mess, this time with an IPv6 dhcp server (something reallly simple, give an address to a computer etc), have a look at Kea, boy is that a mess, I call it the jack of dhcp servers and master of none, to cap it all they have declared the old isc-dhcp-server EOL.

If you want my opinion, do not attempt to use IPv6 internally, that way, in my opinion, lies madness, there is absolutely no need for it. Perhaps, after another 10 years, the powers that be will admit that, IPv6 as is, is not fit for purpose.

[Coggy]

Oh boy. That reminds me of the cavalry officers who once argued that there was no place for tanks or aeroplanes on the battlefields of war.

It is already clear that IPv4 is not fit for purpose any more. For the simple reason that it mandates a 4-byte IP address. Anything that provides a larger address space is not IPv4, by definition. IPv6 mandates a 16 byte IP address, and although there are other differences to IPv4, they are minor.

There is little need for IPv6 in isolated networks and I would suggest IPv4 is probably easier for home networks. But if you want connectivity to the rest of the world, you will need IPv6 eventually. There is just no way the whole of the world can fit on IPv4.

[RowlandP]

Oh boy. That reminds me of the cavalry officers who once argued that there was no place for tanks or aeroplanes on the battlefields of war.

It is already clear that IPv4 is not fit for purpose any more. For the simple reason that it mandates a 4-byte IP address. Anything that provides a larger address space is not IPv4, by definition. IPv6 mandates a 16 byte IP address, and although there are other differences to IPv4, they are minor.

There is little need for IPv6 in isolated networks and I would suggest IPv4 is probably easier for home networks. But if you want connectivity to the rest of the world, you will need IPv6 eventually. There is just no way the whole of the world can fit on IPv4.

Thanks for agreeing with me that there is a need for IPv6 on the internet but not on an internal network. Seeing as you seem to know about IPv6, can you explain why, after 25 years, it still hasn't replaced IPv4 ?

[Coggy]

Thanks for agreeing with me that there is a need for IPv6 on the internet but not on an internal network. Seeing as you seem to know about IPv6, can you explain why, after 25 years, it still hasn't replaced IPv4 ?

Inertia mainly. Implementing a new IP version costs money, for equipment or worse, time for training and learning. People don't want to expend time or money until there is a clear payback. IPv4 addresses have run out, but the countries that have the highest IPv4 address allocations (per capita) are yet to really suffer difficulties due to address shortages. NAT and CG-NAT have delayed the real address shortage crunch, but they have their own issues, especially CG-NAT.

Peer-to-peer applications like gaming and conferencing may well be the first to have significant difficulties where bouncing through a central server brings privacy and performance issues. But connectivity to those countries that are already essentially IPv6 only might start to add pressure too.

[RowlandP]

Inertia ? 25 years and it still really hasn't gained traction. Could it be that it doesn't really fix things for most users and they didn't really think 'now what does this need to do easily' and just ploughed on adding useless things that just make it incomprehensible and slow, easy to break, etc.

In that time scale , Windows 98, 2000, 7, Vista and 8 have all come and gone.

[Coggy]

...useless things that just make it incomprehensible and slow, easy to break, etc.

- I'm not aware of any useless things having been added. Which features to you think are useless?
- Which bits are you unable to comprehend? Hexadecimal?
- It's not slower than IPv4. It is potentially faster because of the flow labels simplify the work of routers (maybe what you call useless and incomprehensible).
- I'm not aware of it being easier to break than IPv4. Fault-finding knowledge is still rare though.

Can you explain your justification for these accusations?
I suspect that you just don't feel as though learning more about IPv6 is worth the effort because the address shortage hasn't affected you yet. That's inertia. And for sure, you will be able to ignore IPv6 for a few more years.