Topic: How to setup native IPv6 on WAN ?

[manankanchu]

Hi,

I have implemented IPv6 kernel support on my SME 7.4 and I'm using IPv6 through tunnels since a while successfully.

Now I have a native IPv6 connection available ... any idea on how to setup IPv6 on WAN port ?

Tnx !!

Rgds

  Matthias

[cactus]

Hi,

I have implemented IPv6 kernel support on my SME 7.4 and I'm using IPv6 through tunnels since a while successfully.

Now I have a native IPv6 connection available ... any idea on how to setup IPv6 on WAN port ?

Tnx !!

Rgds

  Matthias

Not that easy I think as you will have to rewrite all firewall rules to ipv6 I think and then also incorporate them in the configuration templates.

[manankanchu]

Not that easy I think as you will have to rewrite all firewall rules to ipv6 I think and then also incorporate them in the configuration templates.

Sure, but as this already exists for IPv4 those guys who did that should be able to port that stuff easily to IPv6 as there are basically same rules and same templates involved ...

Untils now there was always the discussion that native IPv6 is not availabe by providers but operating systems are ready but now I learn it's just the other way round

[cactus]

Sure, but as this already exists for IPv4 those guys who did that should be able to port that stuff easily to IPv6 as there are basically same rules and same templates involved ...

But they are "basically" busy and dedicate their free time to this distribution. The proper way to ask for new features is to launch a New Feature Request in the bugtracker, keep in mind that a lot features are desired and that there is only little time and crowd available to do so.
You would help the development team immensely by already documenting what you did to enable IPv6 and try and submit code and things that should be changed to that bug. If you already can find out what needs to be done that would save the development team a lot of work
For starters have a read through the SME Server Developers Guide linked in the wiki, you can learn a lot from it if you are willing to modify and improve SME Server.

[David Harper]

In addition to cactus' points, I'm also not sure that IPv6 is really relevent to our target audience (small offices) right now. I've not seen many IPv6 installs in my travels, and the one big exception I can think of went to IPv6 more because of poor planning than actual need.

[manankanchu]

In addition to cactus' points, I'm also not sure that IPv6 is really relevent to our target audience (small offices) right now. I've not seen many IPv6 installs in my travels, and the one big exception I can think of went to IPv6 more because of poor planning than actual need.

Well, if you limit your target audience to the US you may be right, in many other parts of the world it may get harder to get a static IPv4 address for a home server ... here in Switzerland they charge you up to 10 USD a month per IP

In addition all other systems now support IPv6 (I'm running Ubuntu desktop and server as well as WinXP all using v6) and it's just great to get rid of all this port mapping stuff in NATted networks which starts to drive me crazy ...

[cactus]

it's just great to get rid of all this port mapping stuff in NATted networks which starts to drive me crazy ...

Excuse my ignorance, but I am not that familiar with IPv6, so perhaps you can explain above statement to me. Why don't you need port forwards anymore when using IPv6?

[manankanchu]

Excuse my ignorance, but I am not that familiar with IPv6, so perhaps you can explain above statement to me. Why don't you need port forwards anymore when using IPv6?

On IPv4 you usually get one or a small numer of usable Public IP addresses, so you NAT and the devices in your LAN use private IP's. If you want to use servers in your private LAN you port forward e.g. port 80 to private IP of your webserver etc. ... so basis for all such problems is the insufficient number of public IP addresses for SME or home use. Again, may be different in US as there are abundant IPv4 addresses available AFAIK.

On IPv6 you get minimum a /64 (normally a /48 ) network of public IPv6 addresses so that's sufficient so set up some million servers at home each with it's public IP.

see http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ipv6policy.html#assignment_size