IPv6

[TeeJayHoward]

Every place I've worked at has just flat out disabled IPv6. I interviewed with a company today who uses strictly IPv6. If I get the job, I'm going to need to know it inside and out.

So, anyone here familiar with IPv6? Can you recommend some videos to watch, web sites to read, books to purchase, etc? I've got a nice little home network I can muck about with - What should I be doing?

 

[Scott Laird]

It's not actually all that different. TCP and UDP are the same, and once DNS has done its job IPv4 vs v6 is nearly transparent these days. On the host side, pay attention to neighbor discovery; it replaces ARP and most of DHCP. It means that configuring routers is slightly more work than before, but not much.

Dynamic host addressing is normal on hosts, and generally based off of your MAC address. IIRC, DHCPv6 is generally used more for policy reasons than simple address assignment.

Perhaps the weirdest bit is that networks are almost always /64s, and network blocks go up from there. Oh, and reverse DNS is a pain to set up. The addresses are too long.

If your provider doesn't v6, then set up a tunnel with Hurricane Electric, add v6 to your router, configure ND and DNS, and then you should see all of your hosts suddenly pick up v6 addresses on their own, if it's not disabled.

 

[Kal G]

If they use primarily Cisco gear, IPv6 Fundamentals, by Rick Graziani, was a decent primer. Get the Kindle version if you decide to go this route.

 

[RyC]

I've heard HE's free "certification" is good at getting you up to speed with the basics: IPv6 Certification

I think you'll need a working IPv6 internet connection though, but as Scott said, they provide a free tunnel service

 

[MiniKnight]

HE i knew right away from ipv6 stuff when Patrick posted on the new sth Colo there. kinda geek cool

 

[PigLover]

HEs certification program really is pretty good for an introduction. It will walk you through it from the basics. They'll also walk you through setting up a tunnel if you don't have native v6 from your ISP.