IPv6 on a Mac (Pete's notes)

Testing IPv6

System Preferences->Network will show an IPv6 address if you've been given one by a router. If you're using DHCPv6, you won't see anything in System Preferences->Network.

Use ping6 to ping IPv6 destinations.

If you want to further test IPv6, try accessing an IPv6-only Web site using an IPv6 address. For example, if you look up www.kame.net, you'll get two addresses: an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address. You can try ipv6.google.com. To use an IPv6 address in the browser URL window, you have to enclose it in brackets. So visit
http://[2001:200::8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085]/
If it works, you be doing IPv6.

If nbspo autoconfiguration - using DHCPv6

The following describes how I got IPv6 working using my laptop's wireless interface on 2009-02-01 at the Joint Techs conference in Texas.p

If the IPv6 autoconfigure mechanism is working on the local network, you should be able to get your IPv6 address automatically. If IPv6 is available but autocanfiguration isn't working, you have to use DHCPV6 to get your IPv6 address.

I had to download a DHCPV6 client from SourceForge. Then...

configure
make
(as root)
make user=root group=wheel install


Put this in /usr/local/etc/dhcp6c.conf:

interface en1 {
    send ia-na 0;
    request domain-name-servers;
};
id-assoc na 0 {
    };

Then do

dhcp6c en1

To debug, do

dhcp6c -fdD en1

This got me an IPv6 address from the DHCPV6 server, but it won't show up in System Preferences->Network, which is designed to show what was learned from autoconfigured IPv6 addresses. The "ifconfig en1" command will show an inet6 address (ignore the one that starts with fe80). The "netstat -nr" command will show you an IPv6 default address. The "ndp -a" command will show , and when you visit http://www.kame.net/ you should see a moving turtle.