Today is the IPv6 World Launch Day where major Internet Service Providers (ISP), Web companies and Internet equipment makers are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services. If you’re wondering what an IPv6 and IPv4 means and it’s usage, Google has a well explained FAQ here.

So what does it means for the users like me who are still in the IPv4 space. Well, you need not to worry actually as you will still be able to connect to any of the IPv6 enabled websites such as Facebook and Google through a Tunnel Broker which I will discuss in a bit for those who wants to checkout IPv6.

We will be using Sixxs IPv6 tunnel broker here simply because they support Anything in Anything (AYIYA) so even if you’re behind firewall you will still be able to connect to the tunnel broker. It is however discouraged to use the service to circumvent network policies or restrictions imposed by your administrator. If you are an administrator and wants to prevent or block your users from getting around your network policies then you may refer to this list of ports that the tunnel broker is using.

For those who wants to try out IPv6, you can signup for an account from SixXs here. Take note that the application is human verified and applications will be mostly likely denied if you submit wrong information when applying for an account.

Once you have your account created and activated, you need to request for a tunnel. Tunnel requests are manually verified and created so be as descriptive as possible to avoid getting your request denied. Now, once you have your tunnel created you can now download the Automatic IPv6 Connectivity Client Utility and the TUN/TAP32 drivers for your OS.

I’d suggest that you use the console based AICCU client as it’s easier to debug if something goes wrong while establishing connection to your assigned POP. Believe me, I’ve tried both GUI and Console, and for me, console is the way to go.

This is how my aiccu.conf looks like:

# AICCU Configuration

# Login information
username MYUSER-SIXXS
password MYPASSWORD

# Interface names to use
# ipv6_interface is the name of the interface that will be used as a tunnel interface.
# On *BSD the ipv6_interface should be set to gifX (eg gif0) for proto-41 tunnels
# or tunX (eg tun0) for AYIYA tunnels.
ipv6_interface sixxs

# The tunnel_id to use
# (only required when there are multiple tunnels in the list)
#tunnel_id Txxxx

# Be verbose?
verbose true

# Daemonize?
daemonize true

# Automatic Login and Tunnel activation?
automatic true

# Require TLS?
# When set to true, if TLS is not supported on the server
# the TIC transaction will fail.
# When set to false, it will try a starttls, when that is
# not supported it will continue.
# In any case if AICCU is build with TLS support it will
# try to do a 'starttls' to the TIC server to see if that
# is supported.
requiretls false

Save and put it in your c:\Windows directory

You can then run the aiccu-console utility from a command line:

c:\aiccu-console.exe

When connection has established successfully, open your browser and go to http://ipv6-test.com

You can also ping or nslookup www.google.com and www.facebook.com:

C:\ping -6 www.google.com

C:\ping -6 www.facebook.com

If you’re able to get a reply from their IPv6 address then congratulations, you’re now connected to both IPv4/6 worlds.

Below is an IPv6 traceroute results for www.facebook.com:

C:Usersrdc>tracert -6 www.facebook.com

Tracing route to www.facebook.com [2a03:2880:10:1f03:face:b00c:0:25]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1   464 ms   531 ms   449 ms  gw-376.chi-03.us.sixxs.net [2604:8800:100:177::1
]
  2     *      330 ms   456 ms  2620:0:6b0:a::53:1
  3   473 ms     *      402 ms  2620:0:6b0:a::1
  4   483 ms   477 ms   458 ms  equinix.br01.ord1.tfbnw.net [2001:504:0:4:0:3:29
34:1]
  5   452 ms   375 ms   501 ms  xe-2-2-0.br01.dfw1.tfbnw.net [2620:0:1cff:dead:b
eef::23d]
  6   514 ms   512 ms   522 ms  2620:0:1cff:dead:beee::105
  7   470 ms   468 ms     *     ae9.bb01.prn1.tfbnw.net [2620:0:1cff:dead:beef::
dd]
  8   495 ms     *      464 ms  ae0.dr02.prn1.tfbnw.net [2620:0:1cff:dead:beef::
1a1]
  9   555 ms   475 ms   489 ms  po1023.csw01b.prn1.tfbnw.net [2620:0:1cff:dead:b
eef::385]
 10   508 ms   536 ms   564 ms  2a03:2880:10:1f03:face:b00c:0:25

Trace complete.

C:Usersrdc>