It’s time: No reason should prevent you from adding IPv6 connectivity to your machine – desktop, notebook or server. Of course it is still an issue, as most internet service providers don’t provide native IPv6 yet. So in most cases the easiest way for you is setting up an ipv6 tunnel to a IPv6 broker. There are currently several IPv6 brokers around providing you with IPv6 access for free. Let me, in short, show a simple way of getting this with the package „aiccu“ and the IPv6 broker „Sixxs“.

Apply for an account

First you have to apply for an account on SixXS. Go to sixxs.net and sign up for a new account. Please note: As Sixxs is kind of an ISP, they really need valid customer information from you. If you provide them with a link to your Xing or LinkedIn profile they’ll give you even more credits.

Your application will be checked and (probably) given access. Wait for the mail. Afterwards log in with the credentials on the SixXS site and request a new tunnel and decide for an entry point close to you. Also this step needs to be approved. Wait for the mail, it will take upto a day. Now you should have a Sixxs account, an approved tunnel request and of course login credentials for Sixxs.

Set up aiccu

Now let’s get it running. Install the package aiccu via „aptitude install aiccu“. During installation you will be asked, which broker you are using. SixXS is already preconfigured. Nice, isn’t it? So choose SixXS and provide your credentials. If everything is fine, aiccu will check SixXS and ask for your tunnel data. If you did not get an error message, you are already done!

Open a terminal and run „ifconfig sixxs“ – it should show a new network interface with an IPv6 address. Now let’s check, if you have really access to IPv6. Open Firefox and go to www.kame.net. If the turtle logo is moving, your are using IPv6, if it does not, you don’t.

The SixXS credit system

Please note: When using SixXS you should understand it’s point system. For every action like requesting a tunnel or even a subnet, you will be taken points. For running a stable connection, you will be given points. This should motivate you to really use the service. Check it.

Security issues

Also note that all your IPv6 traffic will be directed through the broker. Of course you should check your security. As a tunnel with aiccu will „break“ a router (filtering on firewalls won’t grab the IPv6 data), you have to take care of the security by yourself on the machine which has IPv6 access.

IPv6 content

How to continue? Check www.sixxs.net/misc/coolstuff/ for interesting IPv6 only content. Yes, there are services on the web providing you with nice content via ipv6, for free. For instance access to high traffic news servers, access to a IPv6 freenode server and so on. Always keep in mind, that not every application yet is ready for IPv6 or needs to be configured to allow IPv6. With Debian/Ubuntu at least you should be able using Firefox, Thunderbird, the newsread Pan and Irssi as a start.

Happy networking!

[update]

Tiago mentioned in the comments, that he set up a wiki page explaining the IPv6 in detail. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IPv6. A really nice howto, which’ll probably work for most Debian based systems.