So you’ve heard about Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), the latest and greatest Internet Protocol address strategy. You’ve heard that it will solve the looming shortage of IP addresses, that it changes the format of IP addresses, and even that some sites are using IPv6 now. You might be wondering if your Linux system is IPv6-ready, whether you can use IPv6 now, and whether you can set up your Apache Web server to use it. For some versions of Linux the answers to these pressing questions are yes, yes, and yes.
But wait! Don’t run off and log on as root yet! While IPv6 is largely defined and some Linux kernels support it, a variety of issues remain unresolved and some features are not yet implemented. IPv6 is not ready for prime-time yet. Having said that, it’s still very worthwhile to look at the next generation of Internet addressing.
Let’s take a closer look at how IPv6 differs from its predecessor, IPv4, walk through the process of enabling IPv6 on your Linux system, and configure an Apache Web server to recognize the new IP address formats.
From IPv4 to IPv6
An Internet Protocol (IP) address uniquely identifies a single device connected to the Internet. In Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) an IP address is 32 bits long and is represented visually by separating the address into four octets — four groups of eight bits represented in decimal notation — separated by dots. Familiar IP addresses,…
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