In this chapter, you??™ll learn the basics of using IPv6: network addressing, autoconfiguration,
network interface configuration, ad-hoc IPv6 LANs, and how to calculate
IPv6 addresses without needing hundreds of fingers to count on.
IPv6 adoption is proceeding slowly in the U.S., but it is inevitable. It doesn??™t cost
anything but a bit of time to get acquainted with it in your test lab. Linux has
supported IPv6 since the later 2.1.x kernels, and most of the important Linux networking
utilities now support IPv6.
438 | Chapter 15: Getting Acquainted with IPv6
Most of the pieces are in place: most networking hardware (e.g., switches, interfaces,
routers) supports IPv6 now. Cameras, cell phones, PDAs, and all manner of
devices now support IPv6. Growing numbers of Internet service providers offer
native IPv6, and you can set up an IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnel that works over existing
networks, which is good for practice and testing. Standards and protocols are pretty
much hammered out and in place.
The two final pieces that are needed are first, application support (because networked
applications must explicitly support IPv6), and second, service providers
actually migrating to native IPv6.
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