I'm sure we're all familiar with IPv4, we encounter it in our every day situation, like it or not or even realise it, IPv4 is everywhere. But there's one weakness in IPv4, it uses a 32bit pattern in it's addresses making it only capable of 4 billion addresses, 4 billion might sound like a lot but it isn't. Considering the large boom of users that the internet is experiencing we're set to run out of addresses by about 2012 or 2011. Sounds frightening I suppose? Well not really, IPv6 is here to save the day, it's existed since about 1998 I believe and is capable of much much more than IPv4, we wouldn't run out for decades or even centuries.

But the problem is, we have 2 years yet and still not every ISP provides IPv6 support, nor do many manufacturers or software developers. So chances are your broadband router wont' support IPv6 (like mine), or maybe not every program you use is capable of it. Not many servers use it otherwise and have an IPv4 address anyway. But we gotta make the transition sooner rather than later?

My ISP recently just started offering IPv6 but unfortunately my router doesn't support IPv6, and i dont' have a spare PC to hookup to my router to use for DNS, DHCP etc. So I dont' have much choice, IPv4 is the only thing i can really go for on my router. But some people have been making software to basically give you support IPv6, and there are some free services for it so even if your ISP doesn't support IPv6 you can still use it.

I'm lucky as my ISP gives me full access to their IPv6 network free of charge and they're the only ISP in my country offering such service. So you might have to pass up on the idea of IPv6 for the time being if the service lags for you (e.g latency issues).

The program in this "presentation" is called Gateway6. It's the only program I know of as my ISP did recommend it with tunneling IPv6. It wouldnt' let itself install on windows 7 64bit but i managed to force it to install by emulating it in XP sp2 which seemed to work fine.

It also has it's source available for download so you can compile it on BSD or Linux.

you can get the latest version from, http://go6.net/4105/download.asp *note: I did get like 20 - 30kb/s oddly enough on that download, it's about 3mb so if you experience it, just wait*

It does require Microsoft's .NET Framework, (Pre installed on windows 7 and vista though) to run and installs a third party network driver which is required for the use of IPv6. Once installed the program doesn't require the PC to restart and should work fine, when you do get it setup you can either use, Freenet6 or some other service like it. For me I just had some details to fill in from my ISP (username and pass), then I could use it flawlessly, to test if it is working fine after setting it up and connecting you can try and ping localhost, if it isworking it should resolve to ::1. or you could try ping ipv6.google.com or ipv6.internode.on.net and see if you get some incredibly long addresses. (use ping -6 in command prompt to force the use of ipv6 and ping -4 to force the use of ipv4)

Afterwards if it's working you can enjoy feeling smug for yourself. If only your router would support IPv6, DHCP has been replaced with something much better i heard with IPv6, damn shame i can't have a look though, damn 2wire