First things first. If you work in a small office/home office (SOHO) or are just interested in IPv6 at home, you don’t need to start switching over yet. Big businesses and large organizations are the ones that really need to get on the stick with IPv6. That said, I know many of you don’t want to wait to get your feet wet in IPv6 so here’s what’s what with IPv6 support in common SOHO server and desktop operating systems and network devices.
Operating Systems and IPv6 Support:
There may be some operating system out there with picture perfect IPv6 support, but I haven’t met it yet. Each has some quirks and some problems. As time goes by, more and more people insist on full-featured IPv6 support that will change. In the meantime though don’t be surprised if you run into problems every now and again with IPv6 and say Windows 7. I’m not picking on Windows 7; every operating system will have some troubles until everyone is on board with IPv6.
Windows 7 and Vista both come with IPv6 already installed. Indeed, several of Windows 7’s network features-DirectAccess and HomeGroup-depend on IPv6. XP users, however, have to expressly install IPv6.
On the Windows server side, you can install IPv6 on Windows Server 2003, but I don’t recommend it. Microsoft does much better with IPv6 on Windows Server 2008 R2.
Linux has long had IPv6 support. To set it up properly, though, you’ll need to get down and dirty with shell commands. Carla Schroder, a Linux and networking expert, has recently written a pair of quick IPv6 Linux guides: IPv6 Crash Course For Linux and Another IPv6 Crash Course For Linux: Real IPv6 Addresses, Routing, Name Services. With these you can get your basic Linux client and servers setup without tears. I expect the Linux distributors to provide GUI-based tools for essential IPv6 set-ups in the near future.
Apple already provides automated IPv6 support in Mac OS X. Under the hood, it uses the KAME open-source IPv6 stack, which also supports the BSD Unixes. To do more with the Mac OS X IPv6 support, check out the Ipv6INT page, Apple Mac OS X IPv6. As they note here, “The IPv6 documentation in Mac OS X is very sparse.” On the Mac server sides, there are some grave omissions. For example, as far as I’ve been able to tell there’s no support for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 (DHCPv6).
SOHO Routers and IPv6 Support
When you’re talking serious network hardware from vendors such as Cisco and Juniper all recent equipment supports IPv6. When it comes to SOHO or consumer-grade switches, routers and Wi-Fi access points (AP)s it’s a different story.
