auto6to4

[SUMMARY]

This is a shell script to turn on/off an IPv6 tunnel using the tun6to4 interface, which exchanges IPv6 packets by encapsulating them in IPv4 packets and using protocol 41 to the IPv4 anycast address 192.88.99.1

Instructions for doing this typically discuss laborious manual configuration, tedious calculations, manipulation of various networking configuration files, and modifications when the host moves to a different IP address. Meaning basically no one does it. This script instead sets up the tunnel completely automatically, without monkeying with any networking configuration files. It attempts to be robust, for example, if the local host does not have a first-class IPv4 address the script simply exits with a cogent warning.

However, there are some options for unusual installations. In particular, if you are behind a NAT but have configured the NAT to route protocol 41 packets appropriately, you need to supply the externally apparent IP address using the -i option.

The invocation conventions are chosen to allow the script to be installed as /etc/init.d/auto6to4 using the standard mechanisms.

See the top of the script for additional instructions, dependencies, and configuration information, or invoke with the --help option for usage summary.

[ALTERNATIVES]

On Debian, a stanza in /etc/network/interfaces of the form

auto 6to4
iface 6to4 inet6 6to4
    local YOUR-IPv4-ADDRESS-HERE

may be an easier way to bring up a 6to4 interface, assuming you have a static IPv4 address.

[CAUTION]

Unless disabled with the -r option, if radvd is installed an IPv6 subnet will be created, routed through the newly-created tunnel, and advertised on the local network. This should enable IPv6 automatically on other machines on the local network. (If the host is on more than one local network, one such network will be created, routed, and advertised for each local network.)

If IPv6 is not working as well as IPv4, and the other machines on the local network are configured to prefer IPv6 to IPv4 when both are available for a particular connection (as is the unfortunate default on most Linux and *BSD distributions), this can cause performance problems and enormous start-up latency when local machines try to use IPv6 to communicate with remote hosts for which both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are available.

[FILES]

When radvd is used to advertise a subnet, the following temporary files are generated: /var/run/radvd/radvd-auto.conf /var/run/radvd/radvd-auto.pid

[EXAMPLE]

auto6to4 -r start auto6to4 stop

[AUTHOR]

Barak A. Pearlmutter [email protected]

[REPORTING BUGS]

For the latest version, and to report bugs or suggest improvements, see https://github.com/barak/auto6to4

[COPYRIGHT]

Released under the GNU GPLv2+.