June 8th 2011 is designated as world IPv6 day. For most people it’s going to be a relatively uneventful day. However, for those who advocate the use of IPv6, it’s going to be a very exciting day. Essentially it’s a test drive that’s sponsored by the Internet Society and a number of large organizations.
Here’s How It Works
When you look up a web site on the internet a DNS resolution occurs. The record that’s returned is called an “A” record. In IPv6 the record is called a “AAAA” record. On World IPv6 day “AAAA” records will be enabled for those participating in the test drive. If you are using IPv6 you will be able to resolve and access these organizations using the new “AAAA” record.
How Can You Participate?
There are a few ways you can participate.
Hurricane Electric
Head on over to Hurricane Electric’s Free IPv6 Tunnel Broker service and get an account. Then use a D-Link DIR-632 Wireless-N 8-Port Router
, or similar device. You can check out my article on how to set it up over on my personal blog.
SixXS
You can also check out SixXS tunnel broker server and this write-up on how to get going.
gogo6
Head on over to gogo6 and watch the tutorial video on configuring IPv6 in 60 seconds.
In The End, It’s Worth It To Learn
In the end, it’s worth it to learn how IPv6 will play a part in your everyday network experience. If you’re still having issues getting past the IPv6 jitters you are welcome to join me for a free webinar on June 8th, 2011. The Webinar is sponsored by Ascolta and you can get more information and select a time to attend the Webinar that fits your schedule.
For those unaware, ISOC is sponsoring World IPv6 Day where major content providers will do a test flight of making their services available on IPv6. This is a great opportunity for home, smb and enterprise IT professionals to test their ability to reach resources via IPv6 if they have v6 available.
The California IPv6 Task Force website is already dual stacked and even shows you what IPv4 or v6 address you are connecting to the site with, that is in the upper right below the turtle. As an added bonus, the turtle will be swimming if you connect with IPv6 so technically the content is slightly different depending on which version you connect with.
So use this opportunity to get your lab up and working and to test things out to show you can at least get IPv6 working by June 8th. The countdown is on – are you ready?
- Ed Horley
There is a great write up on the recent denial of temporary IPv4 allocation to the folks who run Microsoft TechEd in Australia. (Ed. note – check the date 
Regardless, it shows now how important it is for folks to really start learning and preparing for the situation where you might only have IPv6 access to the Internet and do you have a transition technology in place to address talking back to your IPv4 only resources. Alternately, are you making your key resources IPv6 enabled which would still allow a client machine that is only IPv6 able to access your content?
Get ready, things are moving quicker than many predicted even with this “timely” article.
- Ed
If you happen to be traveling to London next week check out Bring on IPv6. They look to have a nice line up of speakers for the event. In late April the Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force is hosting their annual IPv6 summit in Denver, CO. We highly encourage folks to attend the event as it is the largest most well attended IPv6 event in North America, the speaker list top notch and also it optionally has a pre-conference hands on lab. Given the cost of the event it is a steal!
- Ed
The CAv6TF is excited to help out the Security B-Sides with their San Francisco event happening Mon Feb 14th and Tues Feb 15th at the Zeum in San Francisco. This event is around the corner from RSA so please drop by if you are interested in seeing IPv6 in action. We were able to set up and deliver IPv6 for the event for both wired and wireless for presenters and users.
Hopefully with a bit of exposure to security professionals, IPv6 will gain their interest and help them ask good questions of vendors and suppliers what the state of their IPv6 readiness is today and their road map for the future.
- Ed
IANA this morning did a formal hand over of the last 5 /8 blocks. The Internet Society has a nice statement on the event. Here is ARIN’s press statement. Oddly enough, there doesn’t appear to be any formal statement on the IANA website. If you aren’t seeing the swimming turtle on the upper right of our page you aren’t using IPv6 to view the site. It might be time to start working on plans to get on IPv6.
- Ed
The V6 World Congress will be held Feb 8-11th in Paris, France. There is a pretty impressive line up for speakers for the event including Fred Baker, Bob Hinden, Erik Kline and others. If you have the time and budget it is likely going to be a great conference.
- Ed
For those that missed the gogoNET LIVE! IPv6 Conference in San Jose, CA this last November you are in luck. All the video from the event has been posted and is now available. In addition, the presentation slide decks are also available to download.
Enjoy.
- Ed
We have updated the California IPv6 Task Force website to utilize WordPress and syndication feeds. The original cav6tf.org website content can be found at http://cav6tf.org/archive/ and we will be reproducing some of that content in the WordPress format too.
We hope the new site will be an improvement in getting IPv6 content that is relevant for those living and/or working in California. If you have a business or do business in California then we hope this will be a resource you find helpful.
- Ed
Welcome to the California IPv6 Task Force website, a volunteer Not-For-Profit 501(c)3* organization. The California IPv6 Task Force (CAv6TF) is devoted to IPv6 use, education, and deployment through advocacy, membership, certification, and learning resources for its base of internet protocol engineering members.
