Configure static IPv6 networking under RHEL 5.x / Fedora / CentOS Linux

Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora RHEL support IPv6 out of box. All you have to do is update two files and turn on networking.

You need to update and configure following files for IPv6 configuration:

1.     /etc/sysconfig/network : Turn on networking in this file.

2.     /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 : Set default IPv6 router IP and server IP address in this file.

Open /etc/sysconfig/network file, enter:# vi /etc/sysconfig/network
Append following line:

NETWORKING_IPV6=yes

Open /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (1st network config file)# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
Append following config directives for IPv6:

IPV6INIT=yes

IPV6ADDR=

IPV6_DEFAULTGW=

Here is my sample file with mix of IPv4 and IPv6 assigned to eth0:

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=static

ONBOOT=yes

HWADDR=00:30:48:33:bc:33

IPADDR=202.54.1.5

GATEWAY=202.54.1.3

NETMASK=255.255.255.248

IPV6INIT=yes

IPV6ADDR=2607:f0d0:1002:0011:0000:0000:0000:0002

IPV6_DEFAULTGW=2607:f0d0:1002:0011:0000:0000:0000:0001

Where,

§  NETWORKING_IPV6=yes|no – Enable or disable global IPv6 initialization.

§  IPV6INIT=yes – Enable or disable IPv6 configuration for all interfaces.

§  IPV6ADDR=2607:f0d0:1002:0011:0000:0000:0000:0002 – Specify a primary static IPv6 address here.

§  IPV6_DEFAULTGW=2607:f0d0:1002:0011:0000:0000:0000:0001 – Add a default route through specified gateway.

Save and close the file. Restart networking:# service network restart
Verify your configuration by pinging ipv6 enabled site such as ipv6.google.com:$ ping6 ipv6.google.com
Sample output:

PING ipv6.google.com(2001:4860:b002::68) 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=93.2 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=95.0 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=94.2 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=95.2 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=94.8 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=6 ttl=59 time=95.1 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=7 ttl=59 time=93.3 ms

64 bytes from 2001:4860:b002::68: icmp_seq=8 ttl=59 time=93.8 ms

--- ipv6.google.com ping statistics ---

8 packets transmitted, 8 received, 0% packet loss, time 7010ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 93.268/94.376/95.268/0.799 ms

Traces path to a network host, enter:$ traceroute6 ipv6.google.com