I've been trying to enable IPv6 on my network since IPv6 day on June 8. I found out that my old router Netgear WNR 2000 v2 even flashed with DD-WHT doesn't support IPv6 because of the small 4 MB of flash memory with 32 megabyte of RAM. I needed a router with at least 8 MB of flash memory minimum in order to include IPv6 in the firmware.
I found such a router and it was on sale. I've just bought the Netgear WNR 3500l which is IPv6 compatible with the latest firmware update. This router has 8 MB of flash memory with 64 MB of RAM. With the latest firmware this router is fully IPv6 compatible and I did not need to re-flash it with DD-WHT either. Overall, the performance of this new router is quite comparable to the Netgear WNR 2000 v2 one minus the IPv6 support.
I've tried using another Netgear WNR 2000 v2 router that has been flashed with DD-WHT but set up as Repeater Bridge to extend my Wi-Fi. When I connect to the Repeater Bridge, I no longer have any IPv6 access. But when I reconnect back to the main router IPv6 access is enable. This proves that the Netgear WNR 2000 v2 router is unable to pass any IPv6 traffic.
When using this setup, be sure to set the DSL modem to a fully bridge mode to avoid having double NAT which will block IPv6 traffic. Under full bridge mode the modem's GUI is totally disabled and you will not be able to login short of a reset. The modem would just simply be a dumb modem without NAT and SP1 that will pass all traffic including IPv6 one.
I've configured IPv6 tunneling on my router by logging into the router's GUI and then go to IPv6 section and enable it. Under Internet connection type there are eight possible settings. The first one is Disabled setting which is the default, the second one is Autodetect, the third one is 6 to 4 Tunnel and the fourth one is Passed Through. The fifth one is Fixed, the six one is DHCP, the seventh one is PPPOE and eighth one is Auto Config. I've managed to get it working by selecting the third one which is 6 to 4 tunnel.
On the next settings down is below 6 to 4 relay router. On this one there are only a possibility of two settings, auto and static IP address. I tried auto which doesn't work and next I tried static IP address. For static IP address I copied down the sonic-side v4 address at sonic.net. To get that you have to login to Members Tools at sonic.net and then go to Labs then to IPv6 tunnel. From there click on View/Request Tunnel and then click on View Example Configuration and it will open another window. On the top, you see the V4 address followed by = sonic-side v4 address. My guess is what I've have done was to create a V4 to V6 tunnel from sonic.net's sonic-side V4 address server to my public IP address.
On the last setting section for IPv6 which is LAN Setup, I chose Use DHCP Server. In this section there are three possible combinations and they are Use DHCP Server, Auto Config and Use This Interface ID. On the bottom I click apply in order for the configuration to take effect.
I've managed to get IPv6 tunneling to work on my 2 Windows 7 computers. On my Windows 7 computers to avoid conflicts, I've uninstalled Toledo Tunneling. I went online and did the IPV6 test and the test shows that I have both an IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and indicated that I would be able to go to purely IPv6 sites as configured.
It's a different story on my two Windows XP with SP3 computers. I had to enable IPv6 protocol which by default was disable on Windows XP. After doing that, no matter how I tried I wasn't able to go to any IPv6 only sites at all.
I will continue to experiment on my Windows XP computers trying to get them to work with IPv6.
Update July 14, 2011: I've managed to get IPv6 to work on all my computers. I did this by reconfiguring my router's IPv6 section from the previous setting earlier. As before, I log into my router's web interface and go to the IPv6 section and change the configuration to Auto Detect on the Internet Connection Type section from 4 to 6 tunnel. On the next section down which is LAN Setup, I've changed the to Auto Config from Use DHCP Server. Next I click Apply and then click Status Refresh and then log off. With this new setting, I don't know whether I would still have to log into sonic.net to reconfigure the tunnel whenever my public IP address changes? Regardless of what at least, I got it working on all my computers this time.
Before I managed to get it working on all my computers, I did gave another tunnel broker a try to see how good it is and it turned out to be unsatisfactory. I did register with http://gogonet.gogo6.com and tried out their IPv6 tunnel broker service Freenet6 which was extremely slow most of the time. When I try to play some video on an IPv6 site, it would time out and not play. When I disable their client and switch to sonic.net's tunneling service, the video was then able to play. Each time when I test to see which is better, I would have to disable one or the other since the both tunnels cannot work in conjunction. With this comparison, the one with sonic.net is so much better with much better speed and consistency.
I found such a router and it was on sale. I've just bought the Netgear WNR 3500l which is IPv6 compatible with the latest firmware update. This router has 8 MB of flash memory with 64 MB of RAM. With the latest firmware this router is fully IPv6 compatible and I did not need to re-flash it with DD-WHT either. Overall, the performance of this new router is quite comparable to the Netgear WNR 2000 v2 one minus the IPv6 support.
I've tried using another Netgear WNR 2000 v2 router that has been flashed with DD-WHT but set up as Repeater Bridge to extend my Wi-Fi. When I connect to the Repeater Bridge, I no longer have any IPv6 access. But when I reconnect back to the main router IPv6 access is enable. This proves that the Netgear WNR 2000 v2 router is unable to pass any IPv6 traffic.
When using this setup, be sure to set the DSL modem to a fully bridge mode to avoid having double NAT which will block IPv6 traffic. Under full bridge mode the modem's GUI is totally disabled and you will not be able to login short of a reset. The modem would just simply be a dumb modem without NAT and SP1 that will pass all traffic including IPv6 one.
I've configured IPv6 tunneling on my router by logging into the router's GUI and then go to IPv6 section and enable it. Under Internet connection type there are eight possible settings. The first one is Disabled setting which is the default, the second one is Autodetect, the third one is 6 to 4 Tunnel and the fourth one is Passed Through. The fifth one is Fixed, the six one is DHCP, the seventh one is PPPOE and eighth one is Auto Config. I've managed to get it working by selecting the third one which is 6 to 4 tunnel.
On the next settings down is below 6 to 4 relay router. On this one there are only a possibility of two settings, auto and static IP address. I tried auto which doesn't work and next I tried static IP address. For static IP address I copied down the sonic-side v4 address at sonic.net. To get that you have to login to Members Tools at sonic.net and then go to Labs then to IPv6 tunnel. From there click on View/Request Tunnel and then click on View Example Configuration and it will open another window. On the top, you see the V4 address followed by = sonic-side v4 address. My guess is what I've have done was to create a V4 to V6 tunnel from sonic.net's sonic-side V4 address server to my public IP address.
On the last setting section for IPv6 which is LAN Setup, I chose Use DHCP Server. In this section there are three possible combinations and they are Use DHCP Server, Auto Config and Use This Interface ID. On the bottom I click apply in order for the configuration to take effect.
I've managed to get IPv6 tunneling to work on my 2 Windows 7 computers. On my Windows 7 computers to avoid conflicts, I've uninstalled Toledo Tunneling. I went online and did the IPV6 test and the test shows that I have both an IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and indicated that I would be able to go to purely IPv6 sites as configured.
It's a different story on my two Windows XP with SP3 computers. I had to enable IPv6 protocol which by default was disable on Windows XP. After doing that, no matter how I tried I wasn't able to go to any IPv6 only sites at all.
I will continue to experiment on my Windows XP computers trying to get them to work with IPv6.
Update July 14, 2011: I've managed to get IPv6 to work on all my computers. I did this by reconfiguring my router's IPv6 section from the previous setting earlier. As before, I log into my router's web interface and go to the IPv6 section and change the configuration to Auto Detect on the Internet Connection Type section from 4 to 6 tunnel. On the next section down which is LAN Setup, I've changed the to Auto Config from Use DHCP Server. Next I click Apply and then click Status Refresh and then log off. With this new setting, I don't know whether I would still have to log into sonic.net to reconfigure the tunnel whenever my public IP address changes? Regardless of what at least, I got it working on all my computers this time.
Before I managed to get it working on all my computers, I did gave another tunnel broker a try to see how good it is and it turned out to be unsatisfactory. I did register with http://gogonet.gogo6.com and tried out their IPv6 tunnel broker service Freenet6 which was extremely slow most of the time. When I try to play some video on an IPv6 site, it would time out and not play. When I disable their client and switch to sonic.net's tunneling service, the video was then able to play. Each time when I test to see which is better, I would have to disable one or the other since the both tunnels cannot work in conjunction. With this comparison, the one with sonic.net is so much better with much better speed and consistency.
