World IPv6 Day – Urbana campus information

World IPv6 Day

What is World IPv6 Day?

World IPv6 Day is a 24-hour chance for service providers to test out IPv6 and see how it works in their environment. Major providers like Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai are using June 8, 2011 (GMT) as their test. For people on our campus, the official “day” will be 7pm on June 7th through 7pm on June 8th. The goal of this exercise is to see what is easy, what is hard, and what breaks when you turn on IPv6.

The website http://www.worldipv6day.org/ has more information on the World IPv6 Day.

What is IPv6 and Why do I care?

  • The short version is IPv6 is the next generation of IP addressing, since the world is running low on the current IPv4 addresses. Low enough that some users are only getting IPv6 addresses. You care because those users can only access your services through conversion systems, and those are out of your control. You don’t know what their user experience is and whether or not they think your service is poor because of that conversion. So you want your services native on IPv4 and IPv6 so that all users get the experience you planned for them.
  • CITES Networking and Security groups did a pair of presentations at the Fall 2010 IT Pro Forum about this. You can see the video here: http://itproforum.illinois.edu/2010Fall/schedule.php#2-B

What IPv6 services are available on the Urbana campus?

Urbana Campus Permanent IPv6 Services

  • Network Time (NTP)
  • Akamai (the caching servers are hosted on the ICCN network and serve all three campuses)
  • Network Backbone
  • ICCN (The regional network that connects Urbana with the other U of I campuses, the Internet, and R&E network providers like Internet2)

Urbana Campus Services being tested on World IPv6 Day

How to participate in World IPv6 Day

From the Urbana campus, you need to get on the IllinoisNet wireless SSID, and try things out. Android phones, some iPods and iPhones (running iOS 4), iPads, Windows laptops (native on Vista and 7, a patch is needed for XP to support IPv6) and Apple laptops (10.4.8 and later) should all be able to get IPv6 addresses and use them. If you haven’t connected to IllinoisNet before, you can get information on doing that at this webpage: http://www.cites.illinois.edu/wireless/wpa2/index.html

Once you are on IllinoisNet, go to a website like http://www.whatismyipv6.com/ and make sure you got an IPv6 address (if you didn’t, see the troubleshooting section below). Then try out websites like Google and Facebook see if you can tell a difference. Try the campus IPv6 websites listed above and make sure you can connect. You might want to try and see the “Dancing Turtle” which is a page that is only animated if you connect with IPv6 to this website: http://www.kame.net/ . If everything is going smoothly, you shouldn’t be able to tell you are on IPv6. Just do your normal email, web and other network things. For the servers and services testing IPv6 you’ll be providing them with data in their log files, in number of IPv6 users they served and if there are problems, by letting them know about them.

A handy tool for Firefox users is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/showip/ which shows the IP address of the server you’re connecting to at the bottom of your window. you can quickly tell if you’re on an IPv6 server or not.

How to provide feedback on your IPv6 experience

  • ITPros can call 244-1000 to report problems or outages of any kind, whether or not they are related to IPv6
  • For less urgent feedback, ITPros can join the IPV6-USERS listserv and post feedback there
  • If you are not an ITPro then please send email to ipv6day-feedback@ct-mail.cites.uiuc.edu with your feedback.

Troubleshooting IPv6

I didn’t get an IPv6 address, how do I get one?

  • First make sure you are connected to IllinoisNet wireless as your only network connection
  • Then make sure you haven’t turned IPv6 off on your system
  • Windows XP users might need to install a patch. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2478747
  • If you are on IllinoisNet and have IPv6 enabled but still aren’t getting an address you can stop by our World IPv6 Day table just outside the CITES Help Desk in DCL from 10am to 4pm on June 8th and someone will help you figure out why it isn’t working.

I got an IPv6 address but I can’t get to any of the IPv6-only pages

  • If you have time, come to our table just outside the CITES Help Desk in DCL from 10am to 4pm on June 8th and someone will help you figure out why it isn’t working.

I got an IPv6 address but now nothing works

  • Follow the instructions for turning IPv6 off below.
  • If you have time, come to our table just outside the CITES Help Desk in DCL from 10am to 4pm on June 8th and someone will help you figure out why it isn’t working.

I got an IPv6 address and something are working but others aren’t

  • Follow the instructions for turning IPv6 off below.
  • If you have time, come to our table just outside the CITES Help Desk in DCL from 10am to 4pm on June 8th and someone will help you figure out why it isn’t working.

How to turn IPv6 off