Introduction
In
this guide, you will configure IPv6 support on your TeraSwitch VPS.
This will allow it to communicate across the internet using the latest
standards.
Prerequisites
Before you begin this guide you’ll need the following:
- One Windows VPS running Windows Server 2019
Step 1 — Locating the Address
To
start, you need to locate the IPv6 address that was automatically
assigned to your server. Login to your TeraSwitch portal at
https://my.teraswitch.com/clientarea.php.
From the top menu bar, navigate to
Services >
My Services, and then choose the VPS you would like to configure.
Next, scroll down to
Interfaces and look for
Fixed IP Address. You will see at least two addresses. The longer one is your
IPv6 address for this specific server.
For example, the IPv6 address for your server might look similar to this:
2607:fdc0:2:0:f816:3eff:febb:61ee
Step 2 — Calculating the Gateway
Windows will also need to know the location of the
default gateway in order to sucessfully send traffic outside the network. At TeraSwitch, this will always be the address ending in
...0000:0000:0000:0001.
In IPv6, we can compress all of those zeroes, and rewrite the ending like this:
::1
So for example:
|
|
| If your IPv6 address is: |
2607:fdc0:2:0:f816:3eff:febb:61ee |
| Your default gateway is: |
2607:fdc0:2:0::1 |
Step 3 — Applying the Configuration
In this step you will insert the address and gateway into Window’s configuration.
To do this, connect to your server, and then open the
TCP/IPv6 Properties dialog:
- Click Start
- Click Settings (the gear icon)
- Click Network & Internet
- Under Change your network settings, click Change adapter options
- Double-click on your primary ethernet adapter (for example, Ethernet 2)
- Click Properties
- Double-click Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)
In this dialog box, enter the following information:
| Field |
Value |
| Use the following IPv6 addresses: |
Selected |
| IPv6 address |
Your IPv6 address from step 1 |
| Subnet prefix length |
64 |
| Default gateway |
Your default gateway from step 2 |
| Use the following DNS server addresses: |
Selected |
| Preferred DNS server: |
2607:4700:4700::1111 |
| Alternate DNS server: |
2606:4700:4700::1001 |
Note: you may choose any DNS servers you like. The examples here are provided by Cloudflare, who are located in our datacenter.
For example, your configuration might look like this:
Once you’re done, click
OK, and
OK. After a couple of seconds, the status window will update, and you will see IPv6 connectivity.
Step 5 — Testing Connectivity
You can test IPv6 connectivity several ways.
Note
that you would need to install a modern browser like Firefox or Chrome.
This test will not show an accurate result in Internet Explorer 11,
which is Windows Server 2019’s default browser.
Ping an IPv6 server
In PowerShell, run:
ping 2606:4700:4700::1111
Output:
Pinging 2606:4700:4700::1111 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2606:4700:4700::1111: time<1ms
Reply from 2606:4700:4700::1111: time<1ms
Reply from 2606:4700:4700::1111: time<1ms
Show the Routing Table
We can verify that all IPv6 traffic (
::/0) will be routed to the default gateway from step 2.
In PowerShell, run:
Get-NetRoute
Output:
...
3 ::/0 2607:fdc0:2::1 256 5 ActiveStore
Conclusion
In this article you enabled IPv6 support for your VPS, future-proofing it for next generation applications.
Next, consider double checking that any firewall rules you may have are also configured for IPv6.
