IPv6 Implementation and CPE Behavior

Mon Jan 11 18:23:10 UTC 2016

> On Jan 11, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Graham Johnston <johnstong at westmancom.com> wrote:
> 
> Are most CPE devices generally not IPv6 capable in the first place?  For those that are capable are they usually still configured with IPv6 disabled, requiring the customer to enable it?  For those CPE that are capable and enabled, is there a common configuration such as full blown DHCPv6 with PD?

I can’t speak regarding “most CPE devices” but for CPE = Apple Airport Extreme

	• At least since the AirPort Extreme 802.11n (AirPort5,117) was released in 2011, the hardware has supported native IPv6 routing and acceptance of PD from the WAN.

	• The default configuration for firmware 7.7.3 is automatic WAN IPv6 configuration, native IPv6 routing, and, acceptance of PD from the WAN. End systems on the single LAN receive a /64.

	• No DHCPv6 is provided to the LAN through firmware up to the current version 7.7.3. 

For all recent Windows, OS X, and. IOS versions, IPv6 “just works” with the Airport default IPv6 configuration. Most users can not tell the difference. 

For those connected to ISPs that still can’t spell IPv6, I do manually set Internet Options to Configure IPv6: Link-local only. This should not make any difference, but it makes me and some eyeballs happier.

James R. Cutler
James.cutler at consultant.com
PGP keys at http://pgp.mit.edu