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Many networks these days are still using IPv4 and are not yet ready for IPv6 and so in this article I wanted to talk about the necessary steps to start the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 addressing. A while back I wrote a general introduction to IPv6 addressing that you should look at again to get a little bit more background.

Take Inventory

The first thing to do before you start changing ip addresses on your devices is to actually see which computers, routers, printers, and phones support IPv6. The main reason why many people haven’t even started to use IPv6 is that there are still some older hardware in the network that only support IPv4. Even if that is the case there are still ways to get IPv4 and IPv6 to interoperate together.

Now that you have taken inventory you will want to make sure you create plans of action to replace that legacy hardware. Besides if it is that old already I’m sure it is due for a replacement.

Also keep in mind that IPv6 isn’t going to go away over night and chances are it isn’t going to go away instantly on your personal network either. But that is okay, our goal for right now is to just get IPv6 and IPv4 to operate together. That way, when the time comes, all you have to do is pull the plug on IPv4 and you will still be up and running.

There are 3 different IPv4 to IPv6 transition methods that I will go through. Dual-Stack, Tunneling, and NAT-PT.

Let’s begin the transition!

Enabling IPv6

First thing you need to do is enable IPv6 on your Cisco routers via this command:

ipv6 unicast-routing

Dual Stack

Basically dual stack is just IPv4 and IPv6 both running at the same time. If both connecting devices are using IPv6 then it will use IPv6 otherwise IPv4 can still be used. This makes the transition extremely painless and effortless.

First you need to configure the interface for IPv4 and then on the same interface also configure the IPv6 address:

interface ethernet 0/0

ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

ipv6 address 2001:470:17:6D::2/64

Tunneling

Tunnelling can be used if you are sending data from an IPv6 network to another IPv6 network but you need to traverse an IPv4 network in the middle. To set up an IPv6 – IPv4 – IPv6 Tunnel you simply just need to have dual stack routers in between the IPv6 to IPv4 section and another one between the IPv4 to IPv6 Section.

NAT-PT

NAT-PT works by converting an IPv6 address into an IPv4 address and unlike regular NAT this occurs in both directions. So it will also convert an IPv4 address to an IPv6 address. This method should not be sued when the Dual Stack and Tunneling methods are available.

Summary

Take inventory of your network

Start the transition to IPv6

Make sure you turn on IPv6 routing

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