Adding an IPv6 address to your server

Understand IPv6 addresses and Leaseweb’s policy. Follow the guide below to request an additional address for your server.

What is IPv6?

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest revision of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet.

IPv6 is intended to replace IPv4, which still carries the vast majority of Internet traffic as of 2013.

IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, allowing 2128, or approximately 3.4×1038 addresses, or more than 7.9×1028 times as many as IPv4, which uses 32-bit addresses. IPv4 allows only approximately 4.3 billion addresses, while IPv6 allows 3.4×1038 (340 undecillion) unique addresses.

IPv6 addresses are represented as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by colons, for example, 2001:0db8:85a3:0042:1000:8a2e:0370:7334, but methods of abbreviation of this full notation exist.

Leaseweb IPv6 policies

Currently, we provide IPv6 free of charge. Depending on the services you have with us, you can request 65536 IPv6 addresses up to a full /64 range:

Service	Amount of IPv6 addresses
Dedicated uplink (Colocation racks, Dedicated racks, VMware vCloud & VMware Single Tenant)	/64 range (18,446,744,073,709,551,616 IPv6 addresses)
Dedicated Server	/112 range (65,536 IPv6 addresses)
Shared colocation	/112 range (65,536 IPv6 addresses)

Subnetmask

For Dedicated Servers, Leaseweb provided an IPv6 range of a /112 (out of a /64 subnet). Please note that the netmask is a /64.

Example:

IP(v6) 2001:db8:1:1::1NM /64 GW6: 2001:db8:1:1::ff

Requesting IPv6

1. Login to the Leaseweb Customer Portal
2. Navigate to Actions and select Request IPv6
3. You will be prompted with a wizard containing more details:

Reverse DNS IPv6

You can manage the rDNS records of IPv6 addresses via the Leaseweb Customer Portal. Reach out to our support team for any assistance.

Configuring IPv6

Configure IPv6 on Ubuntu

Example of a Netplan configuration on Ubuntu:

1. Using your favorite editor

sudo nano /etc/netplan/00-install-config.yaml

2. Edit the network settings:

network:

  version: 2

  ethernets:

    eth0:

      addresses:

        - 2001:db8:1:1::1/64

      gateway6: 2001:db8:1:1::ff

      nameservers:

        addresses:

          - 2001:4860:4860::8888

          - 2001:4860:4860::8844

3. To apply changes to Netplan you will need to reload your Netplan network configurations

sudo netplan apply

4. Verify your configuration by pinging an IPv6 host: # ping6 ipv6.google.com

Configure IPv6 on Debian

1. Open /etc/network/interfaces and append the following configuration directives for IPv6:

iface eth0 inet6 static

pre-up modprobe ipv6

address

netmask 64

gateway

2. Open /etc/resolv.conf and append at least one IPv6 DNS resolver – See the Leaseweb Cheat Sheet

nameserver 2001:1af8:3100:1::10

3. Restart networking:

# /etc/init.d/networking restart

4. Verify your configuration by pinging an IPv6 host: # ping6 ipv6.google.com