IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
Forum Discussion
(not done anything yet)
so.. do O2 know how to implement ipv6 do you think?
Judging by the O2 forums. Similar story on IPv6 related discussions, even on the mobile network.
Although as we've found more recently, it appears VM do in fact have an IPv6 enabled network active. If you know what you are doing you can unofficially just assign yourself an IPv6 address in the valid range provided by the Router Advertisements. Of course, completely experimental but it confirms IPv6 is there and dual stack is technically possible right now.
We must assume Virgin Media currently are filtering out DHCPv6/SLAAC traffic, so it's not really usable by normal means, you'd also need to have your own router to even test it currently as the Hub firmware will definitely stop you from being able to pick up the RAs that are being broadcast on the WAN when you look closely.
00:00:03.799837 IP6 (hlim 255, next-header ICMPv6 (58) payload length: 80) fe80::201:5cff:fe9c:2847 > ip6-allnodes: [icmp6 sum ok] ICMP6, router advertisement, length 80
hop limit 0, Flags [managed, other stateful], pref medium, router lifetime 9000s, reachable time 3600000ms, retrans timer 0ms
prefix info option (3), length 32 (4): 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64, Flags [onlink], valid time 2592000s, pref. time 604800s
0x0000: 4080 0027 8d00 0009 3a80 0000 0000 2a02
0x0010: 8800 f000 18b0 0000 0000 0000 0000
prefix info option (3), length 32 (4): 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64, Flags [onlink], valid time infinity, pref. time infinity
0x0000: 4080 ffff ffff ffff ffff 0000 0000 2a02
0x0010: 88fd 0018 000a 0000 0000 0000 0000
- 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64 - Looks to be a management network and internal, isn't reachable on IPv6 internet unless on VM network.
- 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64 - A global routed prefix that you can technically use and assign yourself an IPv6 address within. This will be different for each customer/area I believe.
so I've got my virgin router in modem more and I'm using a ubiquiti UDM as my internet facing router, can I access ipv6, even in experimental mode?
fyonn wrote:so I've got my virgin router in modem more and I'm using a ubiquiti UDM as my internet facing router, can I access ipv6, even in experimental mode?
The initial step is checking to see if the Router Advertisements are present on the WAN side to begin with, from looking at the Twitter conversation that lukegb originally posted when he found he could just assign himself an IPv6 address from within the prefix, it suggested not all customers could see them. So if you don't have any IPv6 activity on the WAN side at all, it is a non starter. If you know how to use tcpdump, scan your Virgin Media WAN interface for router advertisements/icmp6 traffic, here's an example command for this:
tcpdump -vvvv -ttt -i eth1.2 icmp6 and 'ip6[40] = 134'
This specifically filters just for IPv6 traffic we are interested in, rather than your entire network traffic.
My network interface is eth1.2 on OpenWrt, this is the interface assigned because it's using the WAN switch port. It will likely be different on other kit. I have absolutely no knowledge of Ubiquiti kit, so can't be more help there.If you find similar activity to the tcpdump output I've posted previously, then the RAs are present, you should see a prefix similar to 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64, but it will be different slightly. Ignore 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64, it doesn't appear to be publicly routed.
You then have to configure a valid IPv6 address manually on your router within the prefix that's provided by the RA. Because there is no prefix delegation, it's not really usable other than on your router, unless you wanted to do something horrible like NAT6, but honestly right now, it's really not worth doing. I doubt they expect anyone to be doing this, maybe some engineers are all like wth is this traffic coming from random areas all of sudden.
Although, back when we had regular APNIC IPv6 stats being posted during the IPv6 trial of 2018, if you see any spikes of IPv6 activity lately on Virgin Media's AS, probably lukegb, me and some other random customers who were tipped by the Twitter conversation.
Virgin Media say there customers aren't really bothered about IPv6. If I send terabytes of IPv6 traffic through the network does that count as adequate demand ha ha?
logged into my ubiquiti router, ETH4 holds the public IP address so I assume that's the right interface, there's no sub interfaces defined. That tcpdump command (pointed at eth4 shows no traffic sadly...