For the foreseeable future, its probably not worth it to run an IPv6 only network. Dual-stack works perfectly fine. Nothing says that your internal network can't run off of RFC1918 space. Especially if you have ipv4-only hardware.

If you really want an IPv6-only network with IPv4 hardware, you'll probably have to setup some proxies/print servers/etc to talk to the IPv4 hardware.

OK.... So I can assign any v6 in my block to a computer.

So I did that, and when I went to whatismyipv6.com it gave me the address of the tunnel. I assumed this is how it would work, but someone who is using tunnelbroker was able to connect to IRC and the /whois came back with his custom IP... So how does this all work?

Thanks for helping me understand btw.

This is due to the way your computer chooses which IP to use as the source IP when it sends out IP packets.

What the other person is likely doing is terminating his tunnel on a router. Then his router hands out IPs in his /64 (or the computers behind the router use SLAAC, either way). As long as the router will correctly route the IPv6 packets through the tunnel, then his computer will choose his custom IP as the source IP because it is not directly attached to the tunnel.

I'm confused.... it still tunnels (that's OK), but how do I tell HE that it's OK for that IP to use the tunnel?

You don't have to. The entire /64 block assigned to you is automatically routed through the tunnel for you to use in any way you want.

It does not appear that your router properly passes protocol41. I find that most of the routers that don't pass protocol41 don't even do it for systems in the DMZ. So it looks like you are stuck with either getting a new router, or perhaps flashing your router with third-party firmware such as DD-WRT.

So if I request a /64 (which still seems like a big waste...) how do I assign it and bind it to a server?

Once you have a tunnel assigned, you set it up on your server using the example configuration commands (ip tunnel add, ip link set, etc). Then you just pick one or more IPs out of your assigned /64 and assign them to one of your ethernet interfaces, just the same as an IPv4 address.

So, I ask:

• Do people feel that it is reasonable for me to allocate a /48 range?
• If I allocate one and then later decide I don't want it, will it be possible for me to release it back into the pool for others to use? (Specifically on tunnelbroker.net - but I thought this forum was a better fit for my post overall.)

If you feel you can justify a /48, then you are welcome to request one. If you later decide that you do not need the /48, you can throw it back into the pool by deleting the tunnel. Unfortunately, this will also remove the /64 since you are deleting the entire tunnel. Otherwise, you can email ipv6@he.net and we can manually remove the /48 from your tunnel.