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How To Disable ipv6 on SuSE Linux

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For some strange reason, ipv6 is switched ON by default in SuSE Linux.

To check whether you are currently running ipv6, run the following command as root:

 ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0F:1F:89:8F:D5
          inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:140.171.243.255  Mask:255.255.254.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20f:1fff:fe89:8fd5/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:33386388 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2947979 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2211978470 (2109.5 Mb)  TX bytes:380978644 (363.3 Mb)
          Base address:0xdf40 Memory:feae0000-feb00000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:895 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:895 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:76527 (74.7 Kb)  TX bytes:76527 (74.7 Kb)

If you have lines containing inet6 as above, then your machine IS running ipv6.

How to disbling ipv6 on SuSE Linux

To disable ipv6 completely, run the following commands as root:
# echo “alias net-pf-10 off” >> /etc/modprobe.conf.local
# echo “alias ipv6 off” >> /etc/modprobe.conf.local

Restart the machine.

Once your machine has rebooted, rerun the ifconfig command and verify that the inet6 lines have been removed.

Done! Your machine are running without IPV6.

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6 Responses to “How To Disable ipv6 on SuSE Linux”

  1. Derek Morr Says:

    August 18th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    It’s running IPv6 by default because in the near future IPv6 will be needed (as we are rapidly running of available IPv4 addresses). Why do you want to turn it off? Do you have evidence that it’s hurting something?

  2. Planet Malaysia Says:

    August 18th, 2008 at 11:11 pm

    Derek, I’m strongly agreed with you but some how my network guy recommended turn it OFF by default.

  3. Derek Morr Says:

    August 19th, 2008 at 5:42 am

    Did he give a reason why?

  4. Planet Malaysia Says:

    August 19th, 2008 at 8:59 am

    He said Linux DNS servers were sending IP Version 6 (ipv6) DNS queries to the main DNS server. I’m not sure why?

  5. Derek Morr Says:

    August 19th, 2008 at 10:59 am

    Probably because your box had IPv6 enabled, so it was trying to lookup AAAA records (DNS records which map hostnames to IPv6 addresses). That shouldn’t break anything. If the records don’t exist, the DNS server should return an error, and your client should retry with a query for an A record (which maps hostnames to an IPv4 address).

  6. Woog Says:

    August 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 am

    Yes, but that’s additional look-ups on a DNS server. Granted, DNS packets are small, and most modern systems can handle great loads. But, why have that crap flying around? On top of that, if you have a search order defined, it does that on each one. Worse case is double the number of lookups required to find an answer.

    Practically nobody believes IPv6 is going to be here to quickly. Recent reports ( picked up on /. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/18/226228& ) Really show how little uptake has been. If you need it, then turn it on. when 99.99% of users don’t even use something in your load, and you force them to by default… I think that’s the wrong approach.

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