Have only IPv4 website but want to connect to IPv6 websites

[schembrionics]

Hi to everyone

I am new to IPv6 and so hope someone can give me some guidance.

When I connect to the internet via my computer I have both a public IPv4 and a public IPv6 as supplied by my ISP which allows me to connect, I assume, to IPv6 websites.

Now, this is where the fun starts.

I have a website on a shared hosting server with a dedicated IP address.
This dedicated IP is an IPv4 address.
I contacted my hosting server provider and asked if I could have an IPv6 address.
I was told that they do not give IPv6 to shared hosting websites.
I need to upgrade to VPN, more money of course.

I started hunting around to see what, if anything I could do to have IPv6, without switching hosting companies as it would be an enormous effort to move my website.

When I went to CPanel on my website and opened the "Advanced DNS Zone Editor", I noticed I had the ability to add an AAAA record.

After some more research, I learned about mappedIPv6 and IPv6to4
Using my IPv4 website address I created a mappedIPv6 and an IPv6to4 and added them both to my DNS file as AAAA records.
When I did a DNS lookup, both IPv6 address showed up.

Unfortunately, this did not get me anywhere.
It looks like I apparently need DNS IPv6 servers, which my hosting company will not do for me.

I then learned about the Hurricane Tunneling but I am not sure how this work.
It looks like I need an IPv6 enabled website.
I have only an IPv4 enabled website.

Does this mean there is no way for me to somehow use the Tunnel.

I am at a loss now as I do not know what else to do.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Thanks

[cholzhauer]

Vote with your wallet, change providers.

I understand you say it would be hard to move, but from an IPv6 standpoint, that's the easiest fix.

[schembrionics]

I have thought about actually doing this.

What I really want to know is if that is the only way I will ever get IPv6
There is no alternative action that can be done?

[cholzhauer]

Have you searched the forums?

https://forums.he.net/index.php?topic=2833.0 is one example

[schembrionics]

As I stated before, my hosting company did tell me to go to VPN in order to get IPv6

But again, as your link shows, it seems like to use the tunnel, you need to have native IPv6.
I only have IPv4 and could create an mappedIPv6 or IPv6to4.
I was hoping to be able to use these as my IPv6 but it does not seem feasible from what I gather?

[mattwilson9090]

You seem to be putting the cart before the horse here.

First, whether or not you have IPv6 for the computer you use, whether native from your ISP or via an HE.net tunnel really has no bearing on your website. The two are presumably in completely different locations, so the solutions for one are not the solutions you'd choose for the other.

Aside from that, why do you think that you need an IPv6 address for your website? Before trying to figure out solutions to this it would be useful to know why you are going through this process.

[schembrionics]

I use my computer when I want to access the internet.  I realize that this has nothing to do with my website.
I had a public IPv4, but I noticed lately that I also had an IPv6 address, which my ISP no doubt gave me in order to be able to connect to IPv6 sites.  I completely understand this.

Now, with respect to my website.
Yes, it is at a different location, is part of shared hosting and at my hosting company location somewhere in the US.

The following is why I started enquiring about IPv6.

We are using PHP and fsockopen() to check if a host is available. It works great for standard ipv4 addresses, but recently we started adding ipv6 addresses and it fails. According to the PHP documentation for fsockopen() we simply just need to enclose the ipv6 address in brackets for ipv6 support.

fsockopen('[2001:41d0:2:381::14]', 80, $return_error_number, $return_error, 10);

However, we are always getting:
"Network is unreachable"

I then checked my PHP on my website using php():
It stated ipv6 was enabled.

As a test, I ran the local host in ipv6:
[::1]
This worked with fsockopen()

Then I decided to try an ipv4 from yahoo.com and mapped to ipv6:
98.139.180.149 ===> [::ffff:628b:b495]
This worked with fsockopen

Just for the hell of it I used [::] and it worked with fsockeopen

As I stated, after some more research, I learned more about mappedIPv6 and also IPv6to4 which is supposed to be used in Tunneling
Using my IPv4 website address I created a mappedIPv6 and an IPv6to4 and added them both to my DNS file as AAAA records.
When I did a DNS lookup, both IPv6 addresses showed up.

Again, I was not able to connect to IPv6 addresses with fsockopen.
I then started reading a lot about tunnelling, gateways etc. to connect IPv4 to IPv6.

What I need to do then is reach IPv6 addresses from an IPv4-only network with fsockopen.
Sometimes I only know the IPv6 address of the website not the domain name so I need to be able to check if there is a connection using IP address only.

Hopefully I have explained why I am going through this IPv6 process.

[schembrionics]

Hopefully I have explained what I am trying to do.

So, bottom line is:
- I have a website on shared hosting provider.
- My website has only IPv4
- My hosting provider will not give me IPv6
- I want to be able to connect to and IPv6 website from my IPv4 website.

I looked into dual stacking, 6to4, 6in4, 6rd, tunneling, gateways, etc.
None give suggestions on how to connect IPv4 website to IPv6 website and vice versa
I get the impression that somehow I need to have IPv6 to do anything.

The final questions then are, am I out of luck?
Without having IPv6 means I cannot connect to IPv6 websites
Is going to a hosting provider who gives IPv6 the only solution?
Can you have IPv6 on shared hosting, since I have no root control of my current website?
Do I need to go to a VPN hosting provider?

Would appreciate some feedback so I can put these issues to rest and actually start working on getting IPv6

[mattwilson9090]

Yes, to connect to any IPv6 based resources on the internet, including websites, you'll actually need to be using an IPv6 address, whether a native address, or using one of the "transition technologies" such as tunneling, or one of the others that you mentioned.

Unless you do a lot of sophisticated coding, or pay for some sort of dedicated virtual machine (which get's very expensive very fast) its going to be very difficult, if not downright impossible, to make this connection without an IPv6 address assigned by your webhost. I don't think it would be practical for you to set up any of the IPv6 transition technologies such as tunneling, 6rd, or many of the other ones out there, because of the limited controls you'll have over the web server itself.

Your best bet is going to be finding a webhost that offers hosting on both IPv4 or IPv6. I know they are available, I just haven't had a need for one myself since an IPv4 based website meets all of my needs. Unfortunately I don't know your market so I have no idea how practical that will be for you. I can't see any reason for you to get any sort of VPN service unless you actually need to host VPN, which this doesn't sound like.