ping6 works but Firefox can't visit any ipv6 sites in LinuxMint

[lobotiger]

Hi everyone.  I'm playing with IPv6 a bit more and have decided to enable my /48 so I can number my individual machines at home.

My router is a Cisco 1811 so the tunnel works fine and I've configured the first /64 on my LAN facing interface.  All of my Windows machines are able to get an IPv6 address via RA and can ping/trace and visit any ipv6 enabled websites like ipv6.google.com.

One of my laptops is running LinuxMint (variation of Ubuntu 9.10) and it too has been able to obtain an IPv6 address.  Ping6 works fine from a terminal screen:

lobo@tgonb32 ~ $ ping6 ipv6.google.com
PING ipv6.google.com(iw-in-x63.1e100.net) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from iw-in-x63.1e100.net: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=46.8 ms
64 bytes from iw-in-x63.1e100.net: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=50.1 ms
64 bytes from iw-in-x63.1e100.net: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=46.6 ms
64 bytes from iw-in-x63.1e100.net: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=46.8 ms
64 bytes from iw-in-x63.1e100.net: icmp_seq=5 ttl=52 time=46.5 ms
64 bytes from iw-in-x63.1e100.net: icmp_seq=6 ttl=52 time=47.5 ms
^C
--- ipv6.google.com ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5007ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 46.574/47.424/50.100/1.233 ms
lobo@tgonb32 ~ $
lobo@tgonb32 ~ $ ping6 ipv6.beijing2008.cn
PING ipv6.beijing2008.cn(2001:252:0:1::2008:8) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2001:252:0:1::2008:8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=364 ms
64 bytes from 2001:252:0:1::2008:8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=364 ms
64 bytes from 2001:252:0:1::2008:8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=364 ms
64 bytes from 2001:252:0:1::2008:8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=363 ms
64 bytes from 2001:252:0:1::2008:8: icmp_seq=5 ttl=52 time=365 ms
^C
--- ipv6.beijing2008.cn ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 363.968/364.459/365.020/0.867 ms
lobo@tgonb32 ~ $ ^C

However trying to use Firefox for any of the sites just leads to a "Problem loading page" error.

Any thoughts as to what might be happening?

lobo@tgonb32 ~ $ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:18:de:69:bd:d8 
          inet addr:192.168.0.15  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: 2001:470:b081:0:218:deff:fe69:bdd8/64 Scope:Global
          inet6 addr: fe80::218:deff:fe69:bdd8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:10639 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6993 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:6472209 (6.4 MB)  TX bytes:1145335 (1.1 MB)

lobo@tgonb32 ~ $

Thanks.

LoboTiger

[cholzhauer]

is the laptop receiving an address out of the same /64 that the windows machines are?

[lobotiger]

I figured it out.  Looks like the Firefox that comes with LinuxMint 8.0 has ipv6 dns resolution disabled by default.

Had to go into about:config and enable that option and then ipv6 websites started working fine.

LoboTiger

[cholzhauer]

What's the option called that you enabled?

[kriteknetworks]

network.dns.disableIPV6

I've never seen this set to true by default.

[revomosetick]

I'm pretty sure that firefox has had IPv6 enabled by default for the last few releases.  I know, because I've checked.  I think it's been turned on by default since about 3.0-3.2.  Which is why Google has been so paranoid about not providing AAAA records for all their domains. Firefox has enabled IPv6 by default, (I'm pretty sure) since before google started their ipv6.google.com program a while back.  Google did not want to lock out people who might have shaky IPv6 connectivity.  For example, try visiting tunnelbroker.net in firefox when your machine has a IPv6 address, but your tunnels not working right.  It will time out forever if you use the domain name. Use the IPv4 address in your browser, and it will load right away.  To use the domain name with a broken IPv6 tunnel, you have to remember to disable IPv6 in firefox until your tunnel is working properly again.  Google is not counting on people to remember that or know how to do it.

[broquea]

I thought this LinuxMint sounded familiar....

http://ipv6-or-no-ipv6.blogspot.com/2009/02/linux-mint-anti-ipv6.html

However that appears to have been rev 6, and 7 and 8 should have IPv6 enabled. Although if you are running 7 or 8, perhaps they forgot to re-enable IPv6 in some places. Of course they still spread the FUD with rev 7 release notes that IPv6 slows down your IPv4. And reading their forums, apparently only having a link-local address also means you can't ping hosts over IPv4 because your ISP doesn't support IPv6......

For example, try visiting tunnelbroker.net in firefox when your machine has a IPv6 address, but your tunnels not working right.

That is why we made ipv4.tunnelbroker.net after a user recommendation for exactly that reason.

[jimb]

FWIW, both Ubunto and Gentoo Linux have IPv6 turned on stock.

From what I've read and understood from various mailing lists, Google's main concern for IPv6 users wasn't configured tunnel users or native IPv6 users and so forth, but Teredo and 6to4.  Both of those can be sketchy, and Vista and Windows 7 has them turned on by default.  

Google didn't want users getting sub-par connectivity to any of its services when a user's system had a working Teredo or especially 6to4 connection, which can be "sketchy" since 6to4 in particular often has crazy routing for the 6to4 anycast address.  For instance, two friends on cable, one on Comcast here in the the SF Bay area USA, and one in Nova Scotia Canada on Eastlink, I tracerouted the 6to4 anycast from both sites, and they routed to Sweden.  :P

Teredo isn't such a concern, since MS requires the software to have a special flag turned on per-application for Teredo to work, basically saying "it's OK to use Teredo".

6to4 wouldn't be so bad if more ISPs ran relays and announced the anycast into their IGP.  That way outgoing traffic wouldn't have to go as far to hop onto the IPv6 internet, and return traffic would find closer relays too.  Even better would be if ISPs each set up their own 6RD servers (which is 6to4 with an ISP scope address space), which would make routing even more efficient, since the traffic would stay on the IPv6 internet longer in unencapsulated form.

[kriteknetworks]

Wow, having checked my VM of Mint 8, sure enough, firefox had ipv6 dns disabled by default, ick.