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You might have heard of IPv4 address depletion. A new version of Internet addressing system was prepared sometime back. But since everyone was using IPv4 address, the migration has not been implemented in a large scale. If we continue to use IPv4 address as on today, the entire range would be used up in less than two years. Public IPv4 addresses are mainly used by Internet hosts. Intranets can use private IPv4 address which are not reachable from Internet. Although many methods like NAT (Network Address Translation) and CIDR (Classless Inter Domain Routing) were implemented to stretch the IPv4 address usage, it seems that it is reaching a level of saturation now.

It is sure that everyone will have to migrate to IPv6 address within a couple of years. Internet registries are not so liberal in assigning IPv4 address now. If you want to learn about IPv6 and make sure that you have skills to administer IPv6 address and servers, Free IPv6 certification from Hurricane Electric is a great way to begin. You can register for this certification at: http://ipv6.he.net/certification/index.php. I will give a brief overview of this test in the following section.

Through this test set you will be able to:

• Prove that you have IPv6 connectivity
• Prove that you have a working IPv6 web server
• Prove that you have a working IPv6 email address
• Prove that you have working forward IPv6 DNS
• Prove that you have working reverse IPv6 DNS for your mail server
• Prove that you have name servers with IPv6 addresses that can respond to queries via IPv6
• Prove your knowledge of IPv6 techonologies through quick and easy testing

You will also demonstrate that you are familiar with IPv6 concepts such as:

• the format of IPv6 addresses
• AAAA records
• reverse DNS for IPv6
• the IPv6 localhost address
• the IPv6 default route
• the IPv6 documentation prefix
• the IPv6 link local prefix
• the IPv6 multicast prefix
• how to do an IPv6 ping
• how to do an IPv6 traceroute
• common IPv6 prefix lengths such as /64, /48, /32
• and more!

There are seven levels of certification available now. The breakdown of each are given below:

NewB: Read the primer, be able to answer some quick and easy questions.

Explorer: Verify that you can access an IPv6 website (ours!)

Enthusiast: Verify that you have an IPv6 capable web server that we can connect to and fetch information from. This should be entered as a FQDN and not an IPv6 address, or you will have issues once you start working on the Guru level.

Administrator: Verify that you have a working IPv6 capable MTA by sending you an email only over IPv6.

Professional: Verify that your MTA has working reverse DNS (ex: dig mx $domain +short ; dig aaaa $mx +short ; dig -x $mxAAAA +short)

Guru: Verify that the authoritative NS for your domain have AAAA records, and respond to queries for the domain (ex: step 1 is dig ns $domain ; dig aaaa $ns | step 2 is dig aaaa $domain @$nsAAAA)

Sage: Check to see if your domain’s authoritative NS have IPv6 glue with their listed TLD servers. Meaning the TLD server can directly answer for the host record (ex: dig +trace ns $domain to get the TLD server list then dig aaaa $ns @TLD +short for the glue).

All the above given information is taken from Hurricane Electric Website and Forums.

You need IPv6 address to complete all these tests. Your ISP may not support IPv6 now, but still you can complete this test. You can make use of Tunnelbrokers, which essentially creates a tunnel from your PC to tunnelbroker server. From the tunnelbroker server, the connectivity is IPv6. Hurricane Electric provides a free tunnelbroker service also. You can access the tunnelbroker at: http://www.tunnelbroker.net . If you have registered for IPv6 test, you may use the same login for tunnelbroker also. When you register, you will have to select a nearest gateway. Also, you need to have a public IP which is pingable from outside. Most of the internet connections provide you with a IPv4 public IP. Once you create a tunnel, you can select your correct OS from the list given in the bottom and configuration needed to make the tunnel up will be shown. Just paste that in the command line and you are ready to browse IPv6 websites. A video tutorial is available in youtube.

To complete tests beyond Explorer, you need to have a domain name. If you do not have a domain name, you can use a free DNS service like afraid.org to create a subdomain. You need to know about DNS and configure DNS, Mail Server and Web server for completing all the tests. A piece of advice for newbies: Make sure that your DNS (including reverse DNS) works before you continue with all other tests beyond Explorer. That will make your life easy and you will not have to spend valuable time in resolving basic issues.
I have completed all the tests sometime back. I would recommend this test for everyone who manages a web server or DNS server either at work or at home for hosting sites. It was very challenging and fun! Last, but not the least – Hurricane Electric Staff are very helpful. Just post a ticket if you are clueless about some problem. They will help you out for sure. You may first search the forums before sending a mail. Their support rocks!

Here is my certificate: