Comparison

IPv4 IPv6
address size 32 bits 128 bits
address format (dotted decimal notation) (hexadecimal notation)
prefix notation 192.168.1.1/24 2001:0DB8:0234::/48
number of address 232 2128

to simplify IPv6 notation, 2001:db8:85a3:0:0:8a2e:370:7334 ==> 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334

Turn IPv6 on and off in Mac OS X

# turn off
networksetup -setv6off Ethernet
# turn on
networksetup -setv6automatic Ethernet

Query Specific DNS Server

dig A ns1.google.com @ns.google.com

Visit IPv6 address using Chrome Address Bar

Just surround your IPv6 literals with brackets. e.g. Enter [2607:f8b0:4007:808::2004] or https://[2607:f8b0:4007:808::2004] in Chrome address bar

2607:f8b0:4007:808::2004 is one of IPv6 addresses of google.com

PING over IPv6

ping6 google.com

DNS Lookup

  • AAAA: IPv6 DNS Record
  • A: IPv4 DNS Record
nslookup -type=AAAA google.com
# or
dig -t AAAA google.com
# or
host -t AAAA google.com
  • For OS X Yosemite, there are MDNS (Multicast DNS) and UDNS (Unicast DNS) caches in OS X Yosemite, use sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache and sudo discoveryutil udnsflushcaches
  • For OS X Mavericks, use dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
  • visit here for more info

For Chrome browser caches, go to chrome://net-internals/#dns and clear host cache

Getting IPv6 connectivity to the Internet

  • your ISP provide you with IPv6-enabled internet connection in which case your ISP must be whitelisted by Google to receive AAAA records
  • you can use tunnel broker such as Hurricane Electric or SixXS in which you can use their DNS caches

I setup Hurricane Electric and I got this error -- IP is not ICMP pingable. Please make sure ICMP is not blocked. If you are blocking ICMP, please allow 66.220.2.74 through your firewall..

NOTICE: use one IPv6 DNS server as only DNS server may cause internet problem

reference