Configure a flexible IPv6 on a virtual machine

How to configure IPv6 virtual machines on Proxmox and ESXi on Elastic Metal

Reviewed on 17 July 2023 • Published on 01 April 2022

Security & Identity (IAM):

You may need certain IAM permissions to carry out some actions described on this page. This means:

you are the Owner of the Scaleway Organization in which the actions will be carried out, or
you are an IAM user of the Organization, with a policy granting you the necessary permission sets

Requirements:

You have an account and are logged into the Scaleway console
You have created a Dedibox and installed a hypervisor (Proxmox or ESXi) on it
You have ordered a flexible IPv6
You have generated a virtual MAC address

When you install your server with a virtualization solution like VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) or Proxmox, you can create multiple virtual machines on the physical server and configure them to use flexible IPv6 addresses.

Below are some examples for the configuration of the network interfaces on different distributions inside a virtual machine:

Tip:

The IPv6 gateway for your machines is learned by RA. You do not need to specify it in your configuration.
The DNS cache server (nameserver) may be different depending on the physical location of your server. Refer to our network information documentation to find the IPv6 addresses to use with your machine.

Ubuntu

Since the release of version 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) Ubuntu has switched to Netplan for the configuration of network interfaces. For older releases of the distribution, refer to the configuration for Debian.

Log into your virtual machine and open the network configuration file /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml in a text editor of your choice, for example nano:
```
sudo nano /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml
```

Create a network configuration as follows. Remember to replace FLEXIBLE_IPv6 with your failover IP address:

# This is the network config written by 'subiquity'
network:
ethernets:
    ens18:
    addresses:
    - FLEXIBLE_IPv6/64
    nameservers:
        addresses: [ "2001:bc8:1008:1::16" ]
        search: []
version: 2

Save the file and exit the text editor.
Apply the new configuration:
```
sudo netplan apply
```

Debian

Log into the virtual machine and edit the file /etc/network/interfaces/ with a text editor of your choice, for example, nano:
```
nano /etc/network/interfaces
```
Configure the network interface as follows. Remember to replace fail.over.ip.address with your failover IP address:
```
auto ens18
    iface ens18 inet6 static
    address FLEXIBLE_IPv6
    netmask 64
```
Save the file and exit the text editor.
Set the DNS server information by editing the file /etc/resolv.conf:
```
nano /etc/resolv.conf
```
Set the DNS resolver by adding the following lines to the file. Then save it and exit the text editor:
```
nameserver 2001:bc8:1008:1::16
nameserver 2001:bc8:1008:1::14
```
These DNS resolvers are operated by Scaleway. You can also set your preferred alternative DNS resolvers in the file.
Activate the network on your virtual machine by running the following code:
```
ifup ens18
```

CentOS

Log into the virtual machine and edit the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 with a text editor of your choice, for example, nano:
```
nano /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
```

Configure the network interface as follows. Remember to replace fail.over.ip.address with your failover IP address and virtual:mac:address with the virtual MAC of the VM:

DEVICE=ens18
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=yes
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
NETMASK=64
IPADDR=FLEXIBLE_IPv6
DNS1=2001:bc8:1008:1::16
DNS2=2001:bc8:1008:1::14
ARP=yes
HWADDR=virtual:mac:address

Save the file and close the text editor.
Run the following command to bring the network interface up:
```
ifup eth0
```