Disable IPv6 for Good
If you use good old IPv4 instead of IPv6 for your network connection, you should disable IPv6. The advantages are faster system boot and faster webbrowsing. This howto applies to Debian Etch and Debian Sarge with kernel 2.6.
Disabling IPv6 in the kernel
First you'll need to edit a couple of configuration files. If »/etc/modprobe.d/aliases« is present, look for this line:
alias net-pf-10 ipv6
Change it to this (with that one extra line):
alias net-pf-10 off
alias ipv6 off
If »/etc/modutils/aliases« is present, look for this line, uncomment it and add that one extra line:
# alias net-pf-10 off
alias ipv6 off
Now, IPv6 has been disabled in the kernel. Execute the following command and reboot:
# update-modules
You can safely wipe out any IPv6 reference in »/etc/hosts« and »/etc/network/interfaces«
Disabling IPv6 in Firefox
By default Firefox tries to resolve IPv6 names. You can disable this feature by opening Firefox and type about:config in the address field.
Look for the network.dns.disableipv6 setting and doubleclick to set it to true.
This article was last edited October 11, 2006 by Chris Hansen.