Hurricane Electrics IPv6 Certification

Willing to test the latest revision of the Internet Protocol on your Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora machines? Here’s how:

1. Register yourself at Hurricane Electrics by visiting tunnelbroker.net.

2. Create a new tunnel and make sure to use your public IP address as your IPv4 Endpoint.

3. Write down the relevant details of your tunnel, specifically:

1. Server IPv6 Address: 2001:470:1f0a:a6f::1 /64
2. Server IPv4 Address: 216.66.84.46 (this actually depends on which server did you choose on the previous step)
3. Client IPv6 Address: 2001:470:1f0a:a6f::2/64

4. Create a little script that will update your IPv4 tunnel endpoint every time your internet IP changes. (this step is not needed if you have an internet connection with a static IP):

Your Tunnel configuration details at tunnelbroker.net

#!/bin/bash
USERNAME=yourHEUsername
PASSWORD=yourHEPassword
TUNNELID=yourHETunnelID
GET "https://$USERNAME:$PASSWORD@ipv4.tunnelbroker.net/ipv4_end.php?tid=$TUNNELID"

5. Create the networking configuration files on your computer:

Debian / Ubuntu, on the /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto he-ipv6
iface he-ipv6 inet6 v4tunnel
address 2001:470:1f0a:a6f::2
netmask 64
endpoint 216.66.80.30
local 192.168.X.X (Your PC's LAN IP address)
ttl 255
gateway 2001:470:1f0a:a6f::1
pre-up /home/user/bin/update_tunnel.sh

Fedora, on the  /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-he-ipv6 file:

DEVICE=he-ipv6
TYPE=sit
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
IPV6INIT=yes
IPV6TUNNELIPV4="216.66.80.30"
IPV6TUNNELIPV4LOCAL="192.168.X.X" (Your PC's LAN IP address)
IPV6ADDR="2001:470:1f0a:a6f::2/64"

and on the /etc/sysconfig/network file, add:

NETWORKING_IPV6=yes
IPV6_DEFAULTGW="2001:470:1f0a:a6f::1"
IPV6_DEFAULTDEV="he-ipv6"

You can then set up a little /sbin/ifup-pre-local script to update the IPv4 tunnel endpoint when your dynamic IP changes or simply add the script on the /etc/cron.daily directory and have it executed when you turn up your computer.

6. Change the DNS servers on /etc/resolv.conf:

OpenDNS:

A sample image taken from ipv6-test.com.

nameserver 2620:0:ccc::2
nameserver 2620:0:ccd::2

Google DNS:

nameserver 2001:4860:4860::8888
nameserver 2001:4860:4860::8844

7. Restart your network and enjoy IPv6!

8. If you want to know more about IPv6 take some time for the HE Certification program, you will learn a lot and eventually win a sponsored t-shirt, I just finished mine :-)

EDIT: Be aware of the fact that as soon as the tunnel is up, your computer will be exposed to to the internet without any kind of firewall (the tunnel sets up a direct connection to the internet, even bypassing your router’s firewall), you can secure your machine by using ip6tables. Thanks Michael Zanetti for pointing this out!

Deb-o-Matic is an easy to use build machine for Debian source packages based on pbuilder, written in Python.

It provides a simple tool to automate build of source packages with limited user interaction and a simple configuration. It has some useful features such as automatic update of pbuilder, automatic scan and selection of source packages to build and modules support.

The setup.

1. Download the package.

apt-get install debomatic

2. Modify the main configuration file as follows:

[default]
builder: pbuilder
packagedir: /home/john/debomatic # Take note of the following path since we'll need it for later use.
configdir: /etc/debomatic/distributions
pbuilderhooks: /usr/share/debomatic/pbuilderhooks
maxbuilds: 3 # The number of builds you can perform at the same time.
inotify: 1
sleep: 60 # The sleep time between one build and another.
logfile: /var/log/debomatic.log

[gpg]
gpg: 0 # Change to 1 if you want Deb-O-Matic to check the GPG signature of the uploaded packages.
keyring: /etc/debomatic/debomatic.gpg # Add the GPG Keys you want Deb-O-Matic to accept in this keyring.

[modules]
modules: 1 # A list of all the available modules will follow right after.
modulespath: /usr/share/debomatic/modules

[runtime]
alwaysupdate: unstable experimental precise
distblacklist:
modulesblacklist: Lintian Mailer
mapper: {'sid': 'unstable',
'wheezy': 'testing',
'squeeze': 'stable'}

[lintian]
lintopts: -i -I -E --pedantic # Run Lintian in Pedantic mode.

[mailer] # You need an SMTP server running on your machine for the mailer to work. You can have a look at the 'Ssmtp' daemon which is a one-minute-setup MTA, check an example over here.
fromaddr: debomatic@localhost
smtphost: localhost
smtpport: 25
authrequired: 0
smtpuser: user
smtppass: pass
success: /etc/debomatic/mailer/build_success.mail-template # Update the build success or failure mails as you wish by modifying the relevant files.
failure: /etc/debomatic/mailer/build_failure.mail-template

[internals]
configversion = 010a

The available modules are:

1.  ”Contents“, which acts as a ‘dpkg -c’ over the built packages.
2. “DateStamp“, which displays build start and finish times into a file in the build directory.
3. “Lintian“, which stores Lintian output on top of the built package in the pool directory.
4. “Mailer“, which sends a reply to the uploader once the build has finished.
5. “PrevBuildCleaner“, which deletes all files generated by the previous build.
6. “Repository“, which generates a local repository of built packages.

2. Configure ‘dput‘ to upload package’s sources to your local repository, edit the /etc/dput.cf file and add this entry:

[debomatic]
method = local
incoming = /home/john/debomatic

or the following if you are going to upload the files to a different machine through SSH:

[debomatic]
login = john
fqdn = debomatic.example.net
method = scp
incoming = /debomatic

3. Add a new Virtual Host on Apache and access the repository / built packages directly through your browser:

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerAdmin john@example.net
ServerName debomatic.example.net
DocumentRoot /home/john/debomatic

<Directory /home/john/debomatic>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

</VirtualHost>

4. Start the daemon:

sudo /etc/init.d/debomatic start

5. (Optional) Add your repository to APT‘s sources.list:

deb http://debomatic.example.net/ unstable main contrib non-free

6. (Optional) Start Deb-O-Matic at system’s startup by modifying the /etc/init.d/debomatic file at line 21:

- [ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
- [ "$DEBOMATIC_AUTOSTART" = 0 ] && exit 0

+ [ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
+ [ "$DEBOMATIC_AUTOSTART" = 1 ] && exit 0

and finally add it to the desired runlevels:

update-rc.d debomatic defaults

Enjoy!

Today we are interviewing Andrea Veri, fresh MOTU and eager Ubuntu volunteer.

Age: 18
Location: Udine, Italy
IRC Nick: bluekuja

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I started using Linux at the end of 2005 using Red Hat and Fedora distros, contributing on writing several pages for Fedora documentation (mostly server docs) but mainly working on some packaging-related activities (introducing ctorrent, gtorrent-viewer and v2strip packages inside Fedora) for more than 3 months until the beginning of March 2006 when I decided to move definitely to Ubuntu after discovering it at a friend’s party. Was love at first sight that made me leaving every Fedora plan and project creating my first personal wiki page on wiki.ubuntu.com some days later.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
In fact, I started using Ubuntu at the beginning of 2006, firstly getting involved inside the Edubuntu family making real the possibility to have an Edubuntu Italian support and website area inside the current Italian LoCo Team.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
Right after joining the Ubuntu brigade I started checking out MOTU documentation, mainly packaging guide plus debian new maintainer’s guide, trying to understand every single new word and applying directly to a source package every lesson learned during developer’s world “travel”. After getting introduced and fascinated from an active community, I had to left the project for a while for some small problems, restarting everything on May 2007 with my first sponsored upload inside the archive. My packaging passion increased right after meeting Alexander Sack inside #ubuntu-mozillateam irc channel some days later, deciding to work directly with him as my mentor for both Debian and Ubuntu distributions.

What helped you learning packaging and learning how the Ubuntu teams work?
I started with Debian New Maintainer’s guide and Ubuntu’s packaging guide moving then to package my first applications learning from already-packaged software and asking if needed to Alexander improving and learning every time from him or from other developers a new Ubuntu Team lesson.

Favorite part of working with MOTU?
Introducing a fix making tons of users happy is one of the best things I appreciate of being a MOTU. Mentoring, sponsoring, helping out new contributors or students is something special as well.

Any advice for people wanting to help with MOTU?
I always suggest to start with a package a new contributor cares about personally, that’s useful to improve/fix the package itself during its maintenance.
Reading MOTU and Debian documentation is a great starting point as well to avoid any strange question on our MOTU irc channel.

What packages/areas of Universe are you most interested in?
I’m currently working on a vast area of packages, but I’ll try to focus on p2p (Peer-2-Peer) applications both for Universe and Main. I planned to create a MOTU-p2p team really soon including it inside the existing motu-torrent team, but it will take some months to organize everything up; contributors (testers/packagers) are currently missing.

Any Plans for Hardy Heron?
I’ll keep working on a large number of packages but as I said before I would like to focus on having an updated situation of p2p applications, introducing libtorrent-rasterbar and its related clients like btg or linkage. Creating a working team with interested contributors and developers will be the first step to work on.

Favorite quote?

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” — Socrates

What do you do in your other spare time?
I love going around with my motorbike, listening good music, playing basketball and meeting up with friends around the city centre.

Pic of you, your work area, and/or your screen?

Continuerò ora a lavorare e migliorare avendo come primo obiettivo l’ufficializzazione del gruppo “ubuntu-it-dev” nato da qualche mese nella nostra communità. Al prossimo post!

Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~motu-torrent
Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Teams/Torrent
Bug reports: https://bugs.launchpad.net/~motu-torrent/+packagebugs

A presto