Joe's Random Ramblings

I am trying to set up IPv6 on my Linux box which is connected to an AT&T DSL line.
Since the DSL modem only supports IPv4, I have set up an IPv6-to-IPv4 tunnel.
According to the IPv6 specs, this tunnel sends the IPv6 packets to the special "anycast" IPv4-address 192.88.99.1.
Update: The script I used to set up the tunnel is from here:
http://www.altocumulus.org/IPv6/
And the IPv6 routing table:

$: route -A inet6
Kernel IPv6 routing table
Destination                   Next Hop       Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
::1/128                       ::             U     0      135      1 lo      
::75.3.241.4/128              ::             U     0      0        1 lo      
::/96                         ::             U     256    1        0 tun6to4 
2002:4b03:f104::1/128         ::             U     0      0        1 lo      
2002::/16                     ::             U     256    0        0 tun6to4 
2000::/3                      ::192.88.99.1  UG    1      109      0 tun6to4 
fe80::200:5aff:fe71:6c07/128  ::             U     0      0        1 lo      
fe80::211:11ff:febe:743e/128  ::             U     0      0        1 lo      
fe80::/64                     ::             U     256    0        0 eth0    
fe80::/64                     ::             U     256    0        0 eth1    
fe80::/64                     ::             U     256    0        0 tun6to4 
ff00::/8                      ::             U     256    0        0 eth0    
ff00::/8                      ::             U     256    0        0 eth1    
ff00::/8                      ::             U     256    0        0 tun6to4 

I tried an nslookup to see if things work:

$: nslookup
> set querytype=ANY
> ipv6.l.google.com
Server: 192.168.0.1
Address: 192.168.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
ipv6.l.google.com has AAAA address 2001:4860:b002::68

So far, so good.

I then tried to ping ipv6.l.google.com, and that fails:

$: ping6 ipv6.l.google.com
PING ipv6.l.google.com(2001:4860:b002::68) 56 data bytes
^C
--- ipv6.l.google.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2999ms

Seems that AT&T somewhere does not route to 192.88.99.1 correctly.
A traceroute shows:

$: traceroute 192.88.99.1
traceroute to 192.88.99.1 (192.88.99.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.389 ms 0.295 ms 0.286 ms
2 adsl-75-3-255-254.dsl.irvnca.sbcglobal.net (75.3.255.254) 9.080 ms 6.618 ms 5.788 ms
3 dist1-vlan60.irvnca.pbi.net (67.114.48.130) 6.760 ms 6.202 ms 6.407 ms
4 bb1-p2-1.ksc2mo.sbcglobal.net (151.164.42.7) 5.838 ms 6.740 ms 6.345 ms
5 ex1-p13-0.eqlaca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.188.138) 7.729 ms 7.855 ms 7.360 ms
6 asn6939-he.eqlaca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.251.86) 7.319 ms 15.424 ms 7.344 ms
7 10gigabitethernet1-3.core1.pao1.he.net (72.52.92.21) 17.020 ms 16.658 ms 16.775 ms
8 * * *
...

So it seems that AT&T is handing this off to he.net, and there it just hangs.
Pretty lame.
I had an online chat with AT&T tech support, and they weren't much help, either. The first thing they said, of course, was "we don't support Linux". When I pointed out that Windows Vista also has IPv6 built-in, and that my question was about IPv6, not Linux, the tech support guy was staying on, but still, couldn't get me any useful information.

Update: The problem turned out to be the DSL modem, which seems to filter the tunneled IPv6 packets.

I just got an email from a friend recalling his experience with a Dell customer representative when he ordered a Netbook from Dell. Here is the exchange (printed with my friend's permission.) It is hilarious:

He: "For what purposes do you plan to use this laptop?"
Me: "For school. I am a university student."
He: "There's only one problem with this system you are ordering".
Me: "What?"
He: "It comes with Ubuntu Linux. It doesn't have XP or Vista or anything."
Me: "That's perfect."
He (puzzled): "That's perfect? You cannot use it for school!"
Me: "I study Computer Science."
Then he shut up.

The SCO Group, a bankrupt Unix vendor which rose to infamy by claiming that Linux infringes on their Intellectual Property (which a court has decided belongs to Linux-vendor Novell in the first place...) became the laughing stock of the computer world earlier this week when they published their latest quarterly newsletter on their website.
The content is so unbelievable that I nearly fell off my chair. I still have laugh attacks every time I see the image
After a day and a half of them being ridiculed for this, they finally removed the newsletter from their website. But of course, the Internet never forgets. Everybody has screenshots
So, without further ado, here it is, SCO's middle finger to their remaining customers:

Apple recently seems to have taken a hint from Microsoft, and turns to be evil.
They have sent cease-and-desist letters to people who try to figure out the hash in the iTunesDB database that is part of every iPod.
I have three iPods, a 1st gen Nano, a 2nd gen Nano, and a 2nd gen Shuffle. I am using Linux, and Linux only. iTunes doesn't run on Linux, so I have been using gtkpod to put music on my iPods.
I am ready to buy a 4th gen Nano, but I need to be able to use it under Linux. Apple's strong-arming of independent developers prevents that.
So, I'll be spending my money somewhere else, until Apple comes to its senses. In these economic times, they should be happy that others try to increase the market for their devices, instead of sending in the lawyers...

As a long time Slackware user, the recent announcement of Slackware 12.1 was a very welcome event. So I went to the Torrent download page to get the Slackware 12.1 DVD.
However, upon launching ktorrent, the KDE torrent client, to start the torrent download, my DSL connection went haywire. I had to reset the DSL modem (a Siemens SpeedStream 4100) and also reset the network port.
After searching for clues on the Net, I found that disabling DHT and limiting the number of connections (to 20 connections per torrent) solved the problem.