IPv6, successor to IPv4, is a newer version of the IP protocol designed to fix its flaws, most notably the scarcity of available IP addresses. This protocol handles the network layer; its purpose is to provide a way to address machines, to convey data to their intended destination, and to handle data fragmentation if needed (in other words, to split packets into chunks with a size that depends on the network links to be used on the path and to reassemble the chunks in their proper order on arrival).

Kernel Debian termasuk penanganan IPv6 di kernel inti (dengan pengecualian beberapa arsitektur yang mengkompilasinya sebagai module bernama ipv6). Perkakas dasar seperti ping dan traceroute memiliki yang setara untuk IPv6 di ping6 dan traceroute6, masing-masing tersedia dalam paket-paket iputils-ping dan iputils-tracepath .

Jaringan IPv6 dikonfigurasi secara mirip dengan IPv4, di /etc/network/interfaces. Tetapi jika Anda ingin jaringan yang akan tersedia secara global, Anda harus memastikan bahwa Anda memiliki router mampu-IPv6 yang meneruskan lalu lintas ke jaringan IPv6 global.

iface enp7s0 inet6 static
    address 2001:db8:1234:5::1:1/64
    # Disabling auto-configuration
    # autoconf 0
    # The router is auto-configured and has no fixed address
    # (accept_ra 1). If it had:
    # gateway 2001:db8:1234:5::1

Subnet IPv6 biasanya memiliki netmask dari 64 bit. Ini berarti bahwa 2⁶⁴ alamat yang berbeda ada dalam subnet. Hal ini memungkinkan Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC) untuk memilih alamat berdasarkan alamat MAC antarmuka jaringan. Secara default, jika SLAAC diaktifkan dalam jaringan dan IPv6 di komputer Anda, kernel akan otomatis menemukan router IPv6 dan mengkonfigurasi antarmuka jaringan.

This behavior may have privacy implications. If you switch networks frequently, e.g. with a laptop, you might not want your MAC address being a part of your public IPv6 address. This makes it easy to identify the same device across networks. A solution to this are IPv6 privacy extensions (which Debian enables by default if IPv6 connectivity is detected during initial installation), which will assign an additional randomly generated address to the interface, periodically change them and prefer them for outgoing connections. Incoming connections can still use the address generated by SLAAC. The following example, for use in /etc/network/interfaces, activates these privacy extensions for the interface enp7s0.

iface enp7s0 inet6 auto
    # Prefer the randomly assigned addresses for outgoing connections.
    privext 2

Koneksi IPv6 dapat dibatasi, dengan cara yang sama seperti untuk IPv4. nft dapat digunakan untuk membuat aturan firewall untuk IPv4 dan IPv6 (lihat Bagian 14.2.3, “Sintaks nft”).