You can reach IPv6-enabled AfterNET servers by connecting to irc.afternet.org. This hostname has both A and AAAA records.
IPv6 is the next version of the Internet Protocol used to address and communicate with systems connected to the internet, and it will eventually replace the current version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4. The most notable feature of IPv6 is a dramatic increase in the number of IP addresses available to be assigned to internet-connected devices.
Every computer connected directly to today's internet is assigned a unique IP address, like 192.0.32.10. There are roughly 4 billion of these addresses available, and we are quickly running out of them. In fact, countries like China already have more internet-connected people than IP addresses to give them. There are a variety of workarounds that allow a single “real” IP address to serve multiple people, but the people who receive this kind of internet access often have technical problems if they want to run their own servers, play online games, share files via protocols like bittorrent, or connect to their workplace network and work from home.
IPv6 solves the IPv4 address shortage by increasing the number of available IP addresses from 4,294,967,296 to 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. While this is a lot of addresses, the large address space is also being used to enable several other improvements to the Internet Protocol, such as making it easier for devices to configure their own addresses and for internet routers to send data to you more quickly.
We're currently in a transition period where most computers have IPv4 addresses and some computers have both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. As technical support for IPv6 increases, more and more computers will have both types of addresses, and once most computers are reachable via both IPv4 and IPv6, we can begin phasing out IPv4 addresses entirely.
AfterNET is testing IPv6 connectivity on some of its servers. If you have an interest in networking and the IPv6 transition and you have IPv6 configured on your computer, feel free to try connecting to AfterNET via IPv6 at irc.afternet.org. This hostname has both A and AAAA records. Please note that our IPv6 service is still being tested and is likely to be less reliable than our standard network. Come join us in #IPv6 once connected so we can get your feedback!
Check out Wikipedia's IPv6 page for more information.
Before you work too hard, check that you don't already have it! Try visiting http://ipv6.google.com/ and see whether it works.
Ask your ISP if they can provide you with an IPv6 address.
You can reach IPv6-enabled AfterNET servers by connecting to irc.afternet.org. This hostname has both A and AAAA records.
Current versions of irssi support IPv6.
mIRC supports native IPv6 since 7.x
HexChat has native support IPv6.
Stop by #IPv6 and ask for assistance. If we have some free time, we'll gladly help you get connected!