Linux Foundation Certifies All "Major" Distros as IPv6 Compliant
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The Linux Foundation announced this week that all "major" Linux distributions are now in compliance with the federal mandate by U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) that helps ensure the world won't run out of Internet addresses anytime soon.
The technology sector has known for a while that if Internet activity continues at its current pace, the supply of IP addresses will soon run out. IPv6 is the next-generation Internet protocol designed to solve the problem, and the U.S. government mandated that the computing and networking equipment in all its agencies must meet IPv6 requirements this year.
Thanks to the efforts of a Linux Foundation workgroup formed last year, all the big-name Linux distros are now IPv6 certified. Participants include IBM, HP, Red Hat, and Novell.
In a prepared statement, Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, said, “The IPv6 mandate and ensuing requirements are such major undertakings that it makes it difficult for any one company to deal with it all on its own. This is exactly the kind of work and collaboration that the Linux Foundation can facilitate, and which results in real technology advancements for the Linux operating system.”
The certified distros are IPv6 compliant out-of-the-box, and existing Linux features like ICMPv6, DHCPv6, and MIB support have been updated to conform to the Department of Defense requirements.
