Windows 8.1 enable DHCP IPV6 Client

How to enable a windows 8/8.1 client for IPV6 DHCP server
Before we start, a common problem with IPV6 not working is you have all these different interfaces when you look at “ipconfig /all”. At one point I disabled all my vmware and virtualbox interfaces, then also realized windows had these teredo and isatap interfaces also interfering with client.

A good set of commands to run if your clients are getting IPV6 from your DHCP server and not someone else is following:

netsh int ipv6 isatap set state disabled
netsh int ipv6 6to4 set state disabled
netsh interface teredo set state disable

This should make sure we do not have any conflicting interfaces. Now if IPV6 client still not working, make sure following settings are enabled on client

1) We start a powershell with “elevated” administrator privileges.
2) We list all interfaces, to get the number of the interface we want to enable IPV6 on.
3) In my case for wifi on laptop it is number 4, so we take that and list the settings for the interface.
4) In my case settings are already applied but we set routerdiscovery=enable managedaddress=enable anyways.

This should make sure your client is configured to pull IPV6 address from an IPV6 DHCP server.

PS C:\Windows\system32> netsh interface ipv6 show interfaces

Idx     Met         MTU          State                Name
---  ----------  ----------  ------------  ---------------------------
  3           5        1500  disconnected  Ethernet
  1          50  4294967295  connected     Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1
  4          25        1500  connected     Wi-Fi
  6          40        1500  disconnected  Bluetooth Network Connection
  7           5        1500  disconnected  Local Area Connection* 3

PS C:\Windows\system32> netsh int ipv6 show int 4

Interface Wi-Fi Parameters
----------------------------------------------
IfLuid                             : wireless_0
IfIndex                            : 4
State                              : connected
Metric                             : 25
Link MTU                           : 1500 bytes
Reachable Time                     : 25000 ms
Base Reachable Time                : 30000 ms
Retransmission Interval            : 1000 ms
DAD Transmits                      : 1
Site Prefix Length                 : 64
Site Id                            : 1
Forwarding                         : disabled
Advertising                        : disabled
Neighbor Discovery                 : enabled
Neighbor Unreachability Detection  : enabled
Router Discovery                   : enabled
Managed Address Configuration      : enabled
Other Stateful Configuration       : enabled
Weak Host Sends                    : disabled
Weak Host Receives                 : disabled
Use Automatic Metric               : enabled
Ignore Default Routes              : disabled
Advertised Router Lifetime         : 1800 seconds
Advertise Default Route            : disabled
Current Hop Limit                  : 64
Force ARPND Wake up patterns       : disabled
Directed MAC Wake up patterns      : disabled
ECN capability                     : application

PS C:\Windows\system32> netsh interface ipv6 set int 4 routerdiscovery=enable managedaddress=enable
Ok.

PS C:\Windows\system32>

If you want to setup a DHCP server, see my how to on setting up a Linux DHCP server.

So to finish off your going to want to make sure you run following 2 commands to make sure windows has not cached
any lease times for DHCP.

ipconfig /release6
ipconfig /renew6

Another thing to note is things like VMware workstation will make “ipconfig /renew6” hang. It will not affect you getting your dhcp interface information, it will just hang on their vmnet1 and vmnet8 drivers. A solution there is, put all VM’s in bridge only mode, then on vmnet1 and vmnet8 you can just disable ipv6 under properties, and good to go.

Until Next Time,

Dan.