You wont get very far, if you are running an IPv6-ready kernel, but have no tools to configure IPv6. There are several packages in existence which can configure IPv6.
The net-tool package includes some tools like ifconfig and route, which helps you to configure IPv6 on an interface. Look at the output of ifconfig -? or route -?, if something is shown like IPv6 or inet6, then the tool is IPv6-ready.
Auto-magically check:
# /sbin/ifconfig -? 2>& 1|grep -qw 'inet6' && echo "utility 'ifconfig' is ¬ IPv6-ready" |
Same check can be done for route:
# /sbin/route -? 2>& 1|grep -qw 'inet6' && echo "utility 'route' is IPv6-ready" |
Alexey N. Kuznetsov (current a maintainer of the Linux networking code) created a tool-set which configures networks through the netlink device. Using this tool-set you have more functionality than net-tools provides, but its not very well documented and isn't for the faint of heart.
# /sbin/ip 2>&1 |grep -qw 'inet6' && echo "utility 'ip' is IPv6-ready" |
If the program /sbin/ip isn't found, then I strongly recommend you install the iproute package.
You can get it from your Linux distribution (if contained)
You can download the tar-ball and recompile it: Original FTP source and mirror (missing)
You're able to look for a proper RPM package at RPMfind/iproute (sometimes rebuilding of a SRPMS package is recommended)