This project was created to track the real-world utilization of IPv6 by testing to see if site visitors are able to utilize IPv6 networking.
It's a simple solution where a script on your website sends a GET request to a domain with an AAAA record (no A record, IPv6 address only) to see if the client supports IPv6 traffic. If the request fails, it sends another request to an IPv4 domain so the server can record how many clients don't support IPv6 traffic, in addition to how many can support it.
You'll need
- Basic experience using linux and SSH
- A website with some traffic you want to test
- A domain on which you can configure sub-domains
- $5 a month for a VPS from DigitalOcean (or similar service)
We used a DigitalOcean VPS, you don't have to, however, your VPS will need to be capable of IPv6 networking.
Create an Ubuntu 18.04 x64 VPS with 1 vCPU and 1GB of ram. Make sure you check the box that enables IPv6 networking (off by default on DigitalOcean). If you don't check this then you won't get any IPv6 traffic to your VPS.
It will take up to a minute or two for DigitalOcean to spin up your VPS. After it's finished, DigitalOcean should give you instructions on how to finish setting it up and configuring a password. Follow the instructions and once you've SSH'd into your server, proceed to the next step.
These steps are pulled from this guide created by DigitalOcean for version 18.04 of Ubuntu.
Make sure your system is up to date
apt-get update
Now we'll install MongoDB
apt install -y mongodb
This will install all the necessary packages and start the MongoDB service. If you need to check the status of the service, you can type systemctl status mongodb to ensure it's up and running.
These steps are pulled from this guide created by DigitalOcean for version 18.04 of Ubuntu.
Install NodeJS and NPM
apt install nodejs
apt install npm
After NodeJS and NPM finish installing, type node -v to ensure that everything is installed properly. We're running on Node v8.10.0, but using fairly standard libraries so if your version if off it shouldn't matter that much.
Now it's time to clone our project files, move to the base directory
cd ~
Download our project files
git clone https://github.com/CircleClick/6connect-ip-statistics
Move into the directory with our project files
cd 6connect-ip-statistics
Install project dependencies from NPM
npm i
After npm finishes, you should be able to test to see if the project works by running the script
node app.js
And then you should see an output like this
{ ipv4: { mobile: 0, tablet: 0, desktop: 0 },
ipv6: { mobile: 0, tablet: 0, desktop: 0 },
init: false }
This confirms that the project is up and running. You might see a couple of DeprecationWarning notices but those are safe to ignore for now.
And next you can test to see if it's working by visiting http://[your VPS ip address]:8080/. In your web browser, you should see something that looks like this
{"ipv4":{"mobile":0,"tablet":0,"desktop":0},"ipv6":{"mobile":0,"tablet":0,"desktop":0},"init":true}
and in your terminal you should see your web browsers IP address.
Make sure to press CTRL+C to exit the Node process after testing so you can move on.
This should confirm the project is fully functional, and you can move on to the next step.
PM2 is our process manager of choice, it's easy to set up and has lots of great features.
Install PM2 globally by typing
npm i -g pm2
To initialize PM2's startup scripts, you'll need to run the following command.
pm2 startup
Next, we'll start up the process in pm2 by typing
pm2 start app.js
You should be able to monitor the application by typing pm2 logs 0, which is a great feature for debugging.
Finally, to make sure the script restarts with the VPS if an unexpected shutdown occurs, type
pm2 save
Now you'll need to set up two subdomains pointing at your VPS across three records. For the rest of this project, substitute your-domain.com with whatever domain you use for this step.
We'll need two subdomains, one with only an IPv6 address on it so that browsers will be forced to attempt over IPv6 networking, and one with both an IPv6 and an IPv4 address as a fallback if the users networking doesn't support IPv6.
First, create an AAAA record with the name of ipv6-only and point it to the IPv6 address of your VPS.
Then Create an A record, and an AAAA record with the name of ipv6, and point it to the IPv4 and IPv6 address of your VPS respectively.
If your DNS service doesn't support A or AAAA records you can try using CloudFlare as your DNS, after you finish adding the records, your DNS should look something like this:
If you're using CloudFlare or a similar service, make sure you aren't proxying requests to your VPS as you'll only record CloudFlares IP addresses in that case.
First, install Nginx using the following command.
apt install nginx
Once it's done we'll need to set up the custom NGINX configuration file. Start by typing nano in your console.
Next, you'll need to paste in our configuration file. Make sure to replace your-domain.com with the domain you're pointing at your DNS.
#goes in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
server {
server_name ipv6-only.your-domain.com;
listen [::]:80 ipv6only=on;
listen [::]:443 ssl ipv6only=on;
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Range';
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header x-ipv6-forced 'true';
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
}
}
server {
server_name ipv6.your-domain.com;
listen [::]:80;
listen 80;
listen [::]:443 ssl;
listen 443 ssl;
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'DNT,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Range';
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
}
location /gui {
alias /var/www/gui/6connect/6connect-ipv6-gui/dist/;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
}
}
Press CTRL+O to write out the file, and for the destination type /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default and hit enter. It will ask you if you want to overwrite the file in that location, and since we want to overwrite the default configuration press Y for yes.
Confirm your config file is formatted correctly
nginx -t
If everything looks good, restart NGINX to load in the new configuration file
systemctl restart nginx
Nginx should now be reverse proxying traffic from your specified domains to the Node process.
These steps are pulled from this guide created by DigitalOcean for version 18.04 of Ubuntu.
Since most modern sites are on SSL encryption, we'll need to use certbot/letsencrypt to secure traffic to the VPS.
You'll need to add the certbot repository using the following command.
add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
Next, you'll be able to install certbot.
apt install python-certbot-nginx
Now that certbot is all set up, you can get your certificates by running it.
certbot --nginx -d ipv6.your-domain.com -d ipv6-only.your-domain.com
If certbot asks you if you want to redirect all SSL traffic, make sure to select No Redirect so it doesn't do anything unwanted to the Nginx config file.
Now that you have everything set up and confirmed that it's working, it's a good idea to enable the firewall and block any ports we're not using for this project.
You'll be using port 22 for SSH, and 80 + 443 for web traffic, so add these to the firewall
ufw allow 22
ufw allow 80
ufw allow 443
Now that the ports are added, enable the Universal Fire Wall
ufw enable
All ports except for the specified 22, 80, and 443 are now blocked. However it's still a good idea to secure your VPS further.
Include the following script in your website's footer. And make sure to replace your-domain.com with the appropriate domain.
<script>
/*
Script to track ipv6 usage vs ipv4
*/
window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
try {
const ipv6FillInIp = (ip) => {
// Fills in the IP address if an element has the class name 'analytics-whats-my-ip'
const elements = document.body.querySelectorAll('.analytics-whats-my-ip');
const elements2 = document.body.querySelectorAll('.analytics-whats-my-ip__container');
for (let index = 0; index < elements.length; index++) {
const element = elements[index];
element.textContent = ip;
}
for (let index = 0; index < elements2.length; index++) {
const element = elements2[index];
element.classList.add('analytics-whats-my-ip--active');
if (ip.indexOf(':') > 0) {
element.classList.add('analytics-whats-my-ip--ipv6');
}
}
}
fetch('//ipv6-only.your-domain.com/?screen='+window.innerWidth)
.then(
function(response) {
if (response.status !== 200) {
return;
}
// Examine the text in the response
response.json().then(function(data) {
ipv6FillInIp(data.yourIp);
if (typeof ga === 'function' && !localStorage['6connect: '+data.yourIp]) {
localStorage['6connect: '+data.yourIp] = true;
ga('send', 'event', 'IPVersion', 'ipv6', 'ipv6', {'nonInteraction': 1});
}
});
}
)
.catch(function(err) {
// IPv6 fetch failed
try {
fetch('//ipv6.your-domain.com/?screen='+window.innerWidth)
.then(
function(response) {
if (response.status !== 200) {
return;
}
response.json().then(function(data) {
ipv6FillInIp(data.yourIp);
if (typeof ga === 'function' && !localStorage['6connect: '+data.yourIp]) {
localStorage['6connect: '+data.yourIp] = true;
ga('send', 'event', 'IPVersion', 'ipv4', 'ipv4', {'nonInteraction': 1});
}
});
}
)
.catch(function(err) {
// IPv4 fetch failed
});
} catch (e) {
// Fetch will fail silently on older browsers
}
});
} catch (e) {
//fail silently on older browsers
}
});
</script>There are a couple of additional features in this script.
If you have any DOM elements with the class name
analytics-whats-my-ipthey will be filled in with the site visitors IP address, which could be IPv6 or IPv4. Additionally, elements with the class nameanalytics-whats-my-ip__containerwill receive the class nameanalytics-whats-my-ip--active. And if the users IP address is IPv6 then the container element will also receive the class name ofanalytics-whats-my-ip--ipv6if you wish to have additional styling such as reducing the font size.
If your site has universal analytics installed, the script will attempt to send a non-interactive event (won't affect bounce rate) to google analytics so that you can compare additional statistics.
You can view the results in plain text by visiting ipv6.your-domain.com in your browser, however, if you would like to use the simple visualization tool we put together you can follow these steps.
Make the web root directory for the files
mkdir -p /var/www/6connect
Move to the directory
cd /var/www/6connect
Clone our GUI repository
git clone https://github.com/6connect/ipv6-website-stats-gui
Now you should be able to visit ipv6.your-domain.com/gui and view the results live.
(if you see the raw JSON output, something went wrong, make sure you're in the right directory and your files are in the right place, repeat this step.)