The IPv6 Workgroup of the Linux Foundation has announced that all major Linux distributions are now in compliance with Department of Defense certification policies, several months after the DoD began enforcing the requirements in its procurement practices. The compliance effort was driven by a collaboration involving IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Nokia, and several other major Linux stakeholders.

IPv6, which stands for Internet Protocol Version 6, boosts the size of IP addresses to 128 bits. This simplifies routing by dramatically expanding the number of available addresses. IPv6 adoption will be necessitated by the eventual exhaustion of available IPv4 addresses, but the transition has been slow and challenging.

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) accelerated its own move to IPv6-enabled technology and set 2008 as the target year for completion of the process. Major software vendors have had to fulfill specific requirements and validate their products against the Defense Information System Agency's IPv6 Special Interoperability Certification in order to avoid being excluded from DoD procurements. The DoD made certification mandatory in June.

According to the Linux Foundation, the most popular enterprise Linux distributions now meet the DoD's standards. The foundation's IPv6 workgroup was led by Venkata Jagana, IBM's chief architect of linux networking. IBM was an early participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force's efforts to devise IPv6 and implemented the protocol in its own AIX UNIX operating system in 1997. They began contributing to Linux's IPv6 development efforts a few years later.

"In early 2000, IBM recognized the need for Linux to be both IPv6 compliant and interoperable and started making development contributions by working with the Linux community and distros," said IBM's Kathy Bennett in a statement. "Today, that effort, along with Linux Foundation's IPv6 WG efforts, have benefited the Linux industry in achieving the Department of Defense IPv6 certification at a level which is leading in the industry."

Linux has had relatively robust IPv6 support since 2005, but further work was needed for for the open source platform to achieve full compliance with DoD standards. The Linux Foundation's IPv6 workgroup analyzed the DoD certification requirements and identified key areas where Linux's IPv6 stack needed adjustments in order to guarantee compliance. They collaboratively filled in the gaps and have succeeded in bringing the shared technology into alignment with the DoD's standards.

In August, Red Hat announced that its enterprise Linux distribution had officially received the certification after it passed the DoD IPv6 Master Test Plan. The Linux Foundation contends that all major distros are now properly equipped to pass the tests and should achieve certification. The effort highlights the value of the Linux Foundation, which serves as a forum for bringing together companies that use and deploy Linux so that they can collectively solve shared problems.

"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," said Linux Foundation director Jim Zemlin in a statement. "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."

IPv6 support is starting to grow in mainstream software. A recent study conducted by Google showed that global IPv6 penetration is still at less than one percent, but its growth is accelerating in North America as a result of Apple's growing market share and support for the protocol in its router products. For a technical introduction to IPv6, check out the detailed guide that we published last year.