IPv6 and IPSec general questions

[Brian Bartley]

All,
Are IPv6 and IPSec basically the same thing?

If I'm able to get IPv6 installed, will it affect current networking with IPv4, that is will it turn off any networking elements that are currently working? Basically are there any gotchas or drawbacks to installing IPSec?

We're using Samba to share some folders with Windows clients, at the moment it works fine, but I'd like to encrypt the Samaba transfers, is IPSec/IPv6 the solution for that? We're on 11.11, box is A-class server.

Thanks,

Brian

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom Brian,

Are IPv6 and IPSec basically the same thing?
No.
IPv6 is a new ip addressing system created in response to the believe that the world will run out of IPv4 internet ip addresses.

IPSec is a security protocol that insures packets of data between two systems are secure and not intercepted and replaced. There are better definitions, but these two items are not the same thing.

For your secure samba file transfer issue:
No need to use IPv6. You can use IPSec or Kerberos to make sure your data transfers to and from Samba shares are secure and encrypted.

SEP

[Brian Bartley]

Thanks for the reply, I'll check on getting IPSec installed.

Brian

[rick jones]

From a standards perspective my understanding is IPv6 requires an IPv6 host/router to also support IPsec functionality. IPsec can also be added optionally on top of IPv4.

Depending on the "strength" of the encryption you enable with IPsec, and how much idle CPU time you have on your A-class, you may notice quite a... difference... in performance with IPsec enabled.