In an environment that is based on vSphere 6.0 and later, nodes and features can communicate over IPv6 transparently supporting static and automatic address configuration.

IPv6 in the Communication between vSphere Nodes

The nodes in a vSphere deployment can communicate using IPv6 and accept assigned addresses according to the network configuration.

Table 1. IPv6 Support of the Nodes in a vSphere Environment
Connection Type IPv6 Support Address Configuration of vSphere nodes
ESXi to ESXi Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
vCenter Server machine to ESXi Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
vCenter Server machine to vSphere Web Client machine Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
ESXi to vSphere Client machine Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
Virtual machine to virtual machine Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
ESXi to iSCSI Storage Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
ESXi to NFS Storage Yes
  • Static
  • Automatic: AUTOCONF/DHCPv6
ESXi to Active Directory No

Use LDAP through vCenter Server to connect ESXi to the Active Directory database

-
vCenter Server Appliance to Active Directory No

Use LDAP to connect the vCenter Server Appliance to the Active Directory database

-

IPv6 Connectivity of vSphere Features

Certain vSphere features do not support IPv6:

  • vSphere DPM over Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) and Hewlett-Packard Integrated Lights-Out (iLO). vSphere 6.5 supports only Wake-On-LAN (WOL) to bring a host out of standby mode.
  • vSAN
  • Authentication Proxy

  • Use NFS 4.1 with AUTH_SYS.

  • vSphere Management Assistant and vSphere Command-Line Interface connected to Active Directory.

    Use LDAP to connect the vSphere Management Assistant or the vSphere Command-Line Interface to the Active Directory database.

IPv6 Connectivity of Virtual Machines

Virtual machines can exchange data in the network over IPv6. vSphere supports both static and automatic assignment of IPv6 addresses for virtual machines.

Configuring one or more IPv6 addresses is also possible when you customize the guest operating system of a virtual machine.

FQDNs and IPv6 Addresses

In vSphere, you should use fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) that are mapped to IPv6 addresses on the DNS server. You can use IPv6 addresses if they have a valid FQDN on the DNS server for reverse lookup.

To deploy vCenter Server in a pure IPv6 environment, you must use FQDNs only.