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Vista and autoconfig

Anyone out there using Vista with IPv6?

I have a native Vista box and a Vista VM on a Linux box, and neither of them is autoconfiguring an address. The Linux machines in the same network do autoconfigure, as does a Brother printer. If I snoop the network I see what look like perfectly acceptable RA packets.

radvdump sees this on the interface the VM is bridged on:

interface wlan0
{
   AdvSendAdvert on;
   # Note: {Min,Max}RtrAdvInterval cannot be obtained with radvdump
   AdvManagedFlag off;
   AdvOtherConfigFlag off;
   AdvReachableTime 0;
   AdvRetransTimer 0;
   AdvCurHopLimit 64;
   AdvDefaultLifetime 180;
   AdvHomeAgentFlag off;
   AdvDefaultPreference medium;
   AdvSourceLLAddress on;

   prefix 2406:a000:0:100::/64
   {
      AdvValidLifetime 345600;
      AdvPreferredLifetime 172800;
      AdvOnLink on;
      AdvAutonomous on;
      AdvRouterAddr off;
   }; # End of prefix definition

}; # End of interface definition

The Vista on the VM was set up with next to no non-standard config; it's basically "out of the box".

The Vista machines are both showing "Autoconfiguration Enabled - Yes". I've looked at the Vista firewall, including the advanced settings, and it appears to be allowing ICMPv6 through OK. To make sure, I also tried turning the firewall OFF - no change. Both hosts are getting IPv4 addresses via DHCP from the same device that is doing the RAs. Both hosts can communicate via IPv4. There is no difference in behaviour between wireless and wired. If I manually give an interface on the VM an IPv6 address in 2406:a000:0:100::/64 and a default IPv6 route, I can see the local network and the IPv6 Internet. Other machines on the same link are autoconfiguring themselves.

I.e., everything works. Just not autoconfiguration.

Puzzled I am. The RAs are there, the subnet is a /64, RAs are not being filtered, Vista is apparently set to autoconfigure, other nodes in the same subnet autoconfigure just fine, all seems right with the world... but autoconfiguration on Vista is not happening. What am I missing?

Regards, K.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jeremy Duncan on October 24, 2010 at 10:37pm

Karl, what's the value on your DisabledComponents DWORD?

Permalink Reply by Karl Auer on November 4, 2010 at 6:53am

Assuming that is some kind of registry entry, it doesn't seem to exist on either the VM Vista nor the native Vista box. In both cases I looked for it by starting regedit and doing a search for DisabledComponents; no such entry. Can you explain what DisabledComponents is and tell me why it might have a bearing on my problem? And also, where to seek it if it is not a registry entry? I'm not a Windows person, so be gentle with me :-)

Permalink Reply by Carl Holzhauer on November 4, 2010 at 11:28am

This is new to me too, but this is what Google found

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852

Permalink Reply by Karl Auer on November 4, 2010 at 7:21pm

Using the KB link Carl sent, I created a DisabledComponents entry in the appropriate place in the registry and set it to zero. That should have made no difference, as by default all components are enabled; all I did was make it explicitly so. So as expected, no change in behaviour.

Permalink Reply by Carl Holzhauer on October 24, 2010 at 10:41pm

May be a dumb question, but what's your RA flag set to on that interface?

Permalink Reply by Karl Auer on November 4, 2010 at 6:55am

Um, other machines on that link autoconfigure just fine - an XP VM, several Linux VMs, two Linux boxes. And the RA flags were all in my original message :-)

Permalink Reply by Jeremy Duncan on November 4, 2010 at 12:22pm

yeah, do a regedit and add a 32-bit DWORD called DisabledComponents under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\" then add a value for the following options (from the MS KB site):
1. Type 0 to enable all IPv6 components.
Note The value "0" is the default setting.
2. Type 0xffffffff to disable all IPv6 components, except the IPv6 loopback interface. This value also configures Windows Vista to use Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) instead of IPv6 in prefix policies.
3. Type 0x20 to use IPv4 instead of IPv6 in prefix policies.
4. Type 0x10 to disable native IPv6 interfaces.
5. Type 0x01 to disable all tunnel IPv6 interfaces.
6. Type 0x11 to disable all IPv6 interfaces except for the IPv6 loopback interface.

Permalink Reply by Karl Auer on November 4, 2010 at 11:27pm

Further info: I finally installed wireshark on the Vista VM and checked - the router advertisements are arriving on the ethernet interface. Vista is ignoring them, for some reason. Totally mystifying.

Permalink Reply by Karl Auer on November 5, 2010 at 12:24am

OK, I reinstalled Vista in a VM from scratch and it worked. I have no idea what mysterious setting was accidentally tweaked or not tweaked in the first install, but it definitely works in the new VM. One possibility is that it is related to the choice of network location - for the first VM I chose "Public", for the new one I chose "Home".

It would be good to know for sure what caused this odd behaviour.

Permalink Reply by Jeremy Duncan on November 5, 2010 at 3:44am

wow... that's a first for me.. just when you thought you knew all of Microsoft's IPv6 quirks.. good find Karl!

Permalink Reply by Karl Auer on November 5, 2010 at 9:01am

Hang on - it's on;y a "possibility" and I have not been able to confirm it. Basically I have no idea why the first VM and the (still broken) Vista box will not autoconfigure. I would be very grateful if people who actually use Vista would help me try to figure it out.

Vista and autoconfig

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