Can't ping Linux IPv6 address from Windows XP

Question

I gave an IPv6 address to my SUSE Linux machine on a VirtualBox VM with ifconfig eth0 inet6 add ...

I can't ping that address from Windows XP (vice versa) The address of the Linux machine is efbb::26 and XP is efbb::27.

ping6 -s efbb::27 -r efbb::26 
the output:
from efbb::27 with 32 bytes of data ( I think it must be 56 bytes)
Invalid source route specified
    Problem with source address or scope-id

Where is the problem?

Answer 1

You mixed up the addresses: you're trying to send pings from Windows, but you gave the Linux address as "source" and Windows as "destination". The OS cannot send packets from an address which doesn't belong to it.

Generally, you shouldn't need to specify -s addr at all; the routing table¹ handles selection of addresses. Just run one of:

ping6 efbb::26

ping efbb::26

How many bytes of data are sent doesn't matter; it might even be zero – the ICMP header is sent anyway and will be replied to. Some systems might ignore pings larger than ~1000 bytes, though, but 32 vs 56 really doesn't make a difference.

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¹ Use netsh → interface ipv6 to access the IPv6 routing table among other things.

Answer 2

In a very simplified way, the first octed of an ipv6 address may have special meaning. Certain Bits indicate that the address is used for multicast. Others define the scope. Simply said: You cannot just choose any value for it.

So my question is, where are the addresses from, that you are using. I find them quite "unusual". If you are building an provate network consider using Addresses from the so called "Unique local addresses" (fc00::/7). fc00::/8 is reseved for globally assigned unique local addresses. So you should choose addresses from within fd00::/8.

See RFC 4193 for more on this issue.