How can you tell which one you have? Is it safe to assume you have IPv4 if you've done no extra configuration?
I just hooked up my router, got wireless drivers, and was good to go. Does it have to do with the length of your IP address?
(Sorry for the dumb question, but it turns out I actually have to know this to configure something!)

Yes, the length of the IP address is 128 instead of 32 bits long. You probably have support for both versions installed and running.

If you want to know which is running, here are some commands to determine what you have.

Open a konsole. Switch to root. ( you have to know the root password ).

Run the command '/sbin/ifconfig' ( without the quotes ). This will display severel lines of information for each interface you have. The second line will show your IP address.

To see if you have ipv6 support loaded, run the command 'lsmod' and look through the oputput. IPv6 will show up in the list of inserted modules; probably.

ifconfig outputs on the second line for wlan0 the static ip I set up for this computer on the network.
However, the third line does start with "inet6 addr:" and the lsmod DID show ipv6, so should I thus assume I have ipv6? ^_^

Could you please cut and paste the output so I can have a look? Is this a home environment, a school or a business?

Since it is wireless, do you connect to more that one WAP's ( wireless access points ) ?

Nope, just one access point. ^_^

Your IPV6 address appears to be:Since you do not have an IPV6 router on your network your IPV6 module has created a local link address for you.

In the future when the there is universal support for IPV6 ... your PC will be ready. Right now you can ignore it ... you can even disable the IPV6 module from loading.

Since this thread talks about IPv4 and 6 I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem I've been having with my wireless. The driver is loading and working. wlan0 is configured and up. But I have an IPv6 adress, My wireless router doesn't support that. I was wondering if anyone knew what you had to do to get an IPv4 adress, so that when I run ifconfig I see INET: 192.168.1.x ... I'm pretty sure its a one liner either for ifconfig or iwconfig. Thanks.

charlie0313,

It is best to start your own thread instead of "highjacking" another thread. Your problem may not get the exposure it deserves.

To try and help, some systems will assign an IPv6 address if one is not assigned. I'm not sure why, but they do.

IPv4 addresses can be assigned by a DHCP server, because of a DHCP request. Or, you can assign one statically. DHCP servers can be run in linux, or a lot of routers can be configured to do the task.

To help you out, I need to know more about your network. Could you tell us the make and model of your router. Do you know how to configure it? Do you know how to display current configuration?

Yes, you can use the command ifconfig to assign an address. See the man page for ifconfig, or ask if you can't figure it out. If you assign an IP address with ifconfig, it will last until your next boot. So you need to make it permanent.

There are also configuration files to edit. I'm running Mandriva 2008. The file to edit is /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0. Other distros would probably use a different file, and in your case the file will likely have wlan0 in the name. Some distros have GUI tools to make it easier.

What distro are you running? Have a look around your desktop for any tools to help.