Had to disable ipv6 on my Laptop PC for use within Phuket Thailand

English Network/Internet
1

I’m currently on vacation in Phuket Thailand, and discovered for YaST Software Manager for Packman updates, and for Firefox for some websites I had to disable ipv6 to obtain access. I did not have the same problem (in accessing these sites) with Chrome browser that I had with firefox.

For example, with ipv6 enabled this is the error I received with YaST Software Package manager on my 64-bit openSUSE-12.1 KDE desktop :
http://thumbnails103.imagebam.com/22719/948cbb227187672.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/948cbb227187672)

and with ipv6 enabled when I type the Packman URL in Firefox I obtain this error:
http://thumbnails106.imagebam.com/22719/78a022227187674.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/78a022227187674)

Yet Chrome works with ipv6 enabled the same site (making me think Chrome does something special wrt ipv6):
http://thumbnails102.imagebam.com/22719/2c8a0b227187678.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/2c8a0b227187678)

… so I then disabled ipv6 on my openSUSE-12.1 install and rebooted, and then noted firefox for the same site works:
http://thumbnails101.imagebam.com/22719/af5e17227187680.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/af5e17227187680)

I then tested YaST software manager and it also works fine with ipv6 disabled on my openSUSE-12.1.

Note in Germany, for the same site with the same laptop computer and same boot partition (to openSUSE-12.1), ipv6 works fine. So somewhere between my computer wireless connecting to my brother-in-law’s home router (connected to a Thai ISP), and the Packman (and other) sites, it appears that ipv6 causes a problem (that is a bit speculative on my part).

Anyway, I am relieved to note that this works by disabling ipv6.

2

Lousy ISP.

When you are interested (but you shouldn’t be, you should enjoy your holliday), use Test your IPv6.

3

On 12/22/2012 09:36 AM, hcvv wrote:
>
> Lousy ISP.
>
> When you are interested (but you shouldn’t be, you should enjoy your
> holliday), use ‘Test your IPv6.’ (http://test-ipv6.com/)

You could also edit /etc/resolv.conf to use a public name server that does
handle IPv6. I am not sure how well they would work from Thailand, but I use the
Google name servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Actually, try pinging one of them to
see the response. For me, I get 72 ms for 8.8.8.8.

My ISP does handle IPv6, but their service is lousy. That is why I use Google.
My resolv.conf has my router as the third choice, thus I fall back to the ISP if
the Google servers are not available.

4

I always thought that this was a mozilla issue
First thing i do after a new install is turn off IPV6 in ifup and seamonkey.

5

The problem is allways with you and.or your ISP. When your ISP is not able to handle IPv6 correctly there are time-outs involved. When you switch IPv6 usage off in you system, you will not get those time outs, but you will never reach IPv6 maturaty.

6

Another common solution for Global Business Travelers is to sign up with a commercial VPN service which can cost as low as about $5 US/mo ranging up to a hundred or so dollars. Cheaper services often are adequate, but highly recommend researching and evaluating before traveling.

The idea is that you tunnel through the VPN service and pop out the other side in another country. You can also often control your VPN exit in whichever country you choose.

Because your immediate local connection is encrypted, you also usually bypass any ISP and country restrictions and guard against hostile hacking.

A free option is the Tor browser bundle
https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Although simple to run, completely self-contained and it “just works,” the Tor network’s servers are provided entirely by volunteers and I’ve noticed that during high load times servers are often loaded more than a hundred Users per server. Note that if you need more than simply browser functionality, the openSUSE repos provide Tor packages.

I haven’t tested but doubt that IPv6 will work through a tunnel, but all your apps should work fine nonetheless.

HTH,
TSU

7

I note this from that site:
http://thumbnails106.imagebam.com/22730/c7a3d7227291997.jpg](ImageBam)

( … my wife is off getting her 4th massage in 5 days, and I decided to take a break from Massage today, and I’m catching up on my Internet stuff … But weather is great at a nice 28 deg C, and no rain. This may be the place where I will retire in 4 years time ).

8

On 12/23/2012 05:06 AM, oldcpu wrote:
> But weather is great at a nice 28 deg C, and no rain. This
> may be the place where I will retire in 4 years time

be sure and try “the rainy season” (and the blistering hot season)
before you make the move!

but, on the other hand i have also considered spending three or four
months there every year…

–
dd

9

It is much cooler than other tropics in summer(27C to 36C) according to Phuket Weather Forecasts - When is the Best Time to Go to Phuket
Generally day time temperatures reach 40’s in summer in the tropical regions.

10

I lived in Phuket for two years from 1997 to 1999. My wife is from Phuket and that is where we met.

Still, your advice is good for anyone considering retiring in a place which has major differences between the seasons.

11

> It is much cooler than other tropics in summer(27C to 36C

is pretty warm to those living in mid-to-northern europaville

–
dd

12

Latest interesting ‘tidbit’ wrt my Phuket Thailand connection compared to my Germany connection, this time with the use of the application Skype.

In Germany with this laptop (same software/app version) I was able from our home LAN in Germany to have a video chat with Skype with my mother in Canada with her using her desktop PC. This laptop of mine has openSUSE-12.2 (stock KDE) and my mother’s desktop in Canada has openSUSE-12.1 (stock KDE).

In Thailand with both PC’s using openSUSE, when I try, only mutual voice works. As soon as the video is enabled, mutual video works and voice stops. Ergo we can not have a video chat and see each other at the same time using the nominal Skype method. We either have pure audio or pure video connection, but not a connection with both audio and video mixed.

BUT, this morning, we connected to my mother’s openSUSE-12.1 KDE desktop PC (in Canada) from my wife’s Lenovo laptop (running Windows7) with Skype here in Thailand, and both video and audio worked with no problem.

This suggests to me, that there is still something setup in the networking in my openSUSE-12.2 KDE install on my laptop (here in Thailand) that is causing a problem with what ever network restrictions/setup exists here in Thailand. I suspect it is the ‘Thailand’ end (ie my openSUSE-12.2 laptop) because the Canadian openSUSE-12.1 KDE end (with my mother) works ok with Windows7 to my wife’s laptop. I note again this laptop of mine with openSUSE-12.2 with same Skype install/settings worked fine to connect to Canada when the laptop was in Germany.

I may need to compare my laptop’s openSUSE skype settings to that of my wife’s Windows7 skype settings (of her Windows7 laptop here in Thailand), to see if that sheds any light. Checking the ‘advanced’ settings I see my openSUSE Skype (for my openSUSE laptop here in Thailand) is set to use port 17170 with automatic proxy detection for incoming connections, At this stage I don’t know if that is relevant. I never paid attention to that before when Skype ‘just worked’ for a Germany-to-Canada connection.

13

You may be subject to a rather common issue, many older hardware use an earlier version of NAT which has problems passing various 2-way multimedia protocols.

Before you condemn all of Thailand’s Internet connections, recommend you simply try a few other networks if you can. The other <very> common solution is as I described in my earlier post… connect through a full VPN tunnel to another location where service quality and restrictions are different.

Although I wouldn’t want to post a recommendation in a public forum like this, if you want to try a commercial VPN service, I can PM you a recommendation or two. Many services will also grant you a 24hr free test to verify your needs are satisfied.

TSU

14

Thanks for the feedback.

I did a test this morning, booting my laptop here in Thailand to Windows7 (for the first time in a long time) and had a successful video chat with my mother who is in Canada (where she is running openSUSE-12.1 KDE with Skype on her PC). Both video and audio chat worked with me using Windows7 (and my mother using openSUSE). I note when I last tried Skype on my same laptop here in Thailand with an openSUSE-12.2 boot (KDE) that only the audio connection worked in chatting with my mother, and as soon as my mother and I enabled the video in our Skype connection, the audio in Skype stopped working.

So this does appear to point the finger at the openSUSE-12.2 (KDE) functionality in Thailand. Again, note same laptop, same openSUSE-12.2 KDE, and same Skype settings works ok in Germany when connecting to Canada to my mother. So openSUSE-12.2 works fine when the laptop is in Germany but not when it is in Thailand.

So if this is a NAT issue, it appears it could be the openSUSE-12.2 issue with dealing with the NAT (where Windows7 does not have the issue).

Note I use default Skype settings and have never needed to tune Skype’s settings.

I checked the Windows7 options for Skype. It is set up to use port 43253 (instead of the 17170 that openSUSE is setup to use). These are default settings (I have not touched any of them). I also note the Windows7 Skype has an option selected entitled “use port 80 + 443 as alternatives for incoming connections” where the GNU/Linux Skype version has no such option. Ergo the Windows7 Skype application has what appears to be a ‘fall back’ option that the GNU/Linux Skype application does not have.

Far be it for me to condemn another country’s Internet connections. I’m quite happily using the Internet connection here in Thailand. Its only the now owned by Microsoft Skype with openSUSE-12.2 that is giving me some difficulty. This is only important so far as I may retire here in just over 4 years, and if I do retire here I would like full functionality with openSUSE with the applications that I like to use.

Its possible a VPN service may provide a solution. But given I am only here for a brief vacation, I’m a bit reluctant to spend the time investigating that avenue/approach at this time.

But MANY thanks for the offer.

15

So if this is a NAT issue, it appears it could be the openSUSE-12.2 issue with dealing with the NAT (where Windows7 does not have the issue).

More likely due to the router handling the internet connectivity.

16

The latest update in this vacation ‘saga’ is Skype is now working for me in connecting from Thailand (with 64-bit openSUSE-12.2 KDE4) to Canada (using openSUSE-12.1 with KDE4). :slight_smile:

Today, 1-Jan-2013, I went to chat with my mother this morning (her in Canada and me in Thailand) and in a typical absent minded / reflexive oldcpu mode I booted my laptop here in Thailand to openSUSE-12.2, logged on to Skype and she called me. Then I realized I was using openSUSE and not Windows7. We elected to attempt the connection anyway with us both using openSUSE GNU/Linux, and much to my surprise both audio and video worked.

Now last week (from 18 to 24-December) when I attempted to use Skype from openSUSE-12.2 only audio, or video, but not both worked. My mother and I had attempted > 1/2 dozen times.

So I am asking myself now, what changed to make this work ?

I have not changed any configuration settings in my Skype, nor has my mother in hers. She has not updated the OS nor any apps on her openSUSE-12.1 (as typically I do such updates for her remotely). However I have done a few updates on my laptop since arriving in Thailand.

To check what apps had been updated/installed recently on my PC, I typed:


rpm -qa --last > my-updated-rpms.txt

which created the text file my-updated-rpms.txt and I opened that file and looked at my updates. I can see I performed updates to my openSUSE-12.2 KDE4 … one on 22-December and one on 27-December and one on 31-December. The 22-December update clearly changed nothing positive (that I could detect) wrt Skype as Skype did not work for me on 23/24 Dec using openSUSE-12.2 here in Thailand.

That suggests the 27-December or 31-December update may have played a roll in this now functioning. But when I look at the rpm list for those two days (which is quite long and I have pasted here: SUSE Paste - updates to oldcpu’s laptop ) and there is nothing obvious to me that could have ‘fixed’ the problem. I note some X window tool kit and other X updates. On 31-Dec I installed PACPL which dragged in a bunch of dependencies but they should have no relevance here.

So this is a mystery. … The cause and effect eludes me at this time.

But its nice to see openSUSE-12.2 working here, and not forcing me to boot to Windows7 to have a video chat with my mother.

17

That should read " as Skype did not work for me on 23/24 Dec using openSUSE-12.2 here in Thailand "