IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6
128 bits of address space, end-to-end routable, with a /64 on every NordBastion VPS.
The sixth version of the Internet Protocol, standardised in RFC 8200 in 2017 (originally RFC 2460, 1998). Uses 128-bit addresses written as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits — for example 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334 — for a theoretical address space of roughly 3.4 × 10^38 addresses. Adoption is now roughly 45% of global traffic and rising.
A /64 on every plan, included by default.
Every NordBastion VPS, from the €4 entry tier to the largest 64-vCPU node, ships with a full /64 IPv6 subnet — that is 18 quintillion addresses, the standard allocation size in modern internet engineering. You can bind a different address per virtual host, per outbound connection, or per containerised service without ever asking for more.
This is the right allocation by default because IPv6 was designed to be lavish. Sub-allocating tiny slices to individual VMs — a /112 here, a /124 there — defeats every clever auto-configuration mechanism the protocol gives you and breaks SLAAC, neighbour discovery and address-rotation hygiene. We hand out the standard /64, the way the spec intended.
Operationally, our upstream is dual-stack everywhere: IPv4 and IPv6 transit, IXP peering on both protocols, full reverse DNS on both sides. Workloads that want to be IPv6-only (a common pick for internal services, CI runners and outbound-only scrapers) can simply leave the IPv4 interface unused.
The pages that lean on this term.
The questions people actually ask.
Why does IPv6 matter if IPv4 still works?
IPv4 works in the sense that the address space is big enough to keep the existing internet running on duct tape, with extensive carrier-grade NAT, address-leasing markets and increasingly creative reuse. IPv6 matters because it removes the scarcity — every device gets a real, routable, end-to-end address with no NAT in the middle. For server workloads this means simpler architectures; for clients it means the historical "behind two layers of NAT and a captive portal" problem disappears.
What does an IPv6 allocation on a VPS look like?
Each NordBastion VPS receives a /64 IPv6 subnet — that is 1.8 × 10^19 addresses, which is the standard allocation size and what every modern network engineer expects to receive. You can bind as many addresses as you like inside that range without asking for more, which makes IPv6-based virtual hosts, per-container addresses and rotating outbound addresses trivial to set up.
Is IPv6 traffic faster than IPv4?
In the same network conditions, usually slightly faster — the packet header is simpler, there are no fragmentation re-asseembly weirdnesses in the middle of the network, and the path through carrier-grade NAT is gone. The real-world delta is small (a few milliseconds on most paths) but never goes the wrong way.
Can I disable IPv6 if I do not want it?
Yes — every VPS image lets you disable IPv6 at the kernel level if your workload prefers a v4-only configuration. We would gently suggest keeping it enabled and binding only the addresses you actively use, since IPv6 reachability is increasingly required by mobile carriers and corporate networks that are aggressively phasing out IPv4 internally.