Contact

The main contact address for SixXS is info@sixxs.net, which is the sole email address one should use to contact SixXS. Due to the international effort put into SixXS the official and sole language used is English.

We make status updates and announce news headlines on Twitter account @tweetsix. For quick questions one could use it, but please note that incoming references with either @tweetsix or the #sixxs hash are queued, like email, into our info@sixxs.net queue and thus are handled based on priority and first come first answer basis.

In case you are having issues with our services, don't hesitate to contact us. But please follow the guidelines given below as it makes it so much easier to resolve problems. Also, by reading the below guidelines and especially the FAQ most issues can be resolved. When having configuration issues, don't hesitate to make use of the Forums.

When you do not adhere to these simple guidelines, don't be surprised if you get pointed to this page or asked for more details.

We ask you to respect the following when contacting us:

• Write a proper English message, including a salutation, core section and greeting.
• Include a descriptive subject and if available your username (typically xxxx-SIXXS or xxxx-RIPE etc).
• Use your complete real name in both the message and the from address, thus configure your mail client correctly.
• Use the email address you registered with
• Explain your problem or question in detail by reading and using the Reporting Problems section on this page.
• When replying please adhere to Inline Replying & Netiquette Guidelines.
• All email, except when targeted to the abuse@ address, is spam-scanned and rejected during SMTP-DATA using SpamAssassin thus don't spam us.

Didn't get a reply? Remember that patience is a virtue. If you uphold to the above rules then just wait a few days. At times there is an email backlog on our side, but we will come back to you at one point. There is also quite a lot happening behind the scenes and we actually also still have real work to do which gets priority. Resending the message doesn't make the message come through quicker, it will only cause the pile of emails to answer become longer and thus a reply to be delayed further. Also note that you might receive responses from multiple members of the opers team and that all the oper members read your messages, thus when addressing, address the whole team ('Hi SixXS') and not a individual team member.

Feedback

As we strive to make the SixXS service available and useable for everybody, we are always interested in feedback. Thus if you encounter something which is not clear, too difficult, requires explanation or could be done better or in a different way which would improve the experience for the users, then do not hesitate to describe the problem and email it to our contact address. One can of course also discuss this in the Forum's "What can be done better" thread.

Abuse

Abuse and related messages should be sent directly to abuse@sixxs.net. SixXS has an Incident Response Team, as registered in the RIPE database with the IRT-SIXXS handle. Also see our Abuse FAQ and the above contact information. In case of reporting SPAM/UCE/Viruses, either attach them in a ZIP file or PGP encrypt your message. SixXS managed prefixes can be found in whois and in our own PoP Prefix List. IPv4 endpoint information of all tunnels can be found by quering whois.sixxs.net for the IPv6 address.

SixXS uses the RIPE organization object ORG-SIXX1-RIPE and the role objects SIXT1-RIPE for RIPE, SATR1-AP for APNIC and STRA1-ARIN for ARIN which are applied to the various registry objects which are managed by SixXS. In case of issues with any object associated with that do not hesitate to contact us.

Reporting problems / Troubleshooting / Checklist

When describing a problem, either to the Opers in an email to the above address, or with a post in the Forum or in the Ticket System, please provide the following information where available and use it as a checklist to figure out where your problem might be, without it helping you resolv your problem becomes pretty much impossible, but with these details it becomes much easier, thus provide as much information as possible:

As stated below, we are not a helpdesk, but we are willing to help; we do need to have these details though, otherwise there is not much help that we can give. When these details are not provided, we will reply and simply point to this list.

• Always include clear descriptive information about your problem or inquiry.
• When using AICCU, please run it using "aiccu test" this should provide minor diagnostics.
• When using AICCU, check that you are using the latest version, and of course please specify where the binary comes from, also run it with the 'verbose true' flag and provide the output of that.
• Always provide your NIC handle and if applicable the Tunnel or Route IDs you wish to discuss.
• Use the email address you have provided in your handle as that is what we use as a contact handle.
• Provide details of the setup, type of connections, where NATs are located.
• Provide information of your OS type, version and release (ie. uname -a), noting also the distribution name.
• Include full interface, routing and firewall tables.
• Include the list of firewall and anti-virus software you have installed / are running (note that under Windows some 'firewall' tools don't understand IPv6 at all and thus just throw it away, only uninstall helps for those cases).
• Include a IPv4 and IPv6 traceroute to the PoP in question.
• With heartbeat tunnels, first check clock synchronization or better: use AICCU.
• Check with Wireshark or tcpdumps of the interface over which the tunnel runs.
  Use -n (numeric) as an option and don't filter returning ICMP which could also come from routers between your endpoint and the PoP and also use -s 1500 so that one gets the full packet.
• The status of the PoP is listed on the PoP Status page, if it is marked down there we are aware of the issue and we will try to resolve it as soon as possible. Additionally other issues are listed in the  Ticket Tracker.
• We are not your personal helpdesk, thus first read the FAQ and/or use the forum, many cases can already be solved that way, but we do want to have you actually use the tunnel thus do contact us if the problem persists.

Note that you should have read the FAQ first which we will refer to it directly. Some questions are also asked and answered in the Forums which is another place you can look first. We also handle the rule which says stupid questions become stupid answers.

Forum

The SixXS Forums provide a central place for IPv6 users around the world to communicate with each other. Even though it requires a SixXS login to post it isn't restricted to SixXS users. The forum is not meant for reporting problems or issues you have with your account or connectivity. Use the above contact details for those issues.

IRC Chat Channel

To make it possible for users to discuss with other users SixXS and other IPv6 related subjects we suggest people to use #ipv6 channel on Freenode. The Freenode Webchat allows one to jump right in.

We additionally have two status-only channels: #sixxs on both IRCnet and Freenode. Monitoring/status messages are available in this channel: User, tunnel, and subnet review queues, PoP status and other monitoring information is reported on this channel by the SixXS robot. These channels are moderated (+m) as they are solely status channels, please use the #ipv6 channel on Freenode for any IPv6 questions as there are a lot of active knowledgeable people present there who can help with an answer to your questions.

irssi users might want to use: /ignore #sixxs TOPICS to hide the individual topic changes which is used to display the current status. Similar ignore possibilities should be available for your preferred IRC client.

Though this channel allows for discussion about IPv6 and SixXS in general, it is not a contact method towards SixXS Opers/Staff even though they might be present.