Change external IPv6 address in Windows

I would like to change my allocated external IPv6 address on a dynamic ADSL2+ connection. I have tried disconnecting my router from the internet using it's web interface but after restoring the connection the IPv4 changes but the IPv6 does not.
I checked my IP address using the following site with .com added. TB seems to block it for some reason when posted as a link.
what is my ip address

Is there an easy way to force an IP address change for a IPv6 connection in Windows 10? The Internet provider is BT.

Edited by Mr_Wonderful (Wed 08-Nov-23 08:45:46)

Isn't the IPV6 address your PC uses changing every day?

With IPv6, you typically have a public IPv6 network address assigned to the edge of your network and then the devices internally configure themselves using IPv6 privacy extensions. On the public Internet, an observer can see and track your public IPv6 address, but that will be changing each and every day, making any kind of long-term tracking rather difficult or resource-consuming.

https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2014/12/ipv6-pr...

In reply to a post by Moto:

Isn't the IPV6 address your PC uses changing every day?

With IPv6, you typically have a public IPv6 network address assigned to the edge of your network and then the devices internally configure themselves using IPv6 privacy extensions. On the public Internet, an observer can see and track your public IPv6 address, but that will be changing each and every day, making any kind of long-term tracking rather difficult or resource-consuming.

https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2014/12/ipv6-pr...

By default, yes, but this can be switched off.

Or you just set to a static address.

Yes, that seems to be true based upon my experience today where my IPv6 has now changed itself. However I would still like the option to forcibly change my IPv6 just like I can with my IPv4 for when this becomes helpful. I would expect that this can be done but ATM I don't know how to force that. That is why I am asking.

My network knowledge is extremely limited TBH. Can anyone help with this? Internet searches haven't been very helpful so far all they want to do is sell me a VPN which is not what I want. VPN's a a real nuisance and just mess up my web mail.

So, "external" IP addresses are not quite the same in IPv6. NAT is not used in IPv6 and you would normally have a /56 subnet allocated to the router and each device on the lan would have it's own public IPv6 address.

There's an element of security through obscurity - it's not feasible to scan the entire IPv6 address space.

IPv6 addresses are generally assigned through SLAAC and not DHCP, although it's possible to use DHCPv6. The client can grab any IPv6 address it feels like on the /56 subnet.

You can change the client IPv6 address as much as you like, within your /56. You may or may not find the /56 is static however, even if you're on a "dynamic" service.

Using a different device (e.g. your phone, another laptop) on the same connection would present a different "public" IPv6 address.

If someone is blocking you however, and you're trying to evade the block, they are likely to block a wider range than a single IPv6 address.

In reply to a post by Mr_Wonderful:

My network knowledge is extremely limited TBH.

Changing your IP is also something very rare, and not common. The only reason IPv4 change is there are no more left. Some networks won't let you change your IPv6 address.

In reply to a post by Mr_Wonderful:

However I would still like the option to forcibly change my IPv6 just like I can with my IPv4 for when this becomes helpful.

Simply disconnect and reconnect to the router, you can disable and re-enable the network adaptor to achieve this.

ipconfig before:
Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : 2a02:c7c:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:7942:6a59:d032

ipconfig after:
Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : 2a02:c7c:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:ed89:4012:3a0a

Yes thank you I had just found that out myself and I am in the process of trying it out. Changing the IPv6 & IPv4 is a bit difficult to do so it's not an ideal method but it does work. I can do it on device manager easily but doing it on the command line would be a better method if I can work that out.

In reply to a post by Mr_Wonderful:

Yes thank you I had just found that out myself and I am in the process of trying it out. Changing the IPv6 & IPv4 is a bit difficult to do so it's not an ideal method but it does work. I can do it on device manager easily but doing it on the command line would be a better method if I can work that out.

The IP you posted from yesterday changed twice
It'a also different from month earlier.

Yes I was aware that my IP address can and does change because I do check my IP address occasionally. It was more a question of manually doing it, how to do it and doing it as easily as possible when needed.
Disabling my network connection, which I have two on my PC, seems to require admin privileges which makes it more difficult to implement easily. I have found a few methods to do that but all require admin privs to do it. Nirsoft has a program and command line tool that can do it and devcon.exe and PnPUTIL which is included with Win 10 from microsoft are meant to be able to do it. They do all require admin privileges which I need to find a way to elevate in the command line. I do seem to remember there being programs which can do that, I will have to look for those again.

In reply to a post by Mr_Wonderful:

Yes I was aware that my IP address can and does change because I do check my IP address occasionally. It was more a question of manually doing it, how to do it and doing it as easily as possible when needed.

You could easily write a powershell script to trigger a scheduled task that runs as administrator or system to disable and re-enable the NIC. There are also utilities to enable standard users to run specified tasks as administrator.

Really we need to understand what you're trying to do (cycle IP on demand? Every 30 mins? When a website blocks you?) and why (you think it makes you more secure? You're trying to evade a ban?) if you want people to be able to give you a proper solution.

For example, if addresses are assigned by SLAAC and RA, and you have a delegated /56, the router is providing a preferred and valid lifetime to the clients in the RA, and this can be changed at the router (assuming the router allows it, a locked down ISP provided router probably does not).

One way to allow a standard user to disable and reenable nics on demand would be to create a scheduled task with no triggers that runs as system with something like this:

# PowerShell script to disable and re-enable all active NICs
Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq "Up"} | ForEach-Object {
$nicName = $_.Name
Write-Host "Disabling NIC: $nicName"
Disable-NetAdapter -Name $nicName -Confirm:$false
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5 # Wait for a few seconds before re-enabling
Write-Host "Enabling NIC: $nicName"
Enable-NetAdapter -Name $nicName -Confirm:$false
}

And then trigger that task with a second script that runs as a standard user:

# PowerShell script to trigger the scheduled task
Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName "RefreshNIC"

But I'd suggest you don't just run code from the internet posted by a random forum user. This will obviously lead to a few seconds of lost internet.

Really we need to know what you're doing and why.

Edited by nemeth782 (Thu 09-Nov-23 13:53:36)