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I was putting the following in /etc/sysctl.conf in Ubuntu 16.04 and ipv6 was disabled.

net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

In Ubuntu 18.04 I have to add the following to grub.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="ipv6.disable=1"

Just wanted to have confirmation whether this is the new way in Ubuntu 18.04 to disable IPv6.

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3
  • why do you want to disable IPv6? That's considered bad practice.
    – TJJ
    Oct 19, 2019 at 18:38
  • 1
    Why is i a bad practice? Any links supporting this?
    – jreisinger
    Apr 20, 2020 at 15:06
  • 4
    If you don't use IPv6, disabling it is good practice.
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Nov 7, 2020 at 1:48

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
17

You only need to add this to /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="ipv6.disable=1"

I also did it on GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to be safe. Modifying sysctl only partially worked, and noticed the bug show-up in netplan, I even tried dhcp6=false to no avail. Netplan seems to have too many bugs for 18.04 STABLE IMO but that's another story...half tempted to remove netplan also.

Just don't forget to update grub before rebooting!

sudo update-grub
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3
  • 2
    Can you clarify how this answers the question? I am confused by your answer.
    – Stephen Rauch
    Jun 13, 2018 at 3:19
  • 2
    Please consider reporting the netplan bugs you found on launchpad.net! It will help the developers making it better.
    – Sebastian Stark
    Jun 13, 2018 at 5:11
  • Sebastian Stark - I will try to get to it, it just does not seem to pay attention to kernel settings hence why the grub command was needed, everything else used sysctl.conf except netplan.
    – VTChevalier
    Jun 14, 2018 at 19:21
16

To clarify Stephan Rauch (for 18.04 only) - If using grub method to disable ipv6, the /etc/sysctl.conf configuration changes were not needed. I ended up leaving them in, (in case netplan is fixed in future) but all that is needed is the following:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Modify the GRUB_CMDLINEs to look like:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="ipv6.disable=1"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="ipv6.disable=1"

Then execute:

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Enjoy ipv4.

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1
  • Thanks for the info. Do we think this would be worthy of a netplan bug or is configuring things like this through sysctl.conf deprecated anyway? I couldn't find a relevant bug in bugs.launchpad.net/netplan but perhaps I missed it?
    – sxc731
    Dec 25, 2018 at 12:03
5

I think a different aproach in Ubuntu 18.04 is this one: https://pscl4rke.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/disabling-ipv6-on-ubuntu-18-04-the-netplan-version/

Just add link-local: [] within the interface you want to disable the ipv6 link local address option. Save and test the new config with: sudo netplan try and if everything was okay enforce it with: sudo netplan apply.

Take into account that you can loss your network connection to the box if you don't know well what you are doing.

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4
  • 1
    This doesn't actually disable IPv6 on the host. It just disables it in Netplan, but the IPv6 modules are still loaded, other code still see's IPv6, etc.
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Nov 7, 2020 at 1:47
  • 1
    I needed to disable ipv6 on one interface for a storage-only LAN that only uses ipv4, while still allowing ipv6 on other interfaces. By far the easiest method, totally convenient and effective. I think I'm actually starting to like netplan!
    – Avery Freeman
    Feb 17, 2021 at 10:12
  • 1
    Disabling IPv6 totally as mentioned in /etc/default/grub can give problem with some apps requesting ipv6 compatibility out-of-the-box (i.e dovecot).
    – dienteperro
    Aug 4, 2021 at 5:58
  • This disable the ipv6 on interface, nice answer. To disable all ipv6, you need disable it on /etc/default/grub.
    – Marcelo Guedes
    May 16, 2022 at 19:54
0

Let sed do the work :D

sudo sed -i -e 's/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="maybe-ubiquity"/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="ipv6.disable=1 maybe-ubiquity"/' /etc/default/grub
sudo sed -i -e 's/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="ipv6.disable=1"/' /etc/default/grub
sudo update-grub
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