Eero and ipv6
Some tips for hosting
The other day, I was trying to ssh into my server from a friend's house. I kept getting
timeout errors, which was weird. I regularly ssh in from within my local network, and
I've connected via ssh from other networks many times before. After some troubleshooting,
I found that my connection failed when connecting using ipv6.
Initially, I thought my dns record was incorrect. Maybe it needed to point to the router
and not the server? Maybe the ip had changed since I last modified the record?
Nope.
Next, I checked my router settings. My router is an Eero, so I pulled up the
configuration app. My port forwards were all there. I used an open port tester, which
confirmed that port 22 was open.
Eventually, I found out that eero's port forwarding settings only apply to ipv4. [1]. To
enable ports for ipv6, you need to add a firewall rule for the device.
I spent a while looking for a solution, so I thought I'd document mine for anyone else
who runs into this problem.
Footnotes
[1] I probably could have figured this out, given that ipv6 doesn't need to use NAT, but I didn't think of it until later. (return)