I have just managed successfully to set up a free VPS with an IPv6.  The challenge was to set up IPv6 as I had never done something like that before.  I have been spoilt to always have an IPv4. I doubt I’d have been able to get my IPv6 to work without the assistance of Cloudflare.

It took hours of research and at least a few re-installations of my OS  to discover that IPv6 is still not 100% accepted every where.  There are no free control panels available for a VPS with IPv6.  Some of the free control panels maintain they do support IPv6, but when I tried them out I could not use their scripts. The scripts either asked for an IPv4, when I input an IPv6, or the script would just bog down when I tried to install it.

I then decided to use LAMP with WordPress as a Plan B, which in hindsight is a much better option for a small VPS.  However, during my first attempt at installation of Apache 2,  Apache2 would not show up either in localhost or the domain.  I was ready to concede defeat when out of the blue I thought of Cloudflare, begrudgingly.   My dislike of Cloudflare had started many years ago in 2013, when the owner of the discussion forum I was staff at, decided to try out Cloudflare for extra security for the discussion forum.  I was totally disgusted when Cloudflare would not allow me to log in, as at the time I was from the UAE.  Quite a number of us at the Forum got similarly axed by Cloudflare.  The owner then immediately removed Cloudflare, but the experience stayed with me for a very long time.

March on to 2024, and Cloudflare baled me out with getting my IPv6 to propagate through the network.  All I had to do was re-open my account at Cloudflare, reregister my two name servers and add them to my domain at my domain registrar.  I also registered an AAAA DNS record for the IPv6 at Cloudflare.  There was absolutely no delay, the propagation of DNS was immediate.  When I created Apache2 with Debian 10 this time round, Apache did not show up in localhost, but it did show up with the domain.

Unfortunately Cloudflare cannot compensate for WordPress being unwilling to support IPv6, so when I tried to install WordPress after LAMP in the terminal, Debian could not access  wordpress.org to download the script.  I had to do the installation of WordPress with FileZilla in the end.  Installation of WordPress was effortless, however since I am unable to get to wordpress.org because of WordPress.org’s inability to support IPv6, I am unable to download and update plugins automatically.  After the discovery of WordPress.org’s cowardly inability to support IPv6, I decided that automatic updates and installation are overrated.  I will take care of these manually instead.  The rest is working like a charm.  With unbelievable speed and seamless operation.

Thank you Cloudflare!  I don’t think I’d have been able to do this without your help.  I even went ahead to install the Cloudflare plugin.  Hopefully it will provide extra security and fast and flawless operation as it promises to do.

For those in similar circs who are trying to get their IPv6 to work, here is a great tutorial from Hostinger, of how to sign up with Cloudflare and install Cloudflare DNS:

https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-cloudflare-for-wordpress