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How to disable IPv6 on an iPhone

Hi, I use to be able to disable the IPv6 on my iPhone, and now I cannot find the settings. Does anyone know where this settings is?


I saw another question about this and someone asked in a response, why would you want too.


I'm researching my network and using Wireshark. With my Windows 10 Laptop tethered via ether cable to my router and iPhone active, I had not yet connected my router to the modem. In the Wireshark capture, I saw there was IPv6 activity going on and it had my iPhones WIFI Mac Address but it said that was not a default MAC address. I'm not sure the reason why that is or how I would get a WIFI Mac Address from my router that was a default. But, I wanted to disable the IPv6 Traffic. I'm trying to eliminate the possible of a neighbor really close by hacking my computer and using my IPv6 Address as a way to not get caught.


So, there is a good answer for you.


I do need to disable it at least temporary till this issues is resolved.

iPhone XS, iOS 15

Posted on Feb 16, 2022 7:56 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 17, 2022 12:31 AM

I am not sure what is you point here. As far as my understanding goes...

  • IPv4 uses a 32-bit address for its Internet addresses. That means it can provide support for 2^32 IP addresses in total — around 4.29 billion. That may seem like a lot, but all 4.29 billion IP addresses have now been assigned, leading to the address shortage issues we face today.
  • IPv6 utilizes 128-bit Internet addresses. Therefore, it can support 2^128 Internet addresses—340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 of them to be exact. The number of IPv6 addresses is 1028 times larger than the number of IPv4 addresses. So there are more than enough IPv6 addresses to allow for Internet devices to expand for a very long time.


Why Disable IPv6 is not clear to me. However, this needs to be configured at the router end for you to be able to change it on the iPhone. My router is configured for IPv4 and hence my iPhone shows IPv4 Configuration (See both the pictures below)




See the iPhone IPv4 Config below on my iPhone. If I had selected "IPv4/IPv6" at the router end (refer to the pic above), both would have appeared here on my iPhone.



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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 17, 2022 12:31 AM in response to vickyl71

I am not sure what is you point here. As far as my understanding goes...

  • IPv4 uses a 32-bit address for its Internet addresses. That means it can provide support for 2^32 IP addresses in total — around 4.29 billion. That may seem like a lot, but all 4.29 billion IP addresses have now been assigned, leading to the address shortage issues we face today.
  • IPv6 utilizes 128-bit Internet addresses. Therefore, it can support 2^128 Internet addresses—340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 of them to be exact. The number of IPv6 addresses is 1028 times larger than the number of IPv4 addresses. So there are more than enough IPv6 addresses to allow for Internet devices to expand for a very long time.


Why Disable IPv6 is not clear to me. However, this needs to be configured at the router end for you to be able to change it on the iPhone. My router is configured for IPv4 and hence my iPhone shows IPv4 Configuration (See both the pictures below)




See the iPhone IPv4 Config below on my iPhone. If I had selected "IPv4/IPv6" at the router end (refer to the pic above), both would have appeared here on my iPhone.



Apr 2, 2022 6:07 PM in response to SravanKrA

My network is picking up IPv6 Link Local activity with queries to a HomeKit, Airplay, Companion, SleepyProxy. Since I do know know why this is happening, I wanted to see how that was coming from iPhone XS. A Link Local is apparently not routable on the internet or routed if my search results was correct. I do not have a my BlueTooth is turned off, I do not have a Homekit, or any other item that has been queried on my network from my iPhone. After learning more about this information, I am back here again. A video on YouTube by Sun Knudsen said the IPv6 is only in the Cellular Data. His phone setting or different then mine, there is no place like this on my iPhone. It would not surprise me if my software has been rewrote so someone mean could get away with hiding themselves remotely on my iPhone. I have some other situations where it this has happened. Someone flashed my Asus Router with different firmware and they been hiding Port Forwarding. But, the route table has a different Public IP Address then mine.


On my IPv6, and the Link Local queries; well it is not random and doing that all the time just broadcasting looking for those Companion, Airplay, Raop, HomeKit, SleepyProxy, there is another one and probably more. First I do not have any of those device to run such as a HomeKit, or doing any AppleTV. The query changes at different times. Sometimes there is no query.


This is why I want to know more about the settings of IPv6.


I'm getting over powered on my computer by whoever is accessing that 2 Public IP Address. If I would try to put the screenshot in order, the 2 Public IP Address would be changing or deleting them. They put something very odd on my network so they can access my computer offline.


Thank you,

Vickyl71


Thank you,

vicky71



Apr 2, 2022 8:50 PM in response to SravanKrA

Thank you for your SravanKrA, I really appreciate it.

I have not been checking the details on my Google email account. I saw and IPv6 Address that had accessed my email and since I cannot find any settings for this on my iPhone XS and my router has it disabled. I would really like to know what is happening and why am I getting this traffic? I feel like I have someone remote into my iPhone XS but I'm not sure how to find or show that any other way.

How to disable IPv6 on an iPhone

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