What is "sit0" for (in ifconfig -a)? Can I get rid of it ?

[Robert Locke]

On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 12:58 -0300, Marcelo Magno T. Sales wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Em Sexta 12 Janeiro 2007 10:51, Robert Locke escreveu:
> > On Fri, 2007-01-12 at 10:07 +0200, Ian Brown wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I have a newly installer FC6 on x86_64, and when I run
> > > ifconfig -a I get at the bottom
> > > ...
> > > ...
> > >
> > > sit0      Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
> > >           NOARP  MTU:1480  Metric:1
> > >           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> > >           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> > >           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
> > >           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
> > >
> > >
> > > I have two questions regarding this:
> > > can I get rid of this sit0, so that in next boot it will not
> > > appear when I run "ifconfig -a" ? I don't use ipv6 (and will not
> > > use it until at least FC7 , but probably also not after FC7 is out).
> > > And I don't use ppp/slip on this machine (nor any special
> > > net features).
> > >
> > > Second: when I run "lsmod" I see : "ipv6" ; can I get rid of this module
> > > so that in next boot it will not appear ? (As said, I will **not** use
> > > ipv6 in the near future).
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Ian
> >
> > Ian,
> >
> > Add two lines to your /etc/modprobe.conf:
> >
> > alias ipv6 off
> > alias net-pf-10 off
> >
> > Then, after you reboot, both the sit0 and the ipv6 module will not
> > load...
> 
> But what is this sit0 interface?
> 

Used when you want to take your IPv6 traffic and tunnel it through an
IPv4 cloud/network infrastructure.  Apparently though the sit form of
tunneling is "deprecated" by the IPv6 people....

Take a look at:
http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/

for lots of great information on IPv6 on Linux....

--Rob