6bone

The 6bone was a testbed for Internet Protocol version 6; it was an outgrowth of the IETF IPng project that created the IPv6 protocols intended to eventually replace the current Internet network layer protocols known as IPv4. The 6bone was started outside the official IETF process at the March 1996 IETF meetings, and became a worldwide informal collaborative project, with eventual oversight from the "NGtrans" (IPv6 Transition) Working Group of the IETF.

The original mission of the 6bone was to establish a network to foster the development, testing, and deployment of IPv6 using a model to be based upon the experiences from the Mbone, hence the name was put up as‘’6bone’’.

The 6bone started as a virtual network (using IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling/encapsulation) operating over the IPv4-based Internet to support IPv6 transport, and slowly added native links specifically for IPv6 transport. Although the initial 6bone focus was on testing of standards and implementations, the eventual focus became more on testing of transition and operational procedures, as well as actual IPv6 network usage.