Apt-get can't connect to 'security.ubuntu.com'

January 15, 2015

Ran into this issue today where on a newly made Linode Ubunu 14.04 LTS server I ran

apt-get update

The command started alright however eventually it would reach a point where it got stuck at

Connecting to security.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::16)

And wouldn’t continue no matter what. Turns out this is an issue where connecting over IPv6 on some servers causes them to get stuck at this point. The fix is really simple.

Open /etc/gai.conf

Uncomment the following line:

#
# For sites which prefer IPv4 connections change the last line to
#
precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 100

This will allow you to still use IPv6 but sets IPv4 as the precedence so that apt-get won’t get stuck.

Let me know if you have any issues!

• Categories:
• Quick Fix

• Tags:
• apt-get,
• linux,
• server,
• Xubuntu