Turning it off is easy for sshd, I think, just put SSHD_OPTS="-4" in /etc/rc.config and /usr/sbin/sshd restart

But I think there are several other local services with v6 capability that I have no need to expose.

Is there a correct way to turn it off in the kernel? I can't see it in the kernel docs, so maybe I should get the 2.4.16 sources and recompile w/o ipv6

You can disable IPv6 support for your interfaces by replacing the line "alias net-pf-10 ipv6" in /etc/modules.conf with one that reads "alias net-pf-10 off". It's already there (on SuSE 7.3 and 8.0 at least), you just need to remove the comment symbol from the one line and add it to the other. Restart your interfaces for the change to become active (I'm not sure that's all that needs to be updated, though).

Perhaps this is already addressed by some harden script I can use.

(btw in my situation - of having a laptop moving between networks, it is nice to have ipv6 as it could save me from installing a dhcpd that I don't really need.)

Well, you'd need to know which services support IPv6.. It's interesting to hear from someone actually using IPv6, you're the first I've come across. Tobias