How Can I Fix Apple Internet Connection
Understanding Networking Fundamentals
When utilizing the Internet, individuals may be assigned a Public IPv4 address, such as 177.92.212.199, or an IPv6 address, like 2000:aa60:3ebf:417c:1db1:d700:ec19:f9e4. This information can be verified through https://test-ipv6.com/. However, explaining and communicating these addresses, as well as MAC addresses such as ea:21:54:7a:37:7a, can quickly become complex for those without technical knowledge. Additionally, it does not provide any historical data, especially related to past issues.
Navigating the World Wide Web
When accessing a website like https://halvorson.com, the first step is to connect to a DNS server to translate the host portion (halvorson) combined with the Top Level Domain (com) to an IP address, such as 224.234.182.239. With each web request, your computer and browser also send their identifiers, for instance: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_3) AppleWebKit/537.75.14 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.3 Safari/7046A194A.
Understanding the Significance of Default Gateways
The default gateway is usually an address that is automatically configured through DHCP. A typical default gateway may look like 192.168.69.157, with addresses often ending in .1 or .254, depending on the scope size. This is the point where a computer sends all its outgoing traffic to be routed.If you are interested in troubleshooting IPv6 connectivity, a detailed guide is available at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/. On Mac or Linux, the default gateway can be checked by using:
IPv4 Routes and the Host IPv4 Route Table (inc. VPN)
netstat -rn -f inet | egrep -i "default|0/1|128.0/1"
0/1 172.18.12.193 UGScg utun3 default 192.168.69.157 UGScg en0 128.0/1 172.18.12.193 UGSc utun3
Note: We are not just looking for the default but also for any VPN that overrides the public v4 address space.
IPv6 Routes and the Host IPv6 Route Table (inc. VPN)
netstat -rn -f inet6 | egrep -i "default|2000::/3"
If you have IPv6 active the above should return at least one route (as per below) via a known interface such as “en0 " on a Mac.
default fe80:b4:321c:7a35:d1c5%en0 UGcg en0 default fe80::%utun0 UGcIg utun0 default fe80::%utun1 UGcIg utun1 default fe80::%utun2 UGcIg utun2 2000::/3 utun3 USc utun3
Note: We are not just looking for the default but also for any VPN that overrides the public v6 address space.
Debugging DHCP for both IPv4 and IPv6
To get a look at the low level DHCP configuration (Mac/Linux):
ipconfig getpacket en0
...
domain_name_server (ip_mult): {163.156.171.101, 89.253.197.104}
end (none):
...
So, in the above we are not getting IPv6 DNS servers from the DHCPv4 reply but…
ipconfig getv6packet en0
DHCPv6 REPLY (7) Transaction ID 0x80940b Length 76
Options[4] = {
CLIENTID (1) Length 14: DUID LLT HW 1 Time 668691856 Addr ea:21:54:7a:37:7a
DNS_SERVERS (23) Length 32: 2606:4700:4700::1111, 2001:4860:4860::8844
DOMAIN_LIST (24) Length 0: Invalid
SERVERID (2) Length 10: DUID LL HW 1 Addr d5:79:dd:c4:82:0f
}
Resolve Problems with Wired or Wireless Connection
When it comes to transferring data to your router, you may utilize either a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer.
Solutions for Apple macOS / OSX Users
Regardless of whether you’re using OSX/macOS versions such as 10.11.5, 11.2.1, or 12.2.8, there are various troubleshooting tools available. However, these manual actions and scripts do not provide a series of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting becomes valuable, particularly for teams that embrace remote work and the Work From Anywhere (WFA) concept.
Helpful Built-in Tools
One particularly useful tool on OSX/macOS is sudo wdutil info, which provides a dump of current wireless-related settings to the CLI and can be configured to generate specific logs for troubleshooting. Additionally, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to produce a wide range of logs, although much of it is point-in-time data related to wireless, similar to wdutil.
Running sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u & in the background will write logs to /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz for you. If you prefer to run it interactively, you can use sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose, which will trigger a privacy warning. When not run in the background, it should open Finder in the correct location, or you can navigate to /var/tmp using Finder with Cmd+Shift+G. However, be mindful of the file sizes, which are around 300MB or so.
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