How Can I Support Wifi No Access
Functioning of Internet Addressing
When using the Internet, you may have a Public IPv4 address such as 19.73.241.212 or an IPv6 address like 2000:8a50:a908:5a02:1db5:8f2:c7bd:d855. These can be verified at https://test-ipv6.com/. However, for individuals who are not tech-savvy, trying to convey these addresses or even citing MAC addresses like a1:73:08:1b:b5:12 can lead to errors and complexities. Furthermore, this method does not provide any historical data, particularly for past issues.
Procedure for Accessing the Web
In order to access a web page such as https://weber-mante.biz, an initial step involves accessing a DNS server to convert the combination of the host portion (weber-mante) with the Top Level Domain (biz) of the URL into an IP address, for example 180.180.136.3. When making web requests, your computer and browser convey their type, for instance Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT x.y; Win64; x64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0
Significance of Default Gateways
Normally, your default gateway is an automatically configured address through DHCP. You are provided with a default gateway like 192.168.66.115 (usually ending in .1 or .254 based on the scope size), and this is where your computer directs all its traffic to be further routed. For IPv6, detailed information is available at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/ but on Mac or Linux you can check 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 192.168.66.115 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:de53:98f:4c18:7e9b%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): {109.215.36.73, 202.75.210.19}
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 a1:73:08:1b:b5:12
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 70:c4:6a:10:21:8b
}
Fixing Connection Issues - Wired vs. Wireless
When it comes to sending data to your router, you might be using a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer.
Tips for Troubleshooting on Apple macOS / OSX
No matter which version of OSX/macOS you have, whether it’s 10.14.3, 11.1.3, or 12.0.8, there are various tools available for addressing connection issues. However, these manual methods and scripts do not provide a set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting becomes valuable, particularly for teams that are embracing remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).
Utilizing Built-in Scripts for Assistance
An extremely useful tool on OSX/macOS is the sudo wdutil info command, which provides a dump to the CLI of current wireless settings and can also generate specific logs for troubleshooting. Furthermore, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to produce a wide range of logs, although much of it is only point-in-time in relation to wireless, similar to wdutil.
To run sysdiagnose in the background and write logs to /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz, use the command sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &. For an interactive approach, you can run sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose and it will display a privacy warning. If not run in the background, it should open Finder in the correct location, or you can navigate to /var/tmp or use Finder with Cmd+Shift+G to locate the path. Keep in mind that the file sizes are approximately 300MB.
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