How Do You Check Apple Connectivity
Understanding Internet Addressing
When accessing the Internet, you are assigned a Public IPv4 address such as 210.1.210.132 or an IPv6 address like 2000:447d:feb6:aaea:f7f4:200f:708b:3e8a. This can be verified on https://test-ipv6.com/. However, communicating these addresses, including MAC addresses like 5c:8b:7d:c5:5c:61, can become complex and error-prone, especially for non-tech-savvy individuals. Moreover, this method lacks historical data from previous issues.
Navigating the World Wide Web
In order to access a webpage such as https://feest.biz, your computer initially contacts a DNS server to translate the host name (feest) and the Top Level Domain (biz) to an IP address, such as 67.0.114.216. Your computer and browser also send the user agent along with every web request, for example: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; AS; rv:11.0) like Gecko
Significance of Default Gateways
The default gateway is typically an address automatically configured via DHCP, such as 192.0.0.179 (although they usually end in .1 or .254 based on the scope size). This is the point where your computer forwards all its traffic to be routed further. For IPv6, instructions for checking connectivity can be found at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/, and you can also verify on Mac or Linux with the following command:
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 192.0.0.179 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:dc24:7750:6532:90a9%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): {24.145.135.181, 223.18.185.118}
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 5c:8b:7d:c5:5c:61
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 d8:32:b0:ff:72:20
}
Solutions for Resolving Wired and Wireless Connectivity Issues
When it comes to transmitting data to your router, you may be utilizing either a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer.
Troubleshooting Techniques for Apple macOS / OSX Users
Regardless of which version of OSX/macOS you have, whether it’s 10.12.1, 11.0.1, or 12.3.9, there is a variety of tools available for resolving connectivity issues. However, these manual methods and scripts do not provide a set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting shines, particularly for teams that adopt remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA) practices.
Useful Built-in Scripts
One particularly valuable tool on OSX/macOS is the sudo wdutil info command, which delivers a dump of current wireless settings to the CLI and can also be configured to generate specific troubleshooting logs. Furthermore, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to produce a wide range of logs, although much of it is related to wireless settings at a specific point in time, similar to wdutil.
To run the sysdiagnose tool in the background and generate logs in /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz, you can use the command sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &. Alternatively, if you prefer to run it interactively, use the command sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose - you will receive a privacy warning. Running this command without the background option should open Finder in the correct location, or you can navigate to /var/tmp using Finder with Cmd+Shift+G. Keep in mind that the file sizes are approximately 300MB.
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