When using the Internet, one may be assigned a Public IPv4 address such as 161.240.233.34
or an IPv6 address like 2000:7919:4594:7d16:91b9:f9e7:b765:1f6e
. It’s possible to verify this using the https://test-ipv6.com/ website. However, for those who are not technically inclined, conveying or identifying these addresses, or even MAC addresses like 71:06:f5:6d:31:e1
, can be prone to errors and become complicated rather quickly. Furthermore, this method lacks any historical data, especially from previous incidents.
When attempting to visit a website such as https://will-ebert.co, the first step involves accessing a DNS server to convert the host portion (will-ebert) along with the Top Level Domain (co) of the URL into an IP address, such as 135.61.106.47
. Additionally, your computer and browser transmit their specific type with all web requests, for example: Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux i686; Ubuntu/14.10) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
Typically, a default gateway is an automatically configured address obtained through DHCP. A default gateway address can resemble something like 172.23.193.221
(although they commonly end in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size) and serves as the point where your computer directs all its traffic to be routed onwards. For IPv6
, a more in-depth guide can be found at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/, however, it is possible to check on Mac or Linux using the following methods:
netstat -rn -f inet | egrep -i "default|0/1|128.0/1"
0/1 172.18.12.193 UGScg utun3 default 172.23.193.221 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.
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:bddc:5d08:740f:8a41%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.
To get a look at the low level DHCP configuration (Mac/Linux):
ipconfig getpacket en0
... domain_name_server (ip_mult): {243.160.27.190, 214.1.8.118} 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 71:06:f5:6d:31:e1 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 4e:54:60:bc:00:6b }
When it comes to sending data to your router, you may utilize a medium that is either wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) at the physical and data layer.
Regardless of the version of OSX or macOS you are using, whether it’s 10.11.5
, 11.1.4
, or 12.1.7
, there are various tools available for troubleshooting. However, manual actions and scripts alone 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 Work From Anywhere (WFA).
A very helpful tool on OSX/macOS is the sudo wdutil info
command, which provides a dump of current wireless settings to the command line interface (CLI) and can also be configured to generate specific troubleshooting logs. Additionally, the sysdiagnose
tool can be used to generate a comprehensive range of logs, though many are only relevant to wireless at a specific point in time, 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 &
. If you prefer to run it interactively, use the command sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose
, but be aware of the large file sizes of about 300MB. Additionally, when running it interactively, a privacy warning will be displayed, and you can navigate to the correct location in Finder or use the path /var/tmp
via Cmd+Shift+G in Finder.
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