How Do You Check MacOS IP Settings

How Addressing on the World Wide Web Functions When utilizing the Internet, one may have a Public IPv4 address such as 159.246.62.44 or an IPv6 address like 2000:70ae:6d2:d2bf:aa87:60f7:ee82:b48e. This information can be verified at https://test-ipv6.com/. However, for those who are not well-versed in technology, conveying these addresses, or even referencing MAC addresses such as 65:04:fd:0b:fb:93, can be prone to errors and becomes intricate rapidly. How Addressing on the World Wide Web Functions When utilizing the Internet, one may have a Public IPv4 address such as 159.246.62.44 or an IPv6 address like 2000:70ae:6d2:d2bf:aa87:60f7:ee82:b48e. This information can be verified at https://test-ipv6.com/. However, for those who are not well-versed in technology, conveying these addresses, or even referencing MAC addresses such as 65:04:fd:0b:fb:93, can be prone to errors and becomes intricate rapidly.

How Addressing on the World Wide Web Functions

When utilizing the Internet, one may have a Public IPv4 address such as 159.246.62.44 or an IPv6 address like 2000:70ae:6d2:d2bf:aa87:60f7:ee82:b48e. This information can be verified at https://test-ipv6.com/. However, for those who are not well-versed in technology, conveying these addresses, or even referencing MAC addresses such as 65:04:fd:0b:fb:93, can be prone to errors and becomes intricate rapidly. Additionally, it fails to provide historical data, especially from past issues.

The process of reaching a website such as https://dare.co initially involves accessing a DNS server to convert the host segment (dare) combined with the Top Level Domain (co) of the URL into an IP address like 198.109.37.189. With every web request, your computer and web browser actually send this information, e.g.,
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT x.y; Win64; x64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0

The Significance of Predetermined Gateways

Typically, your default gateway is an address that is automatically configured through DHCP. The default gateway, such as 192.168.214.115 (usually ending in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size), is where your computer directs all of its traffic for further routing. For IPv6, a comprehensive guide can be found at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/, but it can also be checked on Mac or Linux 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  192.168.214.115    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   fe80:2a9b:f5ac:f3b6:54a9%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): {2.179.149.27, 73.87.72.121}
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 65:04:fd:0b:fb:93
  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 b3:4f:53:ec:a7:d5
}

Solutions for Wired and Wireless Network Connectivity Problems

When transferring data to your router, you may encounter issues at the physical and data layer if you are using a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium.

Troubleshooting Tips for Apple macOS / OSX Users

No matter which version of OSX/macOS you are using, whether it’s 10.13.5, 11.6.3, or 12.3.9, there are various tools available for troubleshooting. However, manual actions and scripts do not provide a series of correlated values over time, making automated remote troubleshooting beneficial for teams that embrace remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).

Useful Built-in Scripts for Troubleshooting

On OSX/macOS, the sudo wdutil info tool provides a dump to the CLI of current wireless related settings, and can be configured to generate specific logs for troubleshooting. Additionally, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to generate a wide range of logs, although much of it is 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 and be aware of the file sizes, which are approximately 300MB.

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