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
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:
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.
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.
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 }
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.
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).
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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