How Do You Fix MacOS Internet
An Overview of Internet Addressing
When you connect to the Internet, your device is assigned a unique address, such as 104.87.219.230 or 2000:b779:ee0b:699b:b084:e030:6af5:8071. You can verify this information by visiting https://test-ipv6.com/. However, conveying these addresses or referring to MAC addresses like 3c:53:74:95:8e:09 to individuals who are not technologically inclined can be prone to errors and quickly become complex. Furthermore, this method does not provide any historical data.
Navigating Websites
When attempting to visit a webpage, such as https://pouros.io, your device first consults a DNS server to convert the host name (pouros) and the website’s Top Level Domain (io) into an IP address, such as 24.104.30.129. Additionally, your computer and browser send detailed information with every web request, such as the type of browser being used: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT x.y; Win64; x64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0
Understanding the Significance of Default Gateways
The default gateway, typically obtained through DHCP, is an automatically assigned address, such as 192.168.192.77 (although they often end in .1 or .254 based on the scope size), to which your computer forwards all of its outgoing traffic. For troubleshooting IPv6 connectivity issues, detailed information can be found in our article how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/. On Mac or Linux systems, the default gateway can be checked using 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 192.168.192.77 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 fe80:8019:1c5a:1765:9265%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): {46.212.24.191, 167.230.255.139}
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 3c:53:74:95:8e:09
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 a8:c7:d0:aa:9a:08
}
Fixing Issues with Wired and Wireless Connections
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.
Tips for Troubleshooting on Apple macOS / OSX
No matter which version of OSX/macOS you have, whether it’s 10.11.7, 11.5.6, or 12.3.3, there are various methods for troubleshooting. However, these manual processes and scripts do not provide a set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting becomes essential, especially for teams that are transitioning to remote work and embracing Work From Anywhere (WFA).
Useful Built-in Scripts
One helpful tool on OSX/macOS is the sudo wdutil info, which provides a dump of current wireless settings to the CLI, and can also generate specific logs for troubleshooting purposes. Additionally, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to generate a wide range of logs (although much of it is only relevant in relation to wireless, similar to wdutil).
To run it in the background and have logs written to /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz, use the command sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &. If you prefer to run it interactively (although there is minimal interaction), you can use the commandsudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose, which will prompt 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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