How Do You Test Mac Internet Connection
Understanding Internet Address Assignment
When using the Internet, you will receive either a Public IPv4 address, such as 25.123.161.226, or an IPv6 address, like 2000:314d:793d:4ed1:5c9b:917a:887f:4ab6. It is possible to verify this by visiting https://test-ipv6.com/. However, representing these addresses or MAC addresses like 04:c6:8d:0e:1e:0b to individuals who aren’t tech-savvy can be prone to errors and can quickly become complex. Furthermore, it does not provide any historical data, especially from previous issues.
Navigating the World Wide Web
When attempting to access a website, such as https://monahan-keeling.org, the first step is to connect to a DNS server, which will translate the host portion (monahan-keeling) along with the Top Level Domain (org) of the URL into an IP address, for example, 227.209.8.174. Every web request from your computer and browser includes your specific browser type, such as Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2228.0 Safari/537.36
Recognizing the Significance of Default Gateways
The default gateway is typically an address that is configured automatically via DHCP. This address, like 192.168.88.60 (though typically ending in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size), is where your computer sends all of its traffic to be forwarded. For IPv6, there is an extensive explanation available in how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/. It can also be verified on Mac or Linux systems 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 192.168.88.60 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 4c2b:912d:d8e4:e2:b830:21be:5d75:18f3%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): {228.160.27.109, 217.222.218.47}
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 04:c6:8d:0e:1e:0b
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 cb:d0:35:41:16:0e
}
Resolve Wired and Wireless Connectivity Issues
When it comes to sending data to your router, the choice between using a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer can present various challenges.
Solutions for Apple macOS / OSX Users
Regardless of whether you are running OSX/macOS versions 10.13.6, 11.3.7, or 12.0.2, there are multiple troubleshooting tools available. However, these manual actions and scripts fail to provide a comprehensive set of correlated values over time. This is why automated remote troubleshooting becomes essential, particularly for teams that have embraced remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).
Utilize Inbuilt Scripts for Assistance
One valuable tool for OSX/macOS users is the sudo wdutil info command, which provides a detailed dump of current wireless settings to the CLI and can also be configured to generate specific logs for troubleshooting purposes. Additionally, the sysdiagnose tool offers a more comprehensive option for generating a wide range of logs, although much of the data is only relevant at a specific point in time, just like wdutil.
To run sysdiagnose in the background and save logs to /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz, use the command sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &. For an interactive experience, the command sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose can be used, which will prompt a privacy warning. If not running in the background, the files should be accessible in Finder at the specified location or by navigating to /var/tmp using Finder with Cmd+Shift+G. Keep in mind that the file sizes are typically around 300MB.
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