How Do You Test Wifi No Access
Understanding Internet Protocol Addressing
When connecting to the Internet, you are assigned a unique Public IPv4 address, such as 102.38.116.72, or an IPv6 address like 2000:4a9c:2ea9:884:f3d:cad9:5fe0:84ff. Checking your address is possible through https://test-ipv6.com/. However, sharing and remembering these addresses, as well as MAC addresses like 4c:14:ab:b4:91:03, can be complex and error-prone, making communication difficult. Furthermore, this method does not provide access to historical data.
Navigating the World Wide Web
When accessing a website, such as https://kutch.com, your computer first contacts a DNS server to translate the host (kutch) and the Top Level Domain (com) of the URL into an IP address, like 181.44.132.193. Every web request sent by your computer and browser includes its type, for example: Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux i686; Ubuntu/14.10) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
Understanding the Significance of Default Gateways
The default gateway is typically an automatically configured address obtained through DHCP, such as 192.168.167.103 (usually ending in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size). This gateway is responsible for forwarding all traffic from your computer. For information on setting up IPv6, refer to our detailed guide: how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/. Additionally, on Mac or Linux, you can verify this setting by:
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 192.168.167.103 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 fe80:8202:3429:d97:9d9a%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): {36.94.92.87, 55.49.69.63}
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 4c:14:ab:b4:91:03
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 70:fa:4d:ba:e8:26
}
Repairing Connectivity Issues in Wired and Wireless Networks
When it comes to transmitting data to your router, you may utilize either a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer.
Steps to Take for Apple macOS / OSX Users
No matter which version of OSX/macOS you are operating on - whether it’s 10.11.7, 11.3.4, or 12.1.6 - there are various troubleshooting tools available. However, these manual actions and scripts do not provide a set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting becomes invaluable, particularly for teams that embrace remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).
Utilizing Pre-Installed Scripts
One incredibly useful tool on OSX/macOS is sudo wdutil info, which provides a dump of current wireless-related settings to the CLI and can be configured to generate specific troubleshooting logs. Additionally, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to generate a wide range of logs, although much of the information is only relevant to wireless at a specific point in time, similar to wdutil.
Running sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u & allows you to run the tool in the background and write logs to /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz. If you prefer to run it interactively (although there isn’t much interaction), you can run sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose and a privacy warning will appear. 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 direct Finder to the path. Just be mindful of the file sizes, which are approximately 300MB or so.
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