When you connect to the Internet, you are assigned a specific IPv4 or IPv6 address. These addresses, such as 110.107.65.48
or 2000:5906:2ecf:c176:b30d:5167:5b14:5069
, can be verified using the https://test-ipv6.com/ website. However, sharing these addresses, and even MAC addresses like b6:4d:4e:91:57:47
, with individuals who are not well-versed in technology can lead to errors and complexities. Moreover, such information does not provide any historical context, particularly when addressing past issues.
When accessing a site such as https://hintz-rohan.io, your computer first contacts a DNS server to convert the URL’s host portion (hintz-rohan) and its Top Level Domain (io) into an IP address, for instance, 176.181.12.210
. Additionally, all web requests sent by your computer and browser include its specifications, such as Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux i686; Ubuntu/14.10) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
.
The default gateway, typically a DHCP-generated address, like 192.0.0.110
(often ending in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size), is where your computer directs all its outgoing traffic for routing. For IPv6, a comprehensive explanation can be found in our article how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/, yet on Mac or Linux, it can be verified using:
netstat -rn -f inet | egrep -i "default|0/1|128.0/1"
0/1 172.18.12.193 UGScg utun3 default 192.0.0.110 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 fe80:3cf2:3ba9:8a29:7c81%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): {90.140.170.43, 27.255.150.127} 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 b6:4d:4e:91:57:47 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 a4:bb:82:1b:af:82 }
When transmitting data to your router, you might be using either a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer.
Regardless of whether you are using OSX/macOS versions such as 10.11.7
, 11.0.6
, or 12.1.7
, there are various tools available for troubleshooting. Unfortunately, the manual actions and scripts do not provide a set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting becomes valuable, especially for teams that embrace remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).
One useful tool on OSX/macOS is the sudo wdutil info
command, which provides a dump of current wireless settings to the CLI and can be configured to generate specific logs for troubleshooting purposes. Additionally, the sysdiagnose
tool can be used to generate a wide range of logs, although many of them are 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 sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &
. If you prefer to run it interactively, use sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose
and follow the instructions to access the generated logs. However, be mindful of the file sizes, which are typically around 300MB.
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