When connecting to the internet, you are assigned a unique public IPv4 or IPv6 address, such as 232.20.98.18
or 2000:b090:ab2:2bbf:b666:6ae3:344c:293b
. Ensure your address is accurate by checking on https://test-ipv6.com/. For those unfamiliar with technical details, conveying these addresses, including MAC addresses like 1c:1f:03:82:63:f0
, can be complicated and prone to errors, especially without access to historical data.
When accessing a webpage like https://macejkovic-kerluke.info, your computer communicates with a DNS server to translate the host portion (macejkovic-kerluke) combined with the Top Level Domain (info) to an IP address like 36.229.137.46
. Additionally, your computer and browser send its type with every web request, for example: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; SG; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20101104 Netscape/9.1.0285
Your default gateway is typically an automatically configured address via DHCP, such as 172.17.41.102
, where your computer sends all its traffic to be routed onwards. For IPv6
, detailed information on how to check on Mac or Linux is available at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/.
netstat -rn -f inet | egrep -i "default|0/1|128.0/1"
0/1 172.18.12.193 UGScg utun3 default 172.17.41.102 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:ec9f:f9d9:1910:f2c8%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): {119.121.174.208, 88.221.41.127} 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 1c:1f:03:82:63:f0 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 43:82:3a:6d:39:25 }
Whether you are using a physical wired connection or a wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the data layer to transmit data to your router, troubleshooting can help resolve any issues.
No matter which version of OSX/macOS you are currently using, whether it’s 10.15.8
, 11.3.9
, or 12.0.7
, there are various tools available for troubleshooting. However, these manual actions and scripts do not provide a series of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting comes into play, particularly for teams that are embracing remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).
One useful tool for OSX/macOS users is the sudo wdutil info
command, which provides a dump of current wireless settings to the CLI and can be configured to generate specific troubleshooting logs. Another comprehensive tool is the sysdiagnose
tool, which can generate a wide range of logs, although much of it pertains to wireless settings only, similar to wdutil.
To run the sysdiagnose
tool in the background and generate logs in /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz
, you can use the command sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &
. If you prefer to run it interactively, you can use the command sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose
, although it will display a privacy warning. When not run in the background, it will open Finder in the correct location for you to access the logs, or you can navigate to /var/tmp
using Finder with Cmd+Shift+G. Keep in mind that the file sizes are approximately 300MB.
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