When using the Internet, individuals may receive a Public IPv4 address such as 93.214.11.207
or an IPv6 address like 2000:5208:3496:c6ff:eae0:1402:5ae4:464d
. The verification for these addresses can be done at https://test-ipv6.com/. However, explaining or relaying these addresses, as well as MAC addresses like 4d:d9:cb:de:80:b5
, to individuals who may not be tech-savvy can be prone to errors and can quickly become complex. Furthermore, this method does not provide any historical data, especially regarding previous issues.
When accessing a website such as https://hills.net, the first step involves connecting to a DNS server to convert the host portion (hills) combined with the Top Level Domain (net) of the URL into an IP address such as 227.229.162.63
. Additionally, each web request sent from your computer and browser includes information regarding its type, for example: Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux i686; Ubuntu/14.10) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
Typically, the default gateway is an automatically configured address provided through DHCP. This default gateway, such as 192.0.0.140
(although they usually end in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size), is where all the outgoing traffic from your computer is routed. For a more detailed explanation regarding IPv6
connectivity, a guide can be found at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/, or alternatively, it can be checked on Mac or Linux using:
netstat -rn -f inet | egrep -i "default|0/1|128.0/1"
0/1 172.18.12.193 UGScg utun3 default 192.0.0.140 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 fe80:447:d2f6:71e6:22ce%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): {234.88.198.204, 242.232.130.245} 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 4d:d9:cb:de:80:b5 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 86:9c:7f:29:4a:d0 }
When it comes to transmitting data to your router, you might be using either a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) medium at the physical and data layer.
Irrespective of whether you are running OSX/macOS version 10.12.6
, 11.5.5
, or 12.2.7
, there are various troubleshooting tools available. However, these manual actions and scripts often fail to provide a consistent set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting proves to be extremely beneficial, especially for teams that have adopted remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA) practices.
One of the most valuable tools on OSX/macOS is the sudo wdutil info
command, which provides a dump of the current wireless settings to the CLI and can be configured to generate specific troubleshooting logs. Additionally, the sysdiagnose
tool offers a more comprehensive range of logs (although much of it is only relevant to wireless at a specific point in time, similar to wdutil).
Running sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &
will execute the tool in the background and generate logs in /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz
. If you prefer to run it interactively (although there is minimal interaction), you can use the commandsudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose
, which will trigger a privacy warning. When 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, give or take.
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