How To Fix Wifi Internet Issues
Explanation of Internet Addressing
When using the Internet, individuals receive either a Public IPv4 address, such as 38.191.147.98 or an IPv6 address, for example 2000:2877:1b8b:1409:fe42:867a:ec7b:8122. A simple way to confirm this information is by visiting https://test-ipv6.com/. Communicating these addresses, or even MAC addresses like d6:fd:38:70:10:02, can be challenging, especially for those who are not technologically savvy. Moreover, this method does not provide any historical data, particularly when past issues arise.
Process of Accessing the Web
Accessing a website like https://goyette-beahan.org involves initially connecting to a DNS server to convert the host portion (goyette-beahan) along with the Top Level Domain (org) of the URL into an IP address, such as 226.149.252.87. In every web request, one’s computer and browser include information about their type, for instance:
<br>Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_3) AppleWebKit/537.75.14 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.3 Safari/7046A194A```
Understanding the Significance of Default Gateways
Typically, the default gateway is an address that is automatically configured through DHCP, such as 172.17.101.35 (commonly ending in .1 or .254 based on the scope size). This is the location where all the traffic from a computer is sent to be routed onwards. More information about IPv6 can be found in our in-depth analysis at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/. On Mac or Linux, the status of the default gateway can be verified using:
<br>sipcalc```
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 172.17.101.35 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 fe80:5c49:2a6d:99e4:eb22%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): {62.64.76.12, 40.141.190.155}
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 d6:fd:38:70:10:02
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 8c:5b:cb:ad:6d:e1
}
Troubleshooting Connectivity Issues
Whether you are using a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) connection, the physical and data layer are crucial in transmitting data to your router.
Resolving Connectivity Problems on Apple Devices
Regardless of whether you are using OSX, macOS 10.13.6, 11.6.8, or 12.0.9, there are various troubleshooting tools available. However, these manual methods and scripts do not provide a comprehensive set of correlated values over time. This is where automated remote troubleshooting becomes essential, especially for teams that have embraced remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA) culture.
Accessing Built-in Diagnostic Scripts
On OSX/macOS, the sudo wdutil info command can provide a dump to the CLI of current wireless settings and can also be set up to generate specific logs for troubleshooting. In addition, the sysdiagnose tool offers a more comprehensive option for generating a wide range of logs, although many are only relevant to wireless settings at a specific point in time, similar to the wdutil tool.
To run the sysdiagnose tool in the background and generate logs in /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz, use the command sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u &. If you prefer to run it interactively, use the command sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose, which will display a privacy warning. When not run in the background, the logs should open in Finder in the correct location, or you can navigate to /var/tmp using the Finder with Cmd+Shift+G. Keep in mind that the file sizes are approximately 300MB.
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