Understand Wifi Issues
Understanding Internet Addressing
When using the Internet, you will be assigned a unique Public IPv4 address, such as 30.124.143.38, or an IPv6 address like 2000:f172:44c1:565e:432c:f7c7:195a:1f1a. This information can be verified at https://test-ipv6.com/. However, explaining these addresses, as well as MAC addresses like 47:19:a1:7f:b6:b3, to individuals who are not tech-savvy can lead to errors and confusion. Additionally, this method does not provide historical data, which is particularly important when dealing with past issues.
Navigating the World Wide Web
In order to access a website such as https://satterfield.net, you first connect to a DNS server to translate the host portion (satterfield) and the Top Level Domain (net) of the URL into an IP address, such as 102.76.231.44. Your computer and browser include its type in all web requests, for example: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2228.0 Safari/537.36
Understanding the Significance of Default Gateways
The default gateway is typically an address configured automatically through DHCP. For example, you might receive a default gateway like 10.169.70.68, although they usually end in .1 or .254 depending on the scope size. This is the address to which your computer sends all of its traffic to be routed onward. We provide a comprehensive guide on troubleshooting IPv6 connectivity at how-to-fix-ipv6-connectivity/ for IPv6, and on Mac or Linux you can check with:
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 10.169.70.68 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:f9e2:fe1c:9c95:a94b%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): {199.88.246.247, 31.147.134.26}
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 47:19:a1:7f:b6:b3
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 d1:d2:32:01:a9:a1
}
Resolving Issues with Wired and Wireless Connectivity
When transferring data to your router, whether through a wired or wireless (Wi-Fi) connection at the physical and data layer, it is important to address any potential issues that may arise.
Troubleshooting Techniques for Apple macOS / OSX Operating Systems
Regardless of the version of OSX/macOS being used, whether it’s 10.12.7, 11.1.5, or 12.3.4, there are various troubleshooting tools available. However, these manual actions and scripts do not provide a consistent set of correlated values over time. This is where remote troubleshooting automation becomes valuable, particularly for teams that support remote work and Work From Anywhere (WFA).
Utilizing Pre-Installed Scripts for Assistance
A useful tool on OSX/macOS is sudo wdutil info, which provides a dump of the current wireless settings through the command line interface and can be configured to generate specific troubleshooting logs. Moreover, the sysdiagnose tool can be used to generate a wide range of logs, although much of it is only relevant to wireless settings, similar to wdutil.
To run sudo nohup /usr/bin/sysdiagnose -u & in the background and generate logs in /var/tmp/<blah>.tar.gz, or to run it interactively using sudo /usr/bin/sysdiagnose with a privacy warning, are the options available. If not running in the background, it should open Finder in the correct location or you can navigate to /var/tmp or use the Cmd+Shift+G to access the path in Finder. However, take note that the file sizes can be around 300MB.
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