Users who have enabled the firewall in Mac OS X may find it useful to be view, read, and monitor the associated logs with the system firewall. As you’d expect, the app firewall logs show you what applications and processes have attempted to connect to the Mac, including accepted and refused connections. There are several … Read More
Mac users who want a bit more network security can turn on an optional firewall feature in Mac OS X called Stealth Mode. With Stealth Mode enabled, the Mac will not acknowledge or respond to typical network discovery attempts with ICMP ping requests, and will not answer connections attempts made from closed TCP and UDP … Read More
Though Apple has largely resolved the wi-fi issues that persisted in some Macs with prior OS X releases, some users with OS X El Capitan may encounter wireless networking issues after updating to the latest OS X release. Typically the wi-fi problems are in the form of dropping connections or strangely slow speeds, and the … Read More
There are some situations where knowing exactly what wireless networks a Mac has connected to and when that connection was last established can be helpful. We’ll demonstrate how to uncover a comprehensive listing of specifics about previously joined wi-fi networks on a Mac, which will include the last connection date and time (to the second!), … Read More
Whether performing a packet trace or sniffing and capturing packets from a network, the result is usually the creation of a .cap capture file. That .cap, pcap, or wcap packet capture file is created regardless of what you’re using to sniff a network, a fairly common task among network administrators and security professionals. Perhaps the … Read More
The Mac includes a variety of powerful wireless network tools that offer many features which are helpful for administration and IT purposes, including the ability to sniff packets. Here we will demonstrate how to perform a packet trace in OS X easily by using the built-in Wi-Fi Diagnostics app. Using Wi-Fi Diagnostics Sniffer function is … Read More
Mac users can quickly disconnect from a wi-fi network by using the wireless menu in Mac OS X. This simple task is incredibly useful for managing and juggling multiple networks, whether for something as simple as using iPhone Wi-Fi Hotspot or even a more advanced task like packet sniffing. It’s important to note disconnecting is … Read More
If you ever need to set custom DNS or change the DNS settings on iOS devices for using an alternate domain name server or a faster one, you’ll probably want the DNS changes to take effect immediately, which requires the flushing of DNS caches on the iPhone or iPad. There are actually several ways to … Read More
A fair amount of wireless routers choose not to broadcast their identity (called an SSID) as a simple security precaution, thus knowing how to join an invisible network from a Mac is important.
All domains are associated with an IP address, whether it’s for a website, mail server, or whatever else. While using nslookup offers a simple way to get DNS information and an IP for a specific website or domain, if you want a significantly more detailed retrieval, you can use the host command instead. The host … Read More
Hidden wi-fi networks are becoming more common as network administrators look for additional measures to secure wireless connections. Hiding the network functions as a means of security by obscurity, but the main user-side issue with a hidden Wi-FI network is that the routers SSID is not broadcast which can make it difficult to find for … Read More
If you find yourself frequently connecting to a network share or remote server from your Mac, you should do yourself a favorite and add it to the Favorites list in the Connect to Server screen of Mac OS X. Though the feature is right in front of our faces, very few Mac users seem to … Read More
Local networking usually works flawlessly on Macs, which is why some of the most aggravating issues that a select group of users may experience with Mac OS with OS X Yosemite (and sometimes with later releases) pertain to network connections. Some of these may relate to broader connection and wi-fi functionality problems, and others which … Read More
Some Mac users who upgraded to OS X Yosemite have discovered a variety of wireless network connectivity issues, ranging from dropping wi-fi connections, to an inability to connect to the outside world despite being connected to a wifi router, even suddenly and strangely slow internet speeds. These network issues seem to occur most often on … Read More
When you point your iPhone or iPad at a web address (like osxdaily.com), iOS will perform a DNS lookup to send you to the proper location. DNS servers handle part of that lookup service, translating numerical IP addresses into the readable domain names we’re all more familiar with and associate with web sites and other … Read More
Mac OS X comes with a bundled port scanner tool, just one of a variety of features tucked into the ever useful Network Utility app. That means you don’t need to bother with the command line or install more advanced tools like nmap to quickly scan for open ports on a given IP or domain, … Read More
Some Mac users have recently stumbled upon a “Thunderbolt Bridge” alert dialog that shows up when they visit the Mac OS X Network preference panel, the full text of the message box says: “New Interface Detected A new network has been detected: Thunderbolt Bridge Please verify that it is configured correctly, then … Read More
Some Mac users may wish to disable IPv6 networking support on their machines. This may be desirable to avoid certain networking conflicts, or to increase security for users in higher threat environments, since IPv6 has been found by researchers to be potentially vulnerable to man-in-the-middle and other network attacks. Though most users don’t use IPv6 … Read More
