This article is to help you look at and diagnose connectivity issues from your devices to the internet. If you have issues only with a few sites, please see this article "what to do if you can't access certain sites"

Network connectivity problems can occur at different layers or locations of the network:

1. Physical layer problems
2. ISP Connectivity
3. Local Network Connectivity
4. DNS Issues

1. Physical Layer Checks

• Make sure you are using the right cables. CAT 5E or better cables are recommended. Please make sure all the cables are connected firmed.
• Check the link lights on your switch/router, make sure they display the right speed. Firewalla link lights can be found here please see this article.
• Check your physical connections, make sure they are connected correctly. If you are using a switch, make sure there are no switching loops.
• If you are having issues with Wi-Fi, try to plug a device (PC/MAC) via ethernet and see if they are working or not.  
• Double-check your access points are configured correctly. Reboot your wifi or AP if needed.
• If you have a modem, look at its link lights and if possible, reboot it.
  
  

2. WAN/ISP Connectivity

Firewalla Gold / Purple will automatically test your ISP network using network ping and also DNS queries. If your network is down, you will get an alarm and you can view the events. 

Network Events:

Firewalla can log the WAN connectivity status changes using Events and will display a notification on the main screen of the Firewalla app. If your ISP is unstable, these events will help you debug or learn more about why the problem occurred.

Events can be found in Main App-> Settings -> Events. It can provide you with the history of:

• WAN disconnected or restored 
• Dual WAN switch or failover
• Ethernet Port connected or disconnected

More details on Firewalla Network Events and how to customize the connectivity test.

3. Local Network Connectivity 

LAN connectivity issues can happen if you have a bad cable or problems with the WiFi access point. To do this test, you can launch a terminal and ping Firewalla.

By default, Firewalla Box's local domain name is "fire.walla".

# This's good

test@test-mbp ~ % ping fire.walla

PING fire.walla (10.0.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=3.525 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=3.025 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.762 ms
^C
--- fire.walla ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.762/3.104/3.525/0.316 ms



# This doesn't work

test@test-mbp ~ % ping fire.walla
PING fire.walla (10.0.1.1): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
^C
--- fire.walla ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

If you are connecting via an access point, you can also try to ping the access point's IP Address or local domain name.

# This's good

test@test-mbp ~ % ping 10.0.1.88
PING 10.0.1.88 (10.0.1.88): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.1.88: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=2.513 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.88: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=5.611 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.88: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=5.637 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.88: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=5.608 ms
^C
--- 10.0.1.88 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.513/4.842/5.637/1.345 ms


# This doesn't work

test@test-mbp ~ % ping 10.0.1.88
PING 10.0.1.88 (10.0.1.88): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
^C
--- 10.0.1.88 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

4. DNS Connectivity

Not all network issues are related to network traffic; sometimes, a bad DNS server configuration may cause issues. To test, you can ping a public IP address, say, 1.1.1.1 to check if the internet is accessible, and 'nslookup' will help you validate if the DNS server is doing a good job to find the public IP mapping to the domain.  

test@test-mbp ~ % ping 1.1.1.1
PING 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=35 time=7.59 ms
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=35 time=7.30 ms
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=35 time=7.51 ms
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=35 time=7.26 ms
^C
--- 1.1.1.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3004ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 7.269/7.422/7.593/0.149 ms

# DNS server is unreachable.
test@test-mbp ~ % nslookup firewalla.com
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

#DNS server can't find the correct IP address mapping to the domain
test@test-mbp ~ % nslookup firewalla.com
Server:  10.0.1.1
Address: 10.0.1.1#53

** server can't find firewalla.com: NXDOMAIN

If the Firewalla box is in Simple mode and all tests failed, go to Router Compatibility to check if Simple mode is compatible with your router.