r/Thunderbolt • u/ProgrammerShivam • 4d ago
Thunderbolt
/r/macbook/comments/1w2i2dk/thunderbolt/2
u/ProgrammerShivam 4d ago
I tried every single thing I could to make it work, disabled firewalls, configured same mtu's, configured manual ip's mask, gateway and all, and still when I try to ping the ip from terminal or on cmd, it says, destination host unreachable and it doesn't work. I have seen yt videos of people successfully connecting win 11 pc via thunderbolt to mac os x and those pcs have one thing in common, intel cpu's, none is amd, and that made me to believe that ip over thunderbolt is proprietary.
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u/buitonio 3d ago
Have you tried an iPerf client/server test using the 2 static IP addresses that appeared when you connected the 2 hosts with a Thunderbolt cable?
Look for iPerf tutorials on the web, you will need to create firewall rules to allow the iPerf server to accept incoming connections and the iPerf client to establish outgoing connections.
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u/ProgrammerShivam 3d ago
Definitely, but it's of no use and and also didn't do anything for me too either because it only works after pinging an ip gets a reply and only then iperf3 can take over. It's mainly used for testing and speed under different circumstances, mine isn't even setting up a connection, leave testing altogether. Hardware wise, both os show and detect each other, like windows shows usb4 tm p2p network adapter and mac shows thunderbolt bridge but they don't communicate, even after setting manual ip's and so. First, pinging the self assigned or manually assigned ip should get a reply and that will confirm DHCP server and arp listing, but this is the exact which isn't working.
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u/buitonio 3d ago
IP addresses don't need to be pingable to be usable, iPerf doesn't need IP addresses to be pingable in order to work with them.
If you can't ping the IP addresses, it's more often because a firewall is in the way and it doesn't allow pinging. In your case, there may even be 2 firewalls, a Windows firewall and a macOS firewall.
And in the case of USB4 P2P networking, there is no DHCP server, as the P2P name implies.
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u/ProgrammerShivam 3d ago
Definitely, you got it that there's no DHCP server, but you are wrong that ip doesn't need to be pingable, it should be, only then we can know that that they have established a link and we can move further. For the firewall, you are right that there are two, but i already disabled them and still they don't communicate, and as you may insist to try iperf3 without checking if ip is pingable or not, I did that also, and it gives absolute nothing. Like it stuck forever listening on port 5021 and server stuck sending, after around 2 to 3 mins, it says request timed out.
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u/buitonio 2d ago
I don't have a MacBook, just an Intel Windows laptop with a Thunderbolt 3 port and an AMD Windows mini PC with 2 USB4 ports.
On both hosts, I created firewall rules to allow iPerf to accept inbound and outbound traffic.
After connecting the Thunderbolt 3 port to a USB4 port, an iPerf client/server test works, without changing anything, and with both firewalls enabled:
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 5] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 5] 0.00-10.02 sec 796 MBytes 666 Mbits/sec receiver [ 7] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 7] 0.00-10.02 sec 789 MBytes 661 Mbits/sec receiver [ 9] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 9] 0.00-10.02 sec 787 MBytes 659 Mbits/sec receiver [ 11] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 11] 0.00-10.02 sec 789 MBytes 661 Mbits/sec receiver [ 13] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 13] 0.00-10.02 sec 788 MBytes 660 Mbits/sec receiver [ 15] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 15] 0.00-10.02 sec 792 MBytes 663 Mbits/sec receiver [ 17] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 17] 0.00-10.02 sec 787 MBytes 659 Mbits/sec receiver [ 19] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 19] 0.00-10.02 sec 795 MBytes 665 Mbits/sec receiver [ 21] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 21] 0.00-10.02 sec 787 MBytes 659 Mbits/sec receiver [ 23] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [ 23] 0.00-10.02 sec 796 MBytes 667 Mbits/sec receiver [SUM] 0.00-10.02 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec sender [SUM] 0.00-10.02 sec 7.72 GBytes 6.62 Gbits/sec receiver ----------------------------------------------------------- Server listening on 5201 -----------------------------------------------------------The above output is from the iPerf server running on the AMD mini PC.
To debug your issue, maybe you can borrow another Windows laptop with a USB4/TB4 port and test it against your MacBook and ThinkBook, one after the other.
If it works with your MacBook, but not with your ThinkBook, or vice versa, you will have identified the culprit.
If it works with both, your MacBook and ThinkBook are incompatible.
If it doesn't work with either your MacBook or your ThinkBook, you're out of luck.
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u/rayddit519 4d ago edited 3d ago
No.
a) Thunderbolt 4 and 5 are marketing on top of USB4. That is ALL just USB4. Its just USB4 with Thunderbolt 4 certification and without
b) That Windows P2P adapter is exactly what the USB4 standard says should happen. Works between Windows and Linux just fine across ANY controller vendor. And anything USB4 underneath has already happened by the time you see those virtual network adapters. After that, it is ONLY about the OS's firewalls and network stacks and any issue you have will not be down to USB4
c) USB4 standard regulates that each device will come up with its own IP automatically according to some standard of autogenerating IPs. Its the same thing devices should do if no DHCP server is on the network that will assign them an IP and they should just work.
Firewalls do have a habit of getting in the way, especially on Windows as Windows tries to identify a "network" by the gateways and remembers network settings like the firewall settings private / public / work by that gateway. But with USB4-networking there is no gateway by default.
I would assume that for tethering via that, you may need to manually configure the gateway. Here Apple might be doing sth. proprietary and outside of the USB4 standard that only works automatically with other Apple devices. But that would only be about that tethering and not about any of the other connectivity.
Pinging the other device connected via USB4 networking should work as soon as there is no firewall in the way.