Q: Just how limited is the Captive Network Assistant?

To my knowledge the Captive Network Assistant can only detect a captive network and load the respective login page. I don't think it can even save username and password information for a captive network like a browser can.

Quite frankly I disabled the assistant entirely because I found it useless. You can change its name to disable it.

It is located in /System/Library/CoreServices

I have also battled CNA before and there is at least one extremely debilitating thing that I've noticed - it won't allow any cookies to be saved.

I would also love to see a full list of explicit features disabled in CNA, since it is my understanding that CNA is basically a stripped down version of a full-featured Safari browser on each respective platform (iOS/OS X). Alas Apple doesn't publish this information even in some of the technical training docs that I have seen.

If you've discovered more limitations I would love to hear them!

Cheers

I find it limiting that CNA doesn't allow for automatic profile (file) downloads that are triggered upon login in the CNA. I'm assuming even if a link to profile was offered on CNA after login, the user likely can't download it with a click or right-click save as.

Why is Apple so secretive of this? Windows does it better in just launching the default browser for you to login when it detects a captive portal, Apple should have done the same.

Anyone have issues trying to use the browser workaround over CNA? Whether yes/no, do you typically fire up the browser and try visiting some website that should then trigger the captive portal redirect OR specifically visit the captive portal URL in the browser that's fired up? Although the captive portal URL isn't always an easy to remember one being IP Address based sometimes.

I noticed I kind of had issues with the browser workaround unless perhaps CNA disabled as per http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/45418/how-to-automatically-login-to-cap tive-portals-on-os-x. At times, it wouldn't load the captive portal in browser if CNA was running, unless perhaps you knew the specific captive portal URL.

Also, this is an interesting related read: https://grpugh.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/an-undocumented-change-to-captive-networ k-assistant-settings-in-os-x-10-10-yosem…

Would anyone consider these limitations a bug or expected behavior? Just wondering if anyone filed a bug report with Apple. I don't think I see any cross-posted on OpenRadar: http://www.openradar.me/search?query=captive+network

FYI, I did come across what one might consider a limitation with CNA a while back, trying to debug other limitations of it:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/194173/running-a-proxy-server-like-char les-interferes-with-mac-wireless-web-bas…

with a (local) web proxy running, the CNA doesn't appear to pop up when you connect to a captive portal based wifi. Workaround was to use a local packet sniffer like Wireshark instead of proxy so that the CNA would launch.

webpage limitations :

• very limited JS
• no tab (one page only)
• impossible to launch Safari from CNA (even with html target "_system")

Drummerx04 wrote:

 

You can change its name to disable it.

If only it were that easy!

Finder prevents renaming it.

Path Finder also won't do it.

Can't be renamed.

Or moved.

Or change its permissions.

Since I'm on El Capitan I may need to disable SIP in order to change a system file.

I could enable the root user and try it, but I'm not going to bother.

Since I'm on El Capitan I may need to disable SIP in order to change a system file.

I could enable the root user and try it, but I'm not going to bother.

Yes.  SIP is what is preventing you from messing with OS X files

<http://www.imore.com/el-capitan-system-integrity-protection-helps-keep-malware-a way>

Yep, I found that same answer on another site shortly after I posted yesterday.

I've disabled SIP before, but at this time I'm not annoyed enough by the portal to repeat those steps.

The portal seems to work well most of the time, only occasionally does it not appear when it should, and I'm not sure how disabling it would be more effective.

It's not that big a deal for me to press a button to login from time to time when I'm in a hotel - normally I only need to do it once a day or less.  

Disregard my last post.

The Captive Network Assistant often fails to appear when I need it to.

Disconnecting from the wireless signal and turning off/on my Mac's wifi usually doesn't work.

If I open Safari a few tabs load from cache, but most fail to load. I have to go to a new address  - one that isn't in history. Then the portal page will load in the browser instead of popping up a separate window. So I bookmarked the http://n111.network-auth.com/ page that works here.

But after connecting, a lot of the tabs that failed to load originally forget their addresses so I end up with a bunch of tabs that load my homepage (Google).

Then it's an aggravating process to close the windows and use the Sessions extension to restore a previous browsing session so I eventually end up with the same windows and 70+ tabs as I had before the connection was lost.

This has happened MANY times during the past month I've been staying in this hotel.

Now I just open Chrome instead, where I only have half a dozen pinned tabs. Then I can open a new tab and click the bookmark and voilà - authorization page appears.

And you can't simply drag Captive Network Assistant into the Dock to keep it handy because opening it does NOTHING.

The hotel changed their ISP tonight and unlocked their signal. Now they have a portal with no IP address and time will tell if it works any better.

The unlocked portal only lasted a day while the hotel transitioned to their new ISP.

And now Apple's captive portal gizmo is a PITA again.

I NEED to connect to the Internet before opening a browser!

Otherwise most of the tabs open on the portal login page and the original pages are lost and can't be restored by refreshing or going back.

Sometimes after rebooting I can turn off Wi-Fi, then turn it back on and select the hotels signal and the portal window opens like it should. But other times it doesn't no matter what I do.

Earlier today I was unable to get the portal window to appear even after repeatedly disconnecting from the signal and turning on/off Wi-Fi, and rebooting several times.

I was forced to open a browser to gain access to the portal, so I opened the one with the fewest tabs and sure enough - every tab went to the portal login page.

The capture agent should have a front-end in the Utilities folder or System/Library/CoreServices, that can be used to login and then closed.