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http://captive.apple.com/ http://captive.apple.com/ also. That's what Apple devices use when trying to present the login for a captive network.

by cdowns 10y ago

TurningCanadian 10y ago
Is that better in any way than using example.com?
- cdowns 10y ago
  If I regularly used that as a known-good site that should be up with no SSL, I'd trust that an apple-maintained site (backed by akamai) would be up before "example.com". I'm sure there are plenty of others, but someone might remember that URL over another so I thought it would be helpful.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    example.com is maintained by IANA. It's an official example address for documentation purposes. So on one hand, it will survive even if Apple disappears, on the other, they're likely not expecting any significant traffic.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - dom0 10y ago
      Using the site for captive portal access does not actually generate any traffic for the site, because the middlebox intercepts and rewrites the request. Traffic only occurs if there is no captive portal. Hence the easily parsed "Success" body of the Apple site.
      - viraptor 10y ago
        Phones confirm whether you passed the captive portal by requesting the usual check url again. That means they'll still get one request after a successful login.
  - dylz 10y ago
    To be fair, example.com is on an anycasted CDN too and is owned by IANA.
    - cdowns 10y ago
      Didn't realize that about example.com. TIL!
      - wyldfire 10y ago
        It's reserved for the purpose of documentation/illustrations (especially RFCs themselves) without fear of changes/invalid domains/directing mass traffic. It's also useful for establishing an idiom for those RFC examples. [1] https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com
- ishields 10y ago
  Any site that doesn't redirect to the SSL version (if applicable) will work. The benefit of using something like captive.apple.com is that it's specifically designed to NOT use SSL in order to trigger redirects and such, whereas something like example.com just so happens to not redirect to their SSL version, so it's (essentially) guaranteed to work vs example.com who could decide in the future to redirect to their SSL version if they want
- abiox 10y ago
  that may perhaps depend on whether one is an example.com evangelist.
fabrice_d 10y ago
You can also use http://detectportal.firefox.com/ http://detectportal.firefox.com/ that we set up for FirefoxOS captive portal detection.
- mintplant 10y ago
  Is this also used in the new captive portal detection that's coming down the pipe for Firefox?
pfranz 10y ago
My iPhone constantly misses captive portals and I have to hunt for a non-ssl website. I can't say if it's 5% or 30% of networks, but enough to be frustrating. Does anyone know if it is common for apple.com to be whitelisted for iMessage or something?
- rmccue 10y ago
  The captive portal browser (pop-up on macOS, slide-over on iOS) doesn't support full JavaScript or cookies (or previously didn't, maybe that has changed), so some captive portals specifically allow the captive portal test domains through. There's actually a huge list of domains that macOS/iOS try: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18891706/ios7-and-captive-portals-changes-to-apple-request-url http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18891706/ios7-and-captive...
  - gumby 10y ago
    > The captive portal browser (pop-up on macOS, slide-over on iOS) I have never seen a captive portal interceptor on MacOS (much to my disappointment), only iOS. Is there some setting I previously screwed up?
    - pfranz 10y ago
      I've never seen a setting for it. It's just a modal dialog with a webview. Like iOS, you have "Cancel" as an option until it connects and changes to "Done." Here's a screen shot I found: https://www.wireless.bris.ac.uk/gfx/eduroam-osx/captive_portal.png https://www.wireless.bris.ac.uk/gfx/eduroam-osx/captive_port...
      - gumby 10y ago
        Drat, I've never seen that on OS X. Just on iOS. Because of this thread I simulated it on my network and couldn't cause it to show up.
johncolanduoni 10y ago
Except some portals actively try to avoid intercepting any of Apple's methods for determining whether you're on one. You're much better off with an off the beaten path solution.
gengkev 10y ago
I think I saw my Android phone use http://gstatic.com/generate_204 http://gstatic.com/generate_204, though more recent phones might use something different.

http://captive.apple.com/ http://captive.apple.com/ also. That's what Apple devices use when trying to present the login for a captive network.

by cdowns 10y ago

http://captive.apple.com/ http://captive.apple.com/ also. That's what Apple devices use when trying to present the login for a captive network.

TurningCanadian 10y ago

Is that better in any way than using example.com?

cdowns 10y ago
If I regularly used that as a known-good site that should be up with no SSL, I'd trust that an apple-maintained site (backed by akamai) would be up before "example.com". I'm sure there are plenty of others, but someone might remember that URL over another so I thought it would be helpful.
- viraptor 10y ago
  example.com is maintained by IANA. It's an official example address for documentation purposes. So on one hand, it will survive even if Apple disappears, on the other, they're likely not expecting any significant traffic.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - dom0 10y ago
    Using the site for captive portal access does not actually generate any traffic for the site, because the middlebox intercepts and rewrites the request. Traffic only occurs if there is no captive portal. Hence the easily parsed "Success" body of the Apple site.
    - viraptor 10y ago
      Phones confirm whether you passed the captive portal by requesting the usual check url again. That means they'll still get one request after a successful login.
- dylz 10y ago
  To be fair, example.com is on an anycasted CDN too and is owned by IANA.
  - cdowns 10y ago
    Didn't realize that about example.com. TIL!
    - wyldfire 10y ago
      It's reserved for the purpose of documentation/illustrations (especially RFCs themselves) without fear of changes/invalid domains/directing mass traffic. It's also useful for establishing an idiom for those RFC examples. [1] https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com
ishields 10y ago
Any site that doesn't redirect to the SSL version (if applicable) will work. The benefit of using something like captive.apple.com is that it's specifically designed to NOT use SSL in order to trigger redirects and such, whereas something like example.com just so happens to not redirect to their SSL version, so it's (essentially) guaranteed to work vs example.com who could decide in the future to redirect to their SSL version if they want
abiox 10y ago
that may perhaps depend on whether one is an example.com evangelist.

fabrice_d 10y ago

You can also use http://detectportal.firefox.com/ http://detectportal.firefox.com/ that we set up for FirefoxOS captive portal detection.

mintplant 10y ago
Is this also used in the new captive portal detection that's coming down the pipe for Firefox?

pfranz 10y ago

My iPhone constantly misses captive portals and I have to hunt for a non-ssl website. I can't say if it's 5% or 30% of networks, but enough to be frustrating. Does anyone know if it is common for apple.com to be whitelisted for iMessage or something?

rmccue 10y ago
The captive portal browser (pop-up on macOS, slide-over on iOS) doesn't support full JavaScript or cookies (or previously didn't, maybe that has changed), so some captive portals specifically allow the captive portal test domains through. There's actually a huge list of domains that macOS/iOS try: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18891706/ios7-and-captive-portals-changes-to-apple-request-url http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18891706/ios7-and-captive...
- gumby 10y ago
  > The captive portal browser (pop-up on macOS, slide-over on iOS) I have never seen a captive portal interceptor on MacOS (much to my disappointment), only iOS. Is there some setting I previously screwed up?
  - pfranz 10y ago
    I've never seen a setting for it. It's just a modal dialog with a webview. Like iOS, you have "Cancel" as an option until it connects and changes to "Done." Here's a screen shot I found: https://www.wireless.bris.ac.uk/gfx/eduroam-osx/captive_portal.png https://www.wireless.bris.ac.uk/gfx/eduroam-osx/captive_port...
    - gumby 10y ago
      Drat, I've never seen that on OS X. Just on iOS. Because of this thread I simulated it on my network and couldn't cause it to show up.

johncolanduoni 10y ago

Except some portals actively try to avoid intercepting any of Apple's methods for determining whether you're on one. You're much better off with an off the beaten path solution.

gengkev 10y ago

I think I saw my Android phone use http://gstatic.com/generate_204 http://gstatic.com/generate_204, though more recent phones might use something different.