MacOS – How to automate the wifi login of a captive window

automatormacos

I want to automate filling out a WiFi captive portal page on macOSs because I am not asked to save the password.

Only the username gets recorded — not the password. The "click on the password field" gets recorded but not the input.

How can I determine if this is a limitation in Automator, or the captive window, or the design of the web page when it programmed how the text entry fields are set up?

How can I get the source code of the page from the captive window?

Best Answer

Deliberately Restricted

Yes, this is a deliberate choice by Apple's engineers. Automator – and other applications – can not intercept keystrokes sent to password fields.

The restriction is enforced by macOS. The keystrokes sent to secure text fields do not appear in the read-only copy of events sent to other observing processes.

Browsers Using Native Controls

Within a web browser that uses native macOS controls, HTML password fields are represented by a NSSecureTextField.

NSSecureTextField deliberately restricts what can see or record its input. The field also limits copying and cutting of the contents.

Other Approaches

See How I created a Python Bot to automatically log into a Captive Portal or search for script wifi login form for other related projects and tools.

Probably not.

I would imagine that the lock screen is locked down fairly tight - imagine a piece of malware that did just that - except the Automator action sent the password to a server in Bangladesh.

Simulate shift-tab with Automator/AppleScript

I'm answering the original question in the title in case people are searching for it and navigate to this page.

You don't need to put shift down in curly braces, unless it's a comma separated list.
If the "tab" in parenthesis doesn't work, try the key code.
For each key press, try telling System events to do so without end tell.

Depending on your application, you need to specify which application you are telling to do the commands, and other parameters such as the window.

For example, in Safari, with the suggestions above:

tell application "Safari"
    tell front window
       tell application "System Events" to key code 48 using shift down
    end tell
end tell

Best Answer

Deliberately Restricted

Browsers Using Native Controls

Other Approaches

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to add a custom field to the login dialog

Probably not.

Simulate shift-tab with Automator/AppleScript

Related Question