hackney_libraries_autologin

Introduction

CLR James library offers free Wi-Fi. However, every hour my Mac gets booted off; I suspect they either require explicit re-login to demonstrate client liveliness or just don't support Macs.

This tool logs into their web portal when needed; your connection will die for on average 5 seconds before the tool kicks in.

Requirements

• Python with pip.
• (optional, recommended) install virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper.

Quickstart

• Clone the repo.
• (if you installed virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper):
  • mkvirtualenv hackney_libraries_autologin
  • workon hackney_libraries_autologin
• pip install -r requirements.txt
• Launch the Keychain Access application.
• Add a new account called Hackney Libraries.
  • Set the username field to your library card's number.
  • Set the password to your PIN.
• Quit the Keychain Access application.
• Execute ./src/auto_login.py.
• If you want to immediately attempt to login rather than wait for the script, press ENTER.

How it works

• Use the airport command-line utility to confirm that we are both connected to a Wi-Fi network and that the Wi-Fi network's SSID is LBH-Libraries.
• If the above is true, determine if we need to re-login by attempting to HTTP GET https://securelogin.arubanetworks.com/; it times out if we don't need to log in, and redirects to a login page if we do need to log in.
• If we need to log in, HTTP POST to https://securelogin.arubanetworks.com/cgi-bin/login with appropriate x-url-form-encoded content, cookies, and referrer.
• We get the credentials directly from Keychain Access by executing security.

That should be enough instructions to modify the script if need be; consult the top-most section titled Constants for stuff to change if need be.