On: Example.com just launched the biggest redesign in decades

[SamuelAdams]

So is wrong to use captive.apple.com for tests as well? It's nice to know your network can reach the internet and these pages are generally fairly reliable.

[1]: https://captive.apple.com/

[TowerTall → SamuelAdams]

A HTTP request for http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt returning 200 OK and the text Microsoft NCSI. This is the url windows has been using for decades to determine if the device is online. It is highly reliable.

[lxgr → SamuelAdams]

These pages are unfortunately getting special treatment from quite a few networks these days, among other things to avoid iOS users getting stuck in a loop of trying to connect, and getting disconnected by the OS due to a "non-working connection" for local-only networks like in-flight entertainment systems.

It's a shame that we don't have any standards for the concerns of canonically testing Internet reachability and for authoritatively redirecting network users to a captive payment portal (without having to resort to ugly hacks that often break with TLS).

[Ajedi32 → lxgr]

RFC8910, from 2020: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8910.html

[lxgr → Ajedi32]

Woah, amazing! Do you know if any popular network stacks actually support it?

But even just having an RFC to yell about is great, thank you :)

[nemomarx → SamuelAdams]

If they say that it's not intended as a reliable service for testing purposes it can't be that reliable, and they might take it down or change the structure arbitrarily at any time, etc.

So yeah I would pick something simpler for a network access test probably?

[jschulenklopper → nemomarx]

If I were to operate a 'service' not intended as a reliable service for testing purposes... I would make sure that it's not reliable - and very unreliable - from the start. So, delayed responses, no responses, garbled responses, duplicate responses, varied responses, ...

[patmorgan23 → SamuelAdams]

Why not ping 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 or time.windows.com? Things that are actually designed to be highly available services

[ceejayoz → patmorgan23]

Is there any reason to believe captive.apple.com is any less "designed to be highly available" than time.windows.com?

It's a static page that every Apple device relies on saying only:

  <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Success</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>Success</BODY></HTML>

[mixdup → ceejayoz]

The only risk is that Apple hasn't announced it as being reliable or promised to keep it up or the format the same in any way. They could 100% pull it out from under everyone, with modifications in their OSes prepared for the change

[simondotau → mixdup]

Also some captive portals fake/emulate responses from this service.

[encom → patmorgan23]

1.1 is enough.

  ~$ ping -c1 1.1
  PING 1.1 (1.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from 1.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=7.89 ms
  
  --- 1.1 ping statistics ---
  1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
  rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 7.888/7.888/7.888/0.000 ms

[nhecker → encom]

Thanks! I'd forgotten that 1.1 and 1.1.1 resolve. I'll not infrequently ping 1.1.1.1.1 with overzealous typing. That will, alas, not resolve.

[stavros → nhecker]

YET!

[stavros → encom]

When did this start working? Did they backport IPv6-style addressing, or did I just never know this?

[98codes → SamuelAdams]

Just don't blame the user and/or their internet service when the service you're relying on inevitably goes down.