Core networking

captive.apple.com

captive.apple.com lets Apple devices find out whether a network needs a sign-in page first. Apple lists it for “Internet connectivity validation for networks that use captive portals”.

Run by ApplePorts: 443 and 80 TCPChecked: 1 November 2026

Short answer

Apple's internet connectivity check for networks with sign-in pages (captive portals). Kilobat uses it too.

Don’t block

Don't block it. The Mac can't tell that a hotel or café network wants a sign-in, so the sign-in window may never appear.

Matches
captive.apple.com

A name with *. covers every name under it: *.push.apple.com matches 1-courier.push.apple.com.

What it serves

Apple's enterprise host list names captive.apple.com in its Device setup section, on ports 443 and 80, for every platform.

A network with a sign-in page answers the check with its own page instead. That is how the Mac knows to show the sign-in window.

Kilobat makes the same plain HTTP request to captive.apple.com and expects “Success”. It also tries Google's check page if Apple's doesn't answer.

What breaks if you block it

Don’t block

Don't block it. The Mac can't tell that a hotel or café network wants a sign-in, so the sign-in window may never appear.

What breaks if you block it

  • The sign-in window for hotel, café and airport Wi-Fi may not appear.
  • The Mac may treat a working network as having no internet, or the other way round.
  • Kilobat's Wi-Fi sign-in detection can't tell a sign-in page from an outage.

With Kilobat Pro and the network filter, you can block a host for every app or for one app: in Connections, select a connection and choose Block. Apple’s own services are never blocked by Kilobat’s Protection lists.

Notes

If the sign-in window doesn't appear on a public network, see Wi-Fi login page does not appear on a Mac.

Apple’s rules for its hosts

Apple’s list, Use Apple products on enterprise networks, says that devices open these connections, not Apple’s servers. Apple services fail any connection that uses HTTPS interception, so a proxy that inspects TLS should leave Apple’s hosts alone.

If a firewall allows hosts by name, allowing *.apple.com covers most Apple services, Apple says. A firewall that works only with addresses can allow 17.0.0.0/8 for IPv4, and 2403:300::/32, 2620:149::/32 and 2a01:b740::/32 for IPv6.

To see which app on your Mac opened a connection to this host, use Kilobat’s Connections tab, or the agent network log for AI agents.

Sources

Checked on 1 November 2026.