Password-protected Sites
Some servers restrict access to certain content, requiring a user to authenticate with a valid user name and password.
Login Page
Secure sites usually provide a login page that requires the user to enter a user name and password into a form. To download files from a site with a login page, do the following:
- Turn on the Download Using Web Views option under the Webpage settings.
- Modify other settings (such as URL settings, Limit settings, etc.) so that you only download what you want.
- Enter your site URL.
- Choose Open Browser in the Control menu to display SiteSucker’s built-in web browser.
- In the web browser, navigate to the login page.
- Enter your user name and password or use the AutoFill feature (see below).
- Navigate to the page where you want to start downloading and click the Download button.
Warning: Before logging in and downloading a site, it is very important that you use the URL settings to exclude any links that can modify the site or log out the user. When downloading a site, SiteSucker will try every link, so if you don’t exclude these links, SiteSucker could log you out before it downloads anything.
If you turn on the Log Download History option in the Log settings before downloading a site, you will see in the log file the URL of every file downloaded. This can be helpful when configuring the URL settings to exclude any links that can log out the user.
If you pause for an extended period, you may need to log in again before you resume downloading. In this case, choose the Open Browser menu item, log in to the site, click the Cancel button to close the browser, and then click the Resume button.
Password AutoFill
SiteSucker supports Password AutoFill, which allows users to automatically enter passwords for websites from their keychain. If you log in to a site with a password that is not in your keychain, SiteSucker will ask if you want to save the password to your keychain. If you choose to do so, the password will be saved to your login keychain. You can use the Keychain Access app to manage passwords saved by SiteSucker.
If SiteSucker loads the login page for a site into its built-in web browser and the login keychain includes any relevant passwords for the site, the passwords button (
) will appear in the browser window. Click this button to display a list of accounts (or user names) for the site. Select an account in the list and click the AutoFill button to automatically enter the corresponding user name and password.
Login Dialog
Sometimes the server will ask for the user’s credentials when the client sends a request. This is called basic HTTP authentication. If the user name and password for the site are found in the Keychain, SiteSucker will respond with these credentials. Otherwise, SiteSucker will display a login dialog that you can use to enter your user name and password.
The Login Dialog setting under the General settings specifies when SiteSucker should display the login dialog for basic HTTP authentication.