setup guide | Sophos Auto Login Docs

On Unix you can keep the script in a venv, run it as a daemon, or wrap that daemon in systemd / launchd so it comes back after reboot.

Windows has no daemonize(). Use --start in a terminal, or the tashifkhan/sophos-auto-login.exe.

1. Virtual environment#

bash

cd sophos-auto-login
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Confirm you can reach the portal from this machine before you bother with services.

bash

python autologin.py --add
python autologin.py --start

2. Runnable script#

Point the shebang at the venv interpreter (which python while the venv is active):

python

#!/path/to/sophos-auto-login/venv/bin/python3

bash

chmod +x autologin.py
./autologin.py

daemonize() still chdir("/"), so systemd WorkingDirectory and launchd WorkingDirectory should stay the repo if you care about relative paths. The SQLite file does not use the cwd. It uses ~/.autologin_script/credentials.db.

3. systemd (linux)#

/etc/systemd/system/sophos-autologin.service:

ini

[Unit]
Description=Sophos Auto Login Service
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/path/to/sophos-auto-login/venv/bin/python3 /path/to/sophos-auto-login/autologin.py --start --daemon
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/sophos-auto-login
Restart=always
RestartSec=10
User=your_username

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Replace the three paths and User. The process must run as the user who owns ~/.autologin_script/ and ~/.sophos-autologin/. Running it as root stores the DB in root’s home, then your login session cannot see those IDs.

bash

sudo systemctl enable sophos-autologin.service
sudo systemctl start sophos-autologin.service

--start --daemon double-forks. systemd may think the service exited. If Restart=always fights the PID file, drop --daemon and let systemd hold the foreground --start process instead:

ini

ExecStart=/path/to/sophos-auto-login/venv/bin/python3 /path/to/sophos-auto-login/autologin.py --start

Logs then go to the journal, not ~/.sophos-autologin/sophos-autologin.log. --status reads that log file, so it will look idle unless you also daemonize.

4. LaunchAgent (macOS)#

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.sophosautologin.plist:

xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.user.sophosautologin</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/path/to/sophos-auto-login/venv/bin/python3</string>
    <string>/path/to/sophos-auto-login/autologin.py</string>
    <string>--start</string>
    <string>--daemon</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>
  <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
  <string>/Users/your_username/.sophos-autologin/error.log</string>
  <key>StandardOutPath</key>
  <string>/Users/your_username/.sophos-autologin/output.log</string>
  <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
  <string>/path/to/sophos-auto-login</string>
</dict>
</plist>

bash

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.sophosautologin.plist

Create ~/.sophos-autologin first so the stdout/stderr paths exist. KeepAlive plus double-fork has the same double-supervisor problem as systemd. If launchd keeps spawning extras, remove --daemon and let launchd keep --start in the foreground.

5. After it is running#

bash

python autologin.py --status
tail -f ~/.sophos-autologin/sophos-autologin.log
python autologin.py --exit

--exit logs out then kills autologin PIDs. Prefer that over launchctl unload or systemctl stop if you want the portal session closed too.