How do you monitor network traffic on the iPhone? [closed]

Solution 1:

A man-in-the-middle proxy, like suggested by other answers, is a good solution if you only want to see HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

The best solution for packet sniffing (though it only works for actual iOS devices, not the simulator) I've found is to use rvictl. This blog post has a nice writeup. Basically you do:

rvictl -s <iphone-uid-from-xcode-organizer>

Then you sniff the interface it creates with with Wireshark (or your favorite tool), and when you're done shut down the interface with:

rvictl -x <iphone-uid-from-xcode-organizer>

This is nice because if you want to packet sniff the simulator, you're having to wade through traffic to your local Mac as well, but rvictl creates a virtual interface that just shows you the traffic from the iOS device you've plugged into your USB port.

Note: this only works on a Mac.

Solution 2:

You didnt specify the platform you use, so I assume it's a Mac ;-)

What I do is use a proxy. I use SquidMan, a standalone implementation of Squid

I start SquidMan on the Mac, then on the iPhone I enter the Proxy params in the General/Wifi Settings.

Then I can watch the HTTP trafic in the Console App, looking at the squid-access.log

If I need more infos, I switch to tcpdump, but I suppose WireShark should work too.

Solution 3:

I use Charles Web Debugging Proxy it costs but they have a trial version.

It is very simple to set up if your iPhone/iPad share the same Wifi network as your Mac.

1. Install Charles on your Mac
2. Get the IP address for your Mac - use the Mac "Network utility"
3. On your iPhone/iPad open the Wifi settings and under the "HTTP Proxy" change to manual and enter the IP from step (2) and then Port to 8888 (Charles default Port)
4. Open Charles and under the Proxy Settings dialogmake sure the “Enable Mac OS X Proxy” and “Use HTTP Proxy” are ticked
5. You should now see the traffic appearing within Charles
6. If you want to look at HTTPS traffic you need to do the additional 2 steps download the Charles Certificate Bundle and then email the .crt file to your iPhone/iPad and install.
7. In the Proxy Settings Dialog SSL tab, add the specific https top level domains you want to sniff with port 443.

If your Mac and iOS device are not on the same Wifi network you can set up your Mac as a Wifi router using the "Internet Sharing" option under Sharing in the System Preferences. You then connect your device to that "Wifi" network and follow the steps above.

Solution 4:

Run it through a proxy and monitor the traffic using Wireshark.