How do you monitor network traffic on the iPhone?

iphone security networking wireshark
Jason Reynolds picture Jason Reynolds · Jan 12, 2009 · Viewed 122.2k times · Source

We are looking for a Wireshark-like tool to use on the iPhone to test a 3rd party application before partnering with the 3rd party. Any suggestions?

Answer

mpontillo picture mpontillo · Dec 28, 2012

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.

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