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iOS Setup and Configuration

In this tutorial, we will cover how to setup and configure an iOS device in order to proxy HTTP/HTTPS traffic generated by iOS applications.

WARNING

Caido is not liable for any malfunctions, failures, damages, loss/theft of data, or other technical issues that may occur with your device as a result of following this tutorial. Proceed at your own risk.

INFO

  • Be aware that the exact names and locations of setting options may vary between devices.
  • Ensure to pay attention to any prompts on the device itself while proceeding through these steps.
  • For convenience, add all installed tools to your system's PATH envrionment variable to make them globally accessible. Ensure to restart your terminal afterwards so the changes take effect.

Configuring Caido

To capture traffic from your Apple devices on your Wi-Fi network, you will need to edit the default settings of Caido.

  1. In the launch window, click the vertical ellipsis button of your desired instance and select Edit.
  2. Select All interfaces (0.0.0.0) and click the Save button in the bottom right corner.
All interfaces (0.0.0.0).
  1. Now, launch Caido.

Configuring the Proxy Settings

  1. On your iOS device, navigate to Settings and select Wi-Fi.
  2. Ensure your device is on the same network as your computer.
  3. Select the network SSID and scroll down to select the Configure Proxy option, then select the Manual option.
  4. In the Server field, enter the IP address of your computer running Caido (run the terminal command ipconfig in Windows or ifconfig in macOS/Linux to discover your computer's IP address). Then enter the listening port of Caido in the Port field. Once the values have been added, click Save in the upper left corner.
iOS proxy configuration.
  1. In the Safari browser, visit http://<IP>:8080/ca.crt (replace <IP> with the IP address of your computer) to download Caido's CA certificate. Select Allow in the prompt. In the Choose a Device prompt, select the device you are currently using. Click Close in the Profile Downloaded notification.
  2. Return to your device's Settings, click on the Profile Downloaded option, and then click Install. On the warning screen, click Install again and Install yet again at the bottom. Then select Done.
  3. Click the < Back button in the upper left corner to return to the General Settings screen. Next, select the About option. At the bottom of this screen will be the Certificate Trust Settings option, select this and then enable Caido to be a trusted root certificate. In the warning prompt, select Continue.
Trusting Caido's CA certificate in iOS.

TIP

To test if the certificate was successfully installed for Wi-Fi, launch the device's browser and navigate to a website. You should see the traffic in Caido's HTTP History table.

Next, open an application and view if the traffic it is generating is being proxied. This will vary depending on the security techniques used by the developers.

INFO

Applications may have security measures that will prevent them from working properly and allowing Caido to proxy the HTTPS traffic they generate. If the application is still not working properly and traffic is still not being proxied, you will need to take additional steps to bypass these measures.

Due to Apple's robust security, the easiest way to do so is to obtain a device running an operating system version that has a jailbreak available.