How to monitor network calls made from iOS Simulat

Question

I am trying to monitor calls from an app to my server just like Firebug does. I could not find a way to see that in iOS Simulator or in xCode.

Is there a way to do that without sniffing all the traffic? If no, what tool would you suggest?

Answer 1

1. Install WireShark
2. get ip address from xcode network monitor
3. listen to wifi interface
4. set filter ip.addr == 192.168.1.122 in WireShark

Answer 2

Use the built-in network activity monitor instrument.

Answer 3

A free and open source proxy tool that runs easily on a Mac is mitmproxy.

The website includes links to a Mac binary, as well as the source code on Github.

The docs contain a very helpful intro to loading a cert into your test device to view HTTPS traffic.

Not quite as GUI-tastic as Charles, but it does everything I need and its free and maintained. Good stuff, and pretty straightforward if you've used some command line tools before.

UPDATE: I just noticed on the website that mitmproxy is available as a homebrew install. Couldn't be easier.

Answer 4

Telerik Fiddler is a good choice

http://www.telerik.com/blogs/using-fiddler-with-apple-ios-devices

Answer 5

Xcode provides CFNetwork Diagnostic Logging. Apple doc

To enable it, add CFNETWORK_DIAGNOSTICS=3 in Environment variable

This will show requests from the App with its headers & body.

Answer 6

I use netfox. It is very easy to use and integrate. You can use it on simulator and device. It shows all of the requests and responses. It supports JSON, XML, HTML, Image and Other types of responses. You can share requests, responses and full log by IOS default sharing formats (Gmail, WhatsApp, email, slack, sms, etc.)

You can check on GitHub: https://github.com/kasketis/netfox

Netfox provides a quick look on all executed network requests performed by your iOS or OSX app. It grabs all requests - of course yours, requests from 3rd party libraries (such as AFNetworking, Alamofire or else), UIWebViews, and more