An Easy Guide To Apple iOS Packet Capture

Have you ever wanted to capture the packets going to and from your iOS cell phone? As a network engineer, it can be difficult to understand what is going on inside the "black box" of your mobile device. In this article, I'm going to explain how to do a packet capture for your phone and provide a step-by-step guide so you can do it yourself.

It is important to note that packet capture on iOS devices is not as straightforward as it is with PCs and routers. The BYOD phenomenon has made mobile phones a critical part of our lives for work, play, and entertainment. As such, it is essential to understand how to capture packets on your iOS device. With the right tools and knowledge, you can easily capture packets and gain insight into what is going on inside your mobile device.

Apple iOS doesn’t let you record a packet trace directly. However, you can use your Mac to record a packet trace on an attached iOS device using the Remote Virtual Interface (RVI) mechanism. To get started, first connect your iOS device to your Mac via USB. The MacBook provides the XCode application which is required to load the module called Remote Virtual Interface (RVI).

?Next, run the?"rvictl"?command in Terminal. To initiate the RVI interface, you will need the UUID of your device. This is a globally unique identifier that can be found in the XCode application. Once you have the UUID, you will use the "rvictl -s <UUID>" command to set up the new RVI. You may not get the "rvictl" interface running right off the bat and require loading some additional modules.

Finally, once it is started, you can run the packet capture. To do this, launch Wireshark and double-click on the "rvi0" interface. With the packet capture running, you will be able to see all the content that is showing up from your phone.

So there you have it! With a few simple steps, you can easily capture packets from your iOS device. Don't forget to check out the video for detailed demo SDN@iOSCapture