Weibo Android Emulator MITM

make sure android related utilities are on system paths

 mate ~/.bash_profile

need the following

#android studio
export PATH=~/Library/Android/sdk/tools:$PATH
export PATH=~/Library/Android/sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$PATH
export PATH=~/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools:$PATH
export PATH=~/Library/Android/sdk/emulator:$PATH
export PATH=~/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/35.0.1:$PATH

verify weibo app CA behavior

Apps can decide to ignore the system certificate store and maintain their own CA certificates.

To verify the behavior of the app, check network_security_config.xml.

apktool d com.sina.weibo_14.12.0_liqucn.com.apk

check res/xml/network_security_config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<network-security-config>
    <base-config cleartextTrafficPermitted="true" />
    <debug-overrides>
        <trust-anchors>
            <certificates src="user" />
        </trust-anchors>
    </debug-overrides>
</network-security-config>

install mitmproxy

brew install mitmproxy
#run it at least once
mitmproxy

# ~/.mitmproxy dir is created

now ~/.mitmproxy/mitmproxy-ca-cert.cer is created

cd ~/.mitmproxy/
hashed_name=`openssl x509 -inform PEM -subject_hash_old -in mitmproxy-ca-cert.cer | head -1` && cp mitmproxy-ca-cert.cer $hashed_name.0
ls

c8750f0d.0 is created

create emulator

create inside android studio

to create an emulator, use android studio and follow

https://developer.android.com/studio/run/managing-avds

create from command line

if you’d like to use command line, install the sdk commandline-tools first: https://github.com/Dart-Code/Dart-Code/issues/5054

if installing inside android studio fails, you can download the the commandline-tools directly from: https://developer.android.com/studio#command-line-tools-only, then unzip and copy the content to your android sdk path.

# see which api versions and system-images are installed
# to install more, see https://developer.android.com/tools/sdkmanager
sdkmanager --list_installed

avdmanager list target

avdmanager list device

to use avdmanager create avd, follow

https://developer.android.com/tools/avdmanager

select an emulator that works

emulator -list-avds

not every emulator works with mitmproxy!

but Nexus_S_API_30 works! (API 35 does not work)

put the cert onto emulator system partition

follow https://docs.mitmproxy.org/stable/howto-install-system-trusted-ca-android/#instructions-for-api-level--28-using--writable-system

adb push ~/.mitmproxy/c8750f0d.0 /system/etc/security/cacerts
adb shell chmod 664 /system/etc/security/cacerts/c8750f0d.0
adb ls /system/etc/security/cacerts

if successful: then you see the mitmproxy cert in the Trusted Credentials in Android system setting!
merely moving the certs into the system certs it not enough: sometimes the certs still does not show up in the system setting.

then each time run the following to start the modified image

emulator -avd Nexus_S_API_30 -writable-system

run mitmproxy

mitmweb

change the emulator network setting:
127.0.0.1:8080

don’t forget to click apply after the change.

install the weibo app to capture the traffics.