The first time __mitmproxy__ or __mitmdump__ is run, a set of certificate files
for the mitmproxy Certificate Authority are created in the config directory
(~/.mitmproxy by default). This CA is used for on-the-fly generation of dummy
certificates for SSL interception. Since your browser won't trust the
__mitmproxy__ CA out of the box (and rightly so), you will see an SSL cert
warning every time you visit a new SSL domain through __mitmproxy__. When
you're testing a single site through a browser, just accepting the bogus SSL
cert manually is not too much trouble, but there are a many circumstances where
you will want to configure your testing system or browser to trust the
__mitmproxy__ CA as a signing root authority.


CA and cert files
-----------------

The files created by mitmproxy in the .mitmproxy directory are as follows: 

<table class="table">
    <tr>
        <td class="nowrap">mitmproxy-ca.pem</td>
        <td>The private key and certificate in PEM format.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="nowrap">mitmproxy-ca-cert.pem</td>
        <td>The certificate in PEM format. Use this to distribute to most
        non-Windows platforms.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="nowrap">mitmproxy-ca-cert.p12</td>
        <td>The certificate in PKCS12 format. For use on Windows.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="nowrap">mitmproxy-ca-cert.cer</td>
        <td>Same file as .pem, but with an extension expected by some Android
        devices.</td>
    </tr>
</table>
    

Using a custom certificate
--------------------------

You can use your own certificate by passing the __--cert__ option to mitmproxy.

The certificate file is expected to be in the PEM format. You can generate
a certificate in this format using these instructions:

<pre class="terminal">
> openssl genrsa -out cert.key 8192
> openssl req -new -x509 -key cert.key -out cert.crt
    (Specify the mitm domain as Common Name, e.g. *.google.com)
> cat cert.key cert.crt > cert.pem
> mitmproxy --cert=cert.pem
</pre>


Installing the mitmproxy CA
---------------------------

* [Firefox](@!urlTo("certinstall/firefox.html")!@)
* [OSX](@!urlTo("certinstall/osx.html")!@)
* [Windows 7](@!urlTo("certinstall/windows7.html")!@)
* [iPhone/iPad](@!urlTo("certinstall/ios.html")!@)
* [IOS Simulator](@!urlTo("certinstall/ios-simulator.html")!@)
* [Android](@!urlTo("certinstall/android.html")!@)