---
title: "Modes of operation"
menu:
    concepts:
        weight: 2
---

# Modes of Operation

- [Regular](#regular-proxy) (the default)
- [Transparent](#transparent-proxy)
- [Reverse Proxy](#reverse-proxy)
- [Upstream Proxy](#upstream-proxy)
- [SOCKS Proxy](#socks-proxy)

Now, which one should you pick? Use this flow chart:

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-flowchart.png" >}}


## Regular Proxy

Mitmproxy's regular mode is the simplest and the easiest to set up.

1. Start mitmproxy.
2. Configure your client to use mitmproxy by explicitly setting an HTTP
    proxy.
3. Quick Check: You should already be able to visit an unencrypted HTTP
    site through the proxy.
4. Open the magic domain **mitm.it** and install the certificate for your
    device.

{{< note >}}
Unfortunately, some applications bypass the system HTTP proxy settings -
Android applications are a common example. In these cases, you need to
use mitmproxy's transparent mode.
{{< /note >}}

If you are proxying an external device, your network will probably look
like this:

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-regular.png" >}}

The square brackets signify the source and destination IP addresses.
Your client explicitly connects to mitmproxy and mitmproxy explicitly
connects to the target server.

## Transparent Proxy

In transparent mode, traffic is directed into a proxy at the network
layer, without any client configuration required. This makes transparent
proxying ideal for situations where you can't change client behaviour.
In the graphic below, a machine running mitmproxy has been inserted
between the router and the internet:

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-transparent-1.png" >}}

The square brackets signify the source and destination IP addresses.
Round brackets mark the next hop on the *Ethernet/data link* layer. This
distinction is important: when the packet arrives at the mitmproxy
machine, it must still be addressed to the target server. This means
that Network Address Translation should not be applied before the
traffic reaches mitmproxy, since this would remove the target
information, leaving mitmproxy unable to determine the real destination.

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-transparent-wrong.png" title="Modes Transparent Wrong" >}}

### Common Configurations

There are many ways to configure your network for transparent proxying.
We'll look at two common scenarios:

1. Configuring the client to use a custom gateway/router/"next hop"
2. Implementing custom routing on the router

In most cases, the first option is recommended due to its ease of use.

#### (a) Custom Gateway

One simple way to get traffic to the mitmproxy machine with the
destination IP intact, is to simply configure the client with the
mitmproxy box as the default gateway.

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-transparent-2.png" >}}

In this scenario, we would:

1. Configure the proxy machine for transparent mode. You can find instructions
    in the [transparent]({{< relref "howto-transparent"
    >}}) section.
2. Configure the client to use the proxy machine's IP as the default gateway.
3. Quick Check: At this point, you should already be able to visit an
    unencrypted HTTP site over the proxy.
4. Open the magic domain **mitm.it** and install the certificate for your
    device.

Setting the custom gateway on clients can be automated by serving the
settings out to clients over DHCP. This lets set up an interception
network where all clients are proxied automatically, which can save time
and effort.

{{% note %}}

### Troubleshooting Transparent Mode

Incorrect transparent mode configurations are a frequent source of
error. If it doesn't work for you, try the following things:

- Open mitmproxy's event log - do you see clientconnect messages? If not, the
    packets are not arriving at the proxy. One common cause is the occurrence of
    ICMP redirects, which means that your machine is telling the client that
    there's a faster way to the internet by contacting your router directly (see
    the [transparent]({{< relref "howto-transparent"
    >}}) section on how to disable them). If in doubt,
    [Wireshark](https://wireshark.org/) may help you to see whether something
    arrives at your machine or not.
- Make sure you have not explicitly configured an HTTP proxy on the client. This
    is not needed in transparent mode.
- Re-check the instructions in the [transparent]({{< relref "howto-transparent"
    >}}) section. Anything you missed?

If you encounter any other pitfalls that should be listed here, please
let us know!
{{% /note %}}

#### (b) Custom Routing

In some cases, you may need more fine-grained control of which traffic
reaches the mitmproxy instance, and which doesn't. You may, for
instance, choose only to divert traffic to some hosts into the
transparent proxy. There are a huge number of ways to accomplish this,
and much will depend on the router or packet filter you're using. In
most cases, the configuration will look like this:

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-transparent-3.png" >}}

## Reverse Proxy

mitmproxy is usually used with a client that uses the proxy to access
the Internet. Using reverse proxy mode, you can use mitmproxy to act
like a normal HTTP server:

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-reverse.png" >}}

There are various use-cases:

- Say you have an internal API running at <http://example.local/>. You could now
    set up mitmproxy in reverse proxy mode at <http://debug.example.local/> and
    dynamically point clients to this new API endpoint, which provides them with
    the same data and you with debug information. Similarly, you could move your
    real server to a different IP/port and set up mitmproxy in the original
    place to debug and or redirect all sessions.
- Say you're a web developer working on <http://example.com/> (with a
    development version running on <http://localhost:8000/>). You can modify
    your hosts file so that example.com points to 127.0.0.1 and then run
    mitmproxy in reverse proxy mode on port 80. You can test your app on the
    example.com domain and get all requests recorded in mitmproxy.
- Say you have some toy project that should get SSL support. Simply set up
    mitmproxy as a reverse proxy on port 443 and you're done (`mitmdump -p 443
    --mode reverse:http://localhost:80/`). Mitmproxy auto-detects TLS traffic and intercepts
    it dynamically. There are better tools for this specific task, but mitmproxy
    is very quick and simple way to set up an SSL-speaking server.
- Want to add a non-SSL-capable compression proxy in front of your server? You
    could even spawn a mitmproxy instance that terminates SSL (`--mode reverse:http://...`),
    point it to the compression proxy and let the compression proxy point to a
    SSL-initiating mitmproxy (`--mode reverse:https://...`), which then points to the real
    server. As you see, it's a fairly flexible thing.

### Host Header

In reverse proxy mode, mitmproxy automatically rewrites the Host header to match
the upstream server. This allows mitmproxy to easily connect to existing
endpoints on the open web (e.g. `mitmproxy --mode reverse:https://example.com`). You can
disable this behaviour with the `keep_host_header` option.

However, keep in mind that absolute URLs within the returned document or HTTP
redirects will NOT be rewritten by mitmproxy. This means that if you click on a
link for "<http://example.com>" in the returned web page, you will be taken
directly to that URL, bypassing mitmproxy.

One possible way to address this is to modify the hosts file of your OS so that
"example.com" resolves to your proxy's IP, and then access the proxy by going
directly to example.com. Make sure that your proxy can still resolve the
original IP, or specify an IP in mitmproxy.


{{% note %}}

### Caveat: Interactive Use

Reverse Proxy mode is usually not sufficient to create a copy of an
interactive website at different URL. The HTML served to the client
remains unchanged - as soon as the user clicks on an non-relative URL
(or downloads a non-relative image resource), traffic no longer passes
through mitmproxy.
{{% /note %}}


## Upstream Proxy

If you want to chain proxies by adding mitmproxy in front of a different
proxy appliance, you can use mitmproxy's upstream mode. In upstream
mode, all requests are unconditionally transferred to an upstream proxy
of your choice.

{{< figure src="/schematics/proxy-modes-upstream.png" >}}

mitmproxy supports both explicit HTTP and explicit HTTPS in upstream
proxy mode. You could in theory chain multiple mitmproxy instances in a
row, but that doesn't make any sense in practice (i.e. outside of our
tests).


## SOCKS Proxy

In this mode, mitmproxy acts as a SOCKS5 proxy.