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<li><a href="index.html">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="install.html">Installation</a></li>
<li><a href="howmitmproxy.html">How mitmproxy works</a></li>
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<li><a href="mitmdump.html">mitmdump</a></li>
<li class="nav-header">Features</li>
<li><a href="features/anticache.html">Anticache</a></li>
<li><a href="features/clientreplay.html">Client-side replay</a></li>
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<li><a href="features/setheaders.html">Set Headers</a></li>
<li><a href="features/sticky.html">Sticky cookies and auth</a></li>
<li><a href="features/reverseproxy.html">Reverse proxy mode</a></li>
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<li><a href="certinstall/windows7.html">Windows 7</a></li>
<li><a href="certinstall/ios.html">IOS</a></li>
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<li><a href="certinstall/android.html">Android</a></li>
<li class="nav-header">Transparent Proxying</li>
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<li><a href="transparent/linux.html">Linux</a></li>
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<li class="nav-header">Tutorials</li>
<li><a href="tutorials/30second.html">Client playback: a 30 second example</a></li>
<li><a href="tutorials/gamecenter.html">Setting highscores on Apple's GameCenter</a></li>
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<h1>Overview</h1>
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<p>When a transparent proxy is used, traffic is redirected into a proxy at the
network layer, without any client configuration being required. This makes
transparent proxying ideal for those situations where you can't change client
behaviour - proxy-oblivious Android applications being a common example.</p>
<p>To set up transparent proxying, we need two new components. The first is a
redirection mechanism that transparently reroutes a TCP connection destined for
a server on the Internet to a listening proxy server. This usually takes the
form of a firewall on the same host as the proxy server -
<a href="http://www.netfilter.org/">iptables</a> on Linux or
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PF_(firewall)">pf</a> on OSX. When the proxy
receives a redirected connection, it sees a vanilla HTTP request, without a
host specification. This is where the second new component comes in - a host
module that allows us to query the redirector for the original destination of
the TCP connection.</p>
<p>At the moment, mitmproxy supports transparent proxying on OSX Lion and above,
and all current flavors of Linux.</p>
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