react-native-ssl-pinning

react-native-ssl-pinning

React-Native ssl pinning & public key pinning using OkHttp 3 in Android, and AFNetworking on iOS.

NOTES:

• for RN 0.60.0 or later use react-native-ssl-pinning@latest

Getting started

$ npm install react-native-ssl-pinning --save

Mostly automatic installation

If you are using React Native 0.60.+ the link should happen automatically. in iOS run pod install

$ react-native link react-native-ssl-pinning

Manual installation

iOS

• In XCode, in the project navigator, right click Libraries ➜ Add Files to [your project's name]
• Go to node_modules ➜ react-native-ssl-pinning and add RNSslPinning.xcodeproj
• In XCode, in the project navigator, select your project. Add libRNSslPinning.a to your project's Build Phases ➜ Link Binary With Libraries
• Run your project (Cmd+R)<

Android

Add maven { url "https://jitpack.io" } to project level build.gradle like this:

allprojects {
    repositories {
	maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }
    }
}

• Open up android/app/src/main/java/[...]/MainActivity.java

• Add import com.toyberman.RNSslPinningPackage; to the imports at the top of the file
• Add new RNSslPinningPackage() to the list returned by the getPackages() method

• Append the following lines to android/settings.gradle:

  include ':react-native-ssl-pinning'
  project(':react-native-ssl-pinning').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, 	'../node_modules/react-native-ssl-pinning/android')
  

• Insert the following lines inside the dependencies block in android/app/build.gradle:

    compile project(':react-native-ssl-pinning')
  

Usage

Create the certificates:

• openssl s_client -showcerts -servername google.com -connect google.com:443 </dev/null

• Copy the certificate (Usally the first one in the chain), and paste it using nano or other editor like so , nano mycert.pem

• convert it to .cer with this command openssl x509 -in mycert.pem -outform der -out mycert.cer

For more ways to obtain the server certificate please refer:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7885785/using-openssl-to-get-the-certificate-from-a-server

iOS

• drag mycert.cer to Xcode project, mark your target and 'Copy items if needed'
• (skip this if you are using certificate pinning) no extra step needed for public key pinning, AFNetworking will extract the public key from the certificate.

Android

• Only if using certificate pinning : place your .cer files under src/main/assets/

• For public key pinning the public key should be extracted by the following options : (replace google with your domain)

  • openssl s_client -servername google.com -connect google.com:443 | openssl x509 -pubkey -noout | openssl rsa -pubin -outform der | openssl dgst -sha256 -binary | openssl enc -base64
  • Turn on pinning with a broken configuration and read the expected configuration when the connection fails.

    fetch("https://publicobject.com", {
    	method: "GET" ,
    	pkPinning: true,
    	sslPinning: {
    		certs: ["sha256/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA="] 
    	}
    })
    

    • Now look at your logcat , As expected, this fails with a certificate pinning exception:

      javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: Certificate pinning failure!
      Peer certificate chain:
      sha256/afwiKY3RxoMmLkuRW1l7QsPZTJPwDS2pdDROQjXw8ig=: CN=publicobject.com, OU=PositiveSSL
      sha256/klO23nT2ehFDXCfx3eHTDRESMz3asj1muO+4aIdjiuY=: CN=COMODO RSA Secure Server CA
      sha256/grX4Ta9HpZx6tSHkmCrvpApTQGo67CYDnvprLg5yRME=: CN=COMODO RSA Certification Authority
      sha256/lCppFqbkrlJ3EcVFAkeip0+44VaoJUymbnOaEUk7tEU=: CN=AddTrust External CA Root
      Pinned certificates for publicobject.com:
      sha256/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=
      at okhttp3.CertificatePinner.check(CertificatePinner.java)
      at okhttp3.Connection.upgradeToTls(Connection.java)
      at okhttp3.Connection.connect(Connection.java)
      at okhttp3.Connection.connectAndSetOwner(Connection.java)

    • Follow up by pasting the public key hashes from the exception into the certificate pinner's configuration

Certificate Pinning

import {fetch} from 'react-native-ssl-pinning';

fetch(url, {
	method: "POST" ,
	timeoutInterval: communication_timeout, // milliseconds
	body: body,
	// your certificates array (needed only in android) ios will pick it automatically
	sslPinning: {
		certs: ["cert1","cert2"] // your certificates name (without extension), for example cert1.cer, cert2.cer
	},
	headers: {
		Accept: "application/json; charset=utf-8", "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*", "e_platform": "mobile",
	}
})
.then(response => {
	console.log(`response received ${response}`)
})
.catch(err => {
	console.log(`error: ${err}`)
})

Public Key Pinning

import {fetch} from 'react-native-ssl-pinning';

fetch("https://publicobject.com", {
      method: "GET" ,
      timeoutInterval: 10000, // milliseconds
      // your certificates array (needed only in android) ios will pick it automatically
      pkPinning: true,
      sslPinning: {
        certs: ["sha256//r8udi/Mxd6pLO7y7hZyUMWq8YnFnIWXCqeHsTDRqy8=",
        "sha256/YLh1dUR9y6Kja30RrAn7JKnbQG/uEtLMkBgFF2Fuihg=",
        "sha256/Vjs8r4z+80wjNcr1YKepWQboSIRi63WsWXhIMN+eWys="
      ]
      },
      headers: {
        Accept: "application/json; charset=utf-8", "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*", "e_platform": "mobile",
      }
	})
	

Disable Pinning

 fetch("https://publicobject.com", {
      method: "GET" ,
      timeoutInterval: 10000, // milliseconds
      disableAllSecurity: true,
      headers: {
        Accept: "application/json; charset=utf-8", "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*", "e_platform": "mobile",
      }
	})
		

Case Sensitive Headers

 fetch("https://publicobject.com", {
      method: "GET" ,
      timeoutInterval: 10000, // milliseconds
      caseSensitiveHeaders: true, //in case you want headers to be case Sensitive
      headers: {
		Accept: "application/json; charset=utf-8", "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*", "e_platform": "mobile",
		SOAPAction: "testAction",
      }
	})

Cookies Handling

import {removeCookieByName} from 'react-native-ssl-pinning';


removeCookieByName('cookieName')
.then(res =>{
	console.log('removeCookieByName');
})

getCookies('domain')
.then(cookies => {
// do what you need with your cookies
})

Debug Interceptors & Request/Response Observers

This library now supports custom debug interceptors and request/response observers to help with debugging network requests in development builds. These features are only active in DEBUG builds for security reasons.

Summary of Recent Enhancements

Latest Updates (June 2025):

• Android Custom Debug Interceptor Support - Added ability to inject custom OkHttp interceptors for debugging network traffic
• Android Debug Interceptor Refactoring - Improved code organization by extracting interceptor logic into a dedicated method
• iOS Request/Response Observers - Added observer methods to monitor network requests and responses on iOS for debugging purposes

Android Debug Interceptor

Add custom debug interceptors to monitor and modify HTTP requests/responses in Android:

// In your Android application code (Java/Kotlin)
import com.toyberman.Utils.OkHttpUtils;
import okhttp3.Interceptor;
import okhttp3.logging.HttpLoggingInterceptor;

// Example: Add a custom logging interceptor
Interceptor customInterceptor = new HttpLoggingInterceptor()
    .setLevel(HttpLoggingInterceptor.Level.BODY);

// Add the interceptor (only works in DEBUG builds)
OkHttpUtils.addInterceptorForDebug(customInterceptor);

Features:

• Only active in DEBUG builds for security
• Supports any OkHttp interceptor
• Useful for detailed request/response logging
• Can be used for request modification during development

iOS Request/Response Observers

Monitor network requests and responses on iOS using observer methods:

// In your iOS application code (Objective-C)
#import "RNSslPinning.h"

// Set request observer to monitor outgoing requests
[RNSslPinning setRequestObserver:^(NSURLRequest *request) {
    NSLog(@"Request: %@ %@", request.HTTPMethod, request.URL);
    // Add your custom request monitoring logic here
}];

// Set response observer to monitor responses with timing
[RNSslPinning setResponseObserver:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSTimeInterval startTime) {
    NSTimeInterval duration = ([[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970] * 1000.0) - startTime;
    NSLog(@"Response: %ld for %@ (%.2fms)", (long)response.statusCode, request.URL, duration);
    // Add your custom response monitoring logic here
}];

Features:

• Only active in DEBUG builds for security
• Monitor all outgoing requests
• Track response data, status codes, and timing
• Handle both successful responses and error cases
• Captures original request details for correlation

Use Cases

• Network Debugging: Monitor request/response flow during development
• Performance Analysis: Track request timing and response sizes
• SSL/TLS Troubleshooting: Debug certificate pinning issues
• API Development: Verify request formats and response handling
• Integration Testing: Monitor network calls during automated tests

Note: These debugging features are automatically disabled in production builds for security and performance reasons.

Multipart request (FormData)

let formData = new FormData()

#You could add a key/value pair to this using #FormData.append:

formData.append('username', 'Chris');

# Adding a file to the request
formData.append('file', {
		name: encodeURIComponent(response.fileName),
		fileName: encodeURIComponent(response.fileName),
		type: this._extractFileType(response.fileName),
		uri: response.uri
})

fetch(url, {
	method: "POST" ,
	timeoutInterval: communication_timeout, // milliseconds
	body: {
		formData: request,
	},
	sslPinning: {
		certs: ["cert1","cert2"]
	},
	headers: {
		accept: 'application/json, text/plain, /',
	}
})

don't add 'content-type': 'multipart/form-data; charset=UTF-8',
Setting the Content-Type header manually means it's missing the boundary parameter. Remove that header and allow fetch to generate the full content type.

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.