Signing iOS apps

.YAML Code signing Signing iOS apps

How to set up iOS code signing in codemagic.yaml

All iOS applications have to be digitally signed before they can be installed on real devices or made available to the public.


Managing and uploading files

Team admin permissions are required to upload and edit files under the Code signing identities section. However, all team members can view the file info for any of the uploaded files.

Creating the App Store Connect API key

Signing iOS applications requires Apple Developer Program membership.

It is recommended to create a dedicated App Store Connect API key for Codemagic in App Store Connect. To do so:

  1. Log in to App Store Connect and navigate to Users and Access > Integrations » App Store Connect API.
  2. Click on the + sign to generate a new API key.
  3. Enter the name for the key and select an access level. We recommend choosing App Manager access rights, read more about Apple Developer Program role permissions here.
  4. Click Generate.
  5. As soon as the key is generated, you can see it added to the list of active keys. Click Download API Key to save the private key for later. Note that the key can only be downloaded once.
Take note of the Issuer ID above the table of active keys as well as the Key ID of the generated key as these will be required when setting up the Apple Developer Portal integration in the Codemagic UI.

Adding the App Store Connect API key to Codemagic

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings, go to Team integrations > Developer Portal > Manage keys.
  2. Click the Add key button.
  3. Enter the App Store Connect API key name. This is a human readable name for the key that will be used to refer to the key later in application settings.
  4. Enter the Issuer ID and Key ID values.
  5. Click on Choose a .p8 file or drag the file to upload the App Store Connect API key downloaded earlier.
  6. Click Save.

Adding the Code signing certificate

Codemagic lets you upload code signing certificates as PKCS#12 archives containing both the certificate and the private key which is needed to use it. When uploading, Codemagic will ask you to provide the certificate password (if the certificate is password-protected) along with a unique Reference name, which can then be used in the codemagic.yaml configuration to fetch the specific file.

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings, go to codemagic.yaml settings > Code signing identities.
  2. Open iOS certificates tab.
  3. Upload the certificate file by clicking on Choose a .p12 or .pem file or by dragging it into the indicated frame.
  4. Enter the Certificate password and choose a Reference name.
  5. Click Add certificate

If you have added the App Store Connect API key to Codemagic, you can also generate a new Apple Development or Apple Distribution certificate.

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings, go to codemagic.yaml settings > Code signing identities.
  2. Open iOS certificates tab.
  3. Click Generate certificate.
  4. Provide a Reference name for the certificate.
  5. Choose the Certificate type.
  6. Select the App Store Connect API key to use.
  7. Click Create certificate.

Once the certificate has been created, Codemagic will allow you to download the certificate and provides the password for it.

After downloading, please follow the steps in the Upload certificate tab to upload the certificate to Codemagic.

Note: The certificate can be downloaded only once, right after creating it.

Note: Apple limits the number of Apple Distribution certificates to 3. If you have already reached the maximum number of certificates, the following error will be displayed:

There is a problem with the request entity - You already have a current Distribution certificate or a pending certificate request.

Similar errors can also arise in rarer cases with Apple Development certificates. To resolve the error, either remove some old certificate from the Apple Developer Portal or upload an existing certificate manually.

Existing signing certificates previously generated by Codemagic can be automatically fetched from Apple Developer Portal based on your team’s App Store Connect API key.

Fetching a certificate that was not generated by Codemagic is not possible because each certificate is linked with a private signing key to which Codemagic has no access.

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings, go to codemagic.yaml settings > Code signing identities.
  2. Open iOS certificates tab.
  3. Click Fetch certificate.
  4. Select a certificate from the Development certificates or Distribution certificates list.
  5. Click Fetch selected.

Adding the provisioning profile

Codemagic allows you to upload a provisioning profile to be used for the application or to fetch a profile from the Apple Developer Portal.

The profile’s type, team, bundle id, and expiration date are displayed for each profile added to Code signing identities. Furthermore, Codemagic will let you know whether a matching code signing certificate is available in Code signing identities (a green checkmark in the Certificate field) or not.

Note: If your app contains app extensions, an additional provisioning profile is required for each extension. Codemagic will use the bundle identifier to find the relevant provisioning profiles. If your bundle identifier is com.example.app, the matching profiles are the ones with com.example.app and com.example.app.* as bundle identifier.

You can upload provisioning profiles with the .mobileprovision extension, providing a unique Reference name is required for each uploaded profile.

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings, go to codemagic.yaml settings > Code signing identities.
  2. Open iOS provisioning profiles tab.
  3. Upload the provisioning profile file by clicking on Choose a .mobileprovision file or by dragging it into the indicated frame.
  4. Enter the Reference name for the profile.
  5. Click Add profile.

You can automatically fetch the provisioning profiles from the Apple Developer Portal based on your team’s App Store Connect API key. The bundle identifier is listed for every available profile along with it’s name.

The profiles are displayed grouped by category: Development profiles, Ad Hoc profiles, App Store profiles, and Enterprise profiles. For each selected profile, it is necessary to provide a unique Reference name, which can be later used in codemagic.yaml to fetch the profile.

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings, go to codemagic.yaml settings > Code signing identities.
  2. Open iOS provisioning profiles tab.
  3. Click Fetch profiles
  4. Select the desired profile(s) and enter a Reference name for each one.
  5. Click Download selected. (scroll down if necessary)

Note: When you make essential changes to a provisioning profile, such as modifying the app ID, adding/removing capabilities from the profile identifier, or changing the certificates assigned to that profile, the provisioning profile becomes invalid. In such situations, you need to generate a new provisioning profile with these updates and then re-upload it to Codemagic.

Referencing certificates and profiles in codemagic.yaml

Codemagic provides two means of fetching the required certificates and provisioning profiles during the build with the use of codemagic.yaml. Fetching can either be configured by specifying the distribution type and bundle identifier, or for more advanced use-cases, individual files can be fetched by their reference names.

Fetching files by distribution type and bundle identifier

To fetch all uploaded signing files matching a specific distribution type and bundle identifier during the build, define the distribution_type and bundle_identifier fields in your codemagic.yaml configuration. Note that it is necessary to configure both of the fields.

workflows:
  ios-workflow:
    name: iOS Workflow 
    # ....
    environment:
      ios_signing:
        distribution_type: app_store # or: ad_hoc | development | enterprise
        bundle_identifier: com.example.id

Note that when using the fields distribution_type and bundle_identifier, it is not allowed to configure provisioning_profiles and certificates fields.

Note: If you are publishing to the App Store or you are using TestFlight to distribute your app to test users, set the distribution_type to app_store.

When using a third party app distribution service such as Firebase App Distribution, set the distribution_type to ad_hoc

When defining the bundle identifier com.example.id, Codemagic will fetch any uploaded certificates and profiles matching the extensions as well (e.g. com.example.id.NotificationService).

Fetching specific files by reference names

For a more advanced configuration, it is possible to pick out specific uploaded profiles and certificates for Codemagic to fetch during the build. To do so, list the references of the uploaded files under the provisioning_profiles and certificates fields, respectively. Note than when fetching individual files, the fields distribution_type and bundle_identifier are not allowed.

Steps Initialize keychain & Add certificates to keychain scripts are not required as those are automatically fetched during the build process.

workflows:
  ios-workflow:
    name: iOS Workflow
    
    # ....
    
    environment:
      ios_signing:
        provisioning_profiles:
          - profile_reference
          # - ...
        certificates:
          - certificate_reference
          # - ...

Codemagic saves the files to the following locations on the build machine:

  • Profiles: ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles
  • Certificates: ~/Library/MobileDevice/Certificates

It is additionally possible to include names for environment variables that will point to the file paths on the build machine.

workflows:
  ios-workflow:
    name: iOS Workflow
    
    # ....
    
    environment:
      ios_signing:
        provisioning_profiles:
          - profile: profile_reference
            environment_variable: THIS_PROFILE_PATH_ON_DISK
          # - ...
        certificates:
          - certificate: certificate_reference
            environment_variable: THIS_CERTIFICATE_PATH_ON_DISK
          # - ...

Using provisioning profiles

To apply the profiles to your project during the build, add the following script before your build scripts:

  scripts:
    # ... your dependencies installation
    
    - name: Set up code signing settings on Xcode project
      script: xcode-project use-profiles
    
    # ... your build commands
See additional configuration options for setting up code signing settings to use given provisioning profiles here

To distribute signed iOS applications solely to internal testers without the need for Apple’s beta review (TestFlight Internal Testing Only):

  
  scripts:  
    # ... your dependencies installation  
    - name: Set up code signing settings on Xcode project  
      script: xcode-project use-profiles   
                --custom-export-options='{"testFlightInternalTestingOnly": true}'  
    # ... your build commands

Note: Builds marked as TestFlight Internal Only will display “internal” next to the build number and can exclusively be added to internal tester groups. They cannot be submitted for external testing or distributed to customers.