Last Updated: July 04, 2023
·
108.7K
· _jeffreyjackson

resign .ipa with new distribution certificate

Assumptions:

  1. .ipa filename is app.ipa
  2. app is called MyApp
  3. new provisioning profile resides at: ~/Downloads/AdHoc.mobileprovision
  4. distribution certificate name is Company Certificate
  5. may not need resource-rules parameter
  6. provisioning profile is either for Adhoc, or Enterprise distribution

Commands:

unzip app.ipa

rm -rf Payload/MyApp.app/_CodeSignature/

cp ~/Downloads/AdHoc.mobileprovision Payload/MyApp.app/embedded.mobileprovision 

codesign -f -s "iPhone Distribution: Company Certificate" --resource-rules Payload/MyApp.app/ResourceRules.plist  Payload/MyApp.app

zip -qr app-resigned.ipa Payload/

Related protips:

Installing Xcode Command Line Tools on OS X Mavericks

15 Responses
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Perfect directions. Thanks! May I suggest that you note that the signing identity (-s) is the full name of the certificate as shown via the keychain tool.

over 1 year ago ·

One more thing... The codesign --entitlements option can be used to add entitlements to the binary. When I followed these directions without using --entitlements, I lost the original entitlements.

over 1 year ago ·

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your post. pretty good.

Also, does this resining works for app store build ? I am finding way to resign the development build and upload it to app the store.

Thanks

over 1 year ago ·

If you run into issue like :
"cannot find code object on disk"

then set an environment variable

CODESIGNALLOCATE="/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/usr/bin/codesignallocate"

NOTE : there is an underscore between codesign & allocate environment variable which is getting supressed for some reason.

over 1 year ago ·

I got an ipa and I re-signed it with EXPIRED provisioning profile (Enterprise) and with a valid certificate(.p12). using steps mentioned below :-

and Re-Sign it with steps provided by you

when I am extracting ipa (getting .App file) -> doing show package Contents (on .App) -> checking content of embedded.mobileprovision. it show same expired provisioning profile that i used to Re-sign the ipa.

Problem : I am successfully able to install it to ipad and able to run the app. Ideally App should not work with Expired provisioning profile.

Question : If we Re-signing the app through Command-line with Expired profile Will it work.?

over 1 year ago ·

Have you been able to codesign Today app extension?

over 1 year ago ·

What is the ResourceRules.plist? Is it mandatory? We have the Info.plist and I am not sure if signing without --resource-rules will work.
Also, how do you handle Entitlement files when resigning? I tried --entitlements /Path/to/My.entitlements, but it seems to have no effect

over 1 year ago ·

below issue

Warning: --resource-rules has been deprecated in Mac OS X >= 10.10!
Payload/MyApp.app/ResourceRules.plist: cannot read resources

over 1 year ago ·

below issue

Warning: --resource-rules has been deprecated in Mac OS X >= 10.10!
Payload/MyApp.app/ResourceRules.plist: cannot read resources

over 1 year ago ·

Great tutorial.
For those saying they have this error :

Warning: --resource-rules has been deprecated in Mac OS X >= 10.10!
Payload/MyApp.app/ResourceRules.plist: cannot read resources

Just get rid of the resource-rules parameter.

over 1 year ago ·

Any update on the latest versions ? I tried that on the latest iOS and I followed the steps and all nice until the last part when to install it fails .

Thanks .

over 1 year ago ·

Hi,
I received .ipa file from developer.I am new to iOS testing, Can you please let me know how to create or where to find provisioning profile and Company certificate.

over 1 year ago ·

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over 1 year ago ·

Hello,

Thanks for your post. I have one question about iphone distribution. can i use distribution that is not relate to provisioning profile ?

Thank you a lot again,

over 1 year ago ·

Third command is not working for me, showing below:
1- If i give identity within "" (as shown ) , It just hangs .
2- Then I put identity without double quotes, then resource-rules related waring as below:
Warning: --resource-rules has been deprecated in Mac OS X >= 10.10!
3- Then I removed --resource-rules parameter, and ran command :
$codesign -f -s iPhone Distribution: Company Certificate Payload/MyApp.app/ResourceRules.plist Payload/MyApp.app
Getting below error:
Distribution:: No such file or directory
Tried putting absolute path for Payload/MyApp.app but no luck.
Please suggest.

over 1 year ago ·