Obtaining an iOS Certificate

If you need to generate an iOS version of your app, upload an iOS certificate. This article  introduces how to obtain the iOS certificate required for OEM.

Note:

1. If you have already obtained an iOS certificate, you can directly see Uploading an iOS Certificate.

2. If you need to regenerate the expired certificate, you only need to follow the operations in section "Exporting a .p12 Certificate" of this document.

For details, see Applying for an iOS Enterprise Developer Account.

The Apple ID used in chapter "Applying for an Enterprise Developer Account" to register as a developer account for an enterprise is the team's admin account.

When exporting certificates, it is not recommended to use the admin account, so the admin needs to invite team members in advance.

Adding Team Members

1. Log in to Apple Developer Center with the admin account, and select People > Manage Users.

2. Click .

Setting Member Permissions

In the dialog box, enter the member user's First Name, Last Name, and Email and Address.

Set Manage as the member’s permissions, and click Invite.

Agreeing Invitation

The users invited into the team will receive an email with an attached link to accept the invitation.

After completing the invitation process, they will join your team.

Note:

1. If the users do not have their own  Apple ID, the system will prompt them to create one when they accept the invitation.

2. The invitation will expire in three days. If someone missed the invitation acceptance period, you can invite them again.

1. Log in to Apple Developer Center with an admin account, and click Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.

2. Choose Identifiers >  > App IDs > Continue.

3. Fill in Project Name and Bundle ID.

4. Select the needed Service, and click Save.

Note:

1. To package, you need to tick NFC Tag Reading, otherwise the packaging will fail.

2. If you need to use the push notification function during packaging, you need to tick Push Notifications, otherwise the function cannot be used during packaging.

Note:

New users need to use an admin account to generate an iOS Distribution certificate.

Generating a Certificate Request File

Log in to your Mac device using an admin account, find the Keychain Access tool and open it, and click Certificate Assistant > Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority.

Fill in the email address and save it to the disk or download it to the local computer.

Uploading a Certificate Request File

1. Log in to Apple Developer Center with the admin account, and click Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.

2. Choose Certificates > .

3. Select In-House and Ad Hoc and click Continue.

Note:

For a brand-new account, the In-house and Ad Hoc option is available after Apple review and approval (usually two weeks).

4. Click Choose File..., select the Certificate Request File generated in section "Generating Certificate Request File", and click Continue to successfully generate the CER certificate.

Downloading the iOS Distribution Certificate

You need to use an admin account to download the iOS Distribution certificate. The certificate is a root certificate with the .cer suffix, which can only be installed on one machine and does not support export and propagation.

1. Log in to Apple Developer Center with the admin account, and click Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.

2. Download the certificate.

Select Certificates and find the iOS Distribution certificate generated in Chapter "Generating an iOS Distribution Certificate".

3. After expanding the information of this line, open the certificate download page, select Download, and download and save the certificate to your local device.

Importing a Certificate in Xcode

You need to use a team member account to follow the steps in this section.

1. Install Xcode

Log in to your Mac device with the team member account, install Xcode, and open it.

2. Choose Menu > XCode > Preferences > Team Member Account.

Note:

The member account should have Admin permissions (cannot be Agent).

3. Choose Manage Certificates >  > Apple Distribution.

Note:

If you encounter errors in this step, you can follow the steps below:

1. Log in the developer account, check if there are two or more iOS Distribution certificates, delete the extras, and keep only one iOS Distribution certificate.

2. Log out of Xcode and log in it again.

Exporting the .p12 Certificate

Exporting the .p12 certificate with a member account is used to obtain packaging permissions for corresponding types of Apple apps.

1. Storing the .p12 Certificate

Open Keychain Access in the Mac Applications folder, and locate the certificate item imported in section "Importing a Certificate in Xcode".

Expand the details, confirm that the certificate creator is one of the team members, the publishing permission is of Distribution type and the validity period.

On the line with the triangle, right click and then click Export, choose a suitable local path, name the certificate (in English), keep the file format unchanged(.p12), and click Save.

Note:

Do not click the second line after expanding.

2. Resetting Password

Choose a suitable password, which refers to the password used to encrypt the certificate information, and you can customize it.

Note:

Keep the password as it will be required to fill in on the OEM website later.

If a certificate file does not match its corresponding password, the certificate cannot be verified and needs to be re-exported.

Until this section, the .p12 certificate file has been obtained. You can upload the file and enter the password in the OEM information section of the app store.

The .mobileprovision file is used to describe the basic information and functional service configuration corresponding to the app.

Logging into Developer Center

1. Log in to Apple Developer Center with an admin account, and click Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.

2. Choose Profiles >  > In house > Continue.

Note:

For a brand-new account, the In house option is available after Apple review and approval (usually two weeks).

3. Bind App ID.

4. Select the publishing certificate to be bound.

5. Fill in the name of the description file and confirm the certificate type, App ID, and other information again.

6. Download the certificate to the local device.

Note:

You need to ensure that the root certificate associated with the provisioning profile and .p12 file is consistent to pass the certificate verification.

In this section, the .mobileprovision configuration authorization file has been obtained, and the file can be uploaded for App OEM.