Resigning and installing iOS applications

Resign and install iOS applications, using Windows or Linux

This tutorial describes how you can resign iOS applications and install these applications on your iOS device.

The instructions differ depending on your operating system. Select the operating system you use.

Prerequisites

You need to install iTunes if you want to work with iOS applications on Windows.

Install iTunes

You need to install libimobiledevice from the Quamotion package repositories if you want to work with iOS applications on Ubuntu Linux.

Add the Quamotion package repositories

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:quamotion/ppa
sudo apt-get update

Install libimobiledevice

sudo apt-get install -y usbmuxd libusbmuxd-tools libimobiledevice-tools ideviceinstaller

You need to install libimobiledevice from the Quamotion package repositories if you want to work with iOS applications on CentOS Linux.

Add the Quamotion package repositories

sudo yum-config-manager -y --add-repo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/qmfrederik/CentOS_7/home:qmfrederik.repo

Install libimobiledevice

sudo yum install -y usbmuxd libusbmuxd libimobiledevice ideviceinstaller

Install codesign

To install codesign for Windows:

To install codesign on Ubuntu Linux:

Request a license

Before you can request a trial license, you’ll need to know your machine ID.

To obtain your machine ID:

  1. Open a command prompt
  2. Navigate to the directory in which you’ve installed codesign, for example, C:\codesign
  3. Run codesign.exe
  1. Open a bash shell
  2. Run codesign

You’ll get an output similar to this. The second line contains your machine ID.

$ codesign
Quamotion iOS code signing utility version 0.131.3
Machine ID: 0FF1CE00

In our example, the machine ID is 0FF1CE00.

Then:

  1. Navigate to http://quamotion.mobi/mwc/license and complete the license request form.
  2. Your license file will be sent to you by e-mail. Save the license file to your PC.

Export your iOS Developer Profile

The easiest way to obtain an iOS Code Signing developer profile, is to export it from Xcode.

To do so, follow these steps:

  1. On your Mac machine, open Xcode and click Xcode, Preferences…
  2. In the Preferences window, choose Accounts
  3. At the bottom of the Accounts window, click the gear icon, and choose Export Accounts
  4. In the Save dialog, choose a file name and enter a password to protect the file. You will need this password later.
  5. If a warning appears about Xcode exporting the private key, click Allow
  6. Copy your developer profile to your PC

Resign your application

Use the following command to resign your application:

codesign -u <udid> -a <path to your .ipa> -d <developerProfile> -p <developerProfilePassword> -l <licenseFile>

For example:

codesign.exe -u 0123456789abcde0123456789abcde0123456789 -a mobi.quamotion.acquaint.ipa -d quamotion.developerprofile -p s3cr3t -l 0FF1CE01.license

codesign -u 0123456789abcde0123456789abcde0123456789 -a mobi.quamotion.acquaint.ipa -d quamotion.developerprofile -p s3cr3t -l 0FF1CE01.license

Install your application

You can install your application using ideviceinstaller. Use the following command to install your resigned application:

ideviceinstaller -u <udid> -i <path to your .ipa>

For example:

ideviceinstaller.exe -u 0123456789abcde0123456789abcde0123456789 -i mobi.quamotion.acquaint.ipa

ideviceinstaller -u 0123456789abcde0123456789abcde0123456789 -i mobi.quamotion.acquaint.ipa

What’s next

For more information about the Quamotion codesign command-line utility, contact us at info@quamotion.mobi.

Last modified November 18, 2019: Add codesign tutorial (cb61db5)