iOS Apple Certificate Creation and P12 Certificate Generation Process
Tags: ios
Published: 2023-07-30 11:19:37

iOS Apple Certificate Creation and P12 Certificate Generation Process
Creating Certificates

To create a certificate, follow these steps:

Click on the "Account" button located in the upper right corner of the Apple Developer Portal, and then click on "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles".

Once on the desired page, click on "Create a certificate".

Choose the type of certificate you want, either "Apple Development" or "Apple Distribution". Select "Apple Development" and click "Continue".

On the next page, select a certificate signing request file that needs to be created in Keychain Access.

Open Keychain Access by pressing "Command + Space" to launch Spotlight Search and searching for "Keychain Access". Then choose "Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority".

In the Certificate Assistant, enter your Apple Developer Portal login email, choose to save it to disk, and select the desired location for the file.

Continue to step 4, choose the certificate signing request, and click "Continue" to proceed. This will create the development certificate.

On page 7, click "Download" and save the certificate to your local machine.

Double-click the installed certificate to view it in Keychain Access.

The above steps describe the entire process of creating a certificate. The process for creating a distribution certificate is the same, except in step 3, you would select "Apple Distribution" as the certificate type.

Generating a P12 Certificate

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/yybasiwz02iyn5931h8i.png)

To generate a P12 certificate, follow these steps:

Assuming you have a developer account and a PC, use the auxiliary tool appuploader.

Download the appuploader tool from this link: Appuploader home -- A tool improve ios develop efficiency such as submit ipa to appstore and manage ios certificate (http://www.applicationloader.net/).


Proceed with the previous steps, and when prompted, enter your computer's startup password. This will create the P12 developer certificate.

The process for creating a P12 distribution certificate is the same.

Creating an App ID

To create an App ID, follow these steps:

In "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles," select "Identifiers," and then click on the "+" button to create an App ID.

On the following page, select "App IDs".

Choose "App" and click "Continue".

Fill in the necessary description information (such as the English name) and Bundle ID (i.e., application package name) on the next page. After filling in the information, click "Continue".

Confirm the information and click "Register".

The above steps outline the process of creating an App ID.

Creating Provisioning Profiles

To create provisioning profiles, follow these steps:

In "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles," select "Profiles" and click on the "+" button.

On the next page, select "iOS App Development" (for development profiles) or "App Store" (for distribution profiles), and click "Continue".

Select the applications to include in the provisioning profile and click "Continue".

Choose the certificates to include in the provisioning profile. For development profiles, select the development certificate. Click "Continue" to proceed.

Select the debugging devices to include in the provisioning profile. Click "Continue" to proceed.

Enter a name for the provisioning profile and click "Generate" to create the profile.

The provisioning profile is now created. Click "Download" to save the profile to your local machine.

The above steps outline the process of creating provisioning profiles. If you are collaborating with others on development, you can send them the provisioning profile and P12 certificate for installation. The example provided is for a development provisioning profile and certificate. If you want to distribute the app, you will also need to create a distribution provisioning profile and P12 certificate.

Adding Debugging Devices

To add debugging devices, follow these steps:

In "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles," select "Devices" and click on the "+" button.

On this page, fill in the device name and device UUID, then click "Continue".

Confirm the information and click "Register" to register the device.

The device registration process is now complete.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tlbcsxjof30n37upeayj.jpg)