Guide to Generating iOS Certificates and Profile Files for App Development
Tags: windows, ios
Published: 2023-08-21 08:27:03

Guide to Generating iOS Certificates and Profile Files for App Development
Introduction: Currently, many companies use H5 frameworks for app development, and among these H5 frameworks, uniapp is the most mature. Therefore, hbuilderx has become the preferred choice for developers. However, packaging an app requires a certificate. So how do we obtain this certificate? Generating an Apple certificate is relatively complex, so here I will focus on the process of generating an iOS certificate.

Currently, many companies use H5 frameworks for app development, and among these H5 frameworks, uniapp is the most mature. Therefore, hbuilderx has become the preferred choice for developers. However, packaging an app requires a certificate. So how do we obtain this certificate?

Generating an Apple certificate is relatively complex, so here I will focus on the process of generating an iOS certificate:

If you don't have an Apple Developer account yet, you need to register for one in the Apple Developer Center. The tutorial for registering an Apple Developer account is as follows: Tutorial for Registering an Apple Developer Account (in Chinese).

Once you have the Apple Developer account, you can follow the steps below to create the certificate.

First, let's create a p12 certificate. The process for creating a p12 certificate is as follows:

1.Log in to the Apple Developer backend and click on the "certificates" menu to enter the certificate management page. Click on the blue plus sign on the right side to start creating a certificate. When creating the certificate, choose the "iOS Distribution Ad Hoc and App Store" type, which includes both real device testing and distribution types (ad hoc for testing, app store for distribution). Please do not choose the "Apple" or "Dev" types of certificates, as they cannot be used for cloud packaging in hbuilderx.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5b1ci3ojnxx9opiikequ.png)
2.During the creation of the certificate, it will ask us to provide a csr file, as shown in the image.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/51bnros5xraumi63d6gk.png)
3.Switch to Appuploader.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/hs1jo9gf2bce8j0eem0t.png)
Appuploader home -- A tool improve iOS development efficiency such as submitting IPA to App Store and managing iOS certificates.

Use the function of generating iOS certificates in Appuploader to create this .p12 file, as shown in the image. After generating the .p12 file, download it to your local computer.

Go back to the Apple Developer Center. The .p12 certificate generated by appuploader will be synchronized back. You can then use appuploader to generate the p12 format Apple certificate.
With the above steps, the p12 packing certificate has been generated.

Now, let me teach you how to generate the profile file required for packaging:

1.Enter the Apple Developer Center and click on "Identifiers" to create an app ID (package name). After creating it, it should look like the image below. Note that the format of the package name is typically in the format of a Java package name: com.xxxxxx.yyy.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/cje0jwzfwlkyvwbdup3k.png)
2.If you have already created the app ID from the previous step, you can then enter the "profiles" menu to start creating the profile file.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ahytx84e3gffqyyqd8su.jpg)
3.When creating the profile file, choose "ad hoc" for real device testing or "app store" for official distribution.

4.During the creation of the profile file, it will ask us to choose the app ID and cer certificate. Be careful not to select the wrong ones, as shown in the two images.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/6f3oyacik37ymbfrep0l.png)

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dcdnmt0xse3n7rgvvt3w.png)
5.Switch to Appuploader.

Appuploader home -- A tool improve iOS development efficiency such as submitting IPA to App Store and managing iOS certificates.

Use the function of generating the description file in Appuploader to create this profile file, as shown in the image. After generating the description file, download it to your local computer.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zs5jrf1v1x85fqzucqm7.png)


6.If you are creating an ad hoc profile for real device testing, it will also require the UDID (Unique Device Identifier) of the testing device (iPhone), as only devices with added UDIDs can install the packaged IPA file. If you don't know how to get the UDID, you can use the tool in appuploader to scan and obtain the UDID.
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ihm9lx24zsso2myl2be0.png)