Allow list your iOS application

Last update: 2023-10-02

You can allow list your iOS apps by using Adobe’s machotools tool.

Generally, when you complete a TVSDK application, you can use Adobe Primetime DRM command-line tools to allow list your app.

TIP

You can also use these tools to create DRM policies and encrypt content.

Allow listing your app ensures that protected content can only be played in your video player. However, allow listing an iOS application requires you to complete special procedure that works with Apple’s application submission policies.

Before submitting an iOS app, you need to sign it and publish it to Apple.

NOTE

Apple strips your developer’s signature and re-signs the application with their own certificate.

Because of the re-signing, the allow listing information that you generated before you submitted to the Apple App Store is not useable.

To work with this submission policy, Adobe has created a machotools tool that will fingerprint your iOS application to create a digest value, sign this value, and inject this value in your iOS application. After you fingerprint your iOS app, you can submit the app to the Apple App Store. When a user runs your app from the App Store, Primetime DRM does a runtime calculation of the application fingerprint and confirms it with the digest value that was previously injected in the application. If the fingerprint matches, the app is confirmed as being allow listed, and protected content is allowed to play.

The Adobe machotools tool is included in the iOS TVSDK SDK, in the […]/tools/DRM folder.

To use machotools:

  1. Generate a key pair.

    To use a utility such as OpenSSL, open a command window and enter the following:

    
    openssl genrsa -des3 -out selfsigncert-ios.key 1024
    
  2. When prompted, enter a password to protect the private key.

    Passwords should contain at least 12 characters, and the characters should include a mixture of uppercase and lowercase ASCII characters and numbers.

  3. To use OpenSSL to generate a strong password for you, open a command window and enter the following:

    
    openssl rand -base64 8
    
  4. Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR).

    To use OpenSSL to generate a CSR, open a Command Window and enter the following:

    
    openssl req -new -key selfsigncert-ios.key -out selfsigncert-ios.csr -batch
    
  5. Self-sign the cert and enter any duration.

    The following example gives a 20-year expiration:

    
    openssl x509 -req -days 7300 -in selfsigncert-ios.csr
      -signkey selfsigncert-ios.key -out selfsigncert-ios.crt
    
  6. Convert the self-signed certificate to a PKCS#12 file:

    
    openssl pkcs12 -export -out selfsigncert-ios.pfx
      -inkey selfsigncert-ios.key -in selfsigncert-ios.crt
    

    You can use the self-signed cert to sign your iOS App.

  7. Update the location of the PFX file and password.

  8. Before building your application in Xcode, go to Build Phases > Run Script and add the following command to your run script:

    
    mkdir -p "${PROJECT_DIR}/generatedRes" "${PROJECT_DIR}/machotools" sign
      -in "${CODESIGNING_FOLDER_PATH}/${EXECUTABLE_NAME}"
      -out "${PROJECT_DIR}/generatedRes/AAXSAppDigest.digest"
      -pfx "${PROJECT_DIR}/selfsigncert-ios.pfx"
      -pass PASSWORD
    
  9. Execute machotools to generate your app Publisher ID hash value.

    
    ./machotools dumpMachoSignature -in ${PROJECT_DIR}/generatedRes/AAXSAppDigest.digest
    
  10. Create a new DRM Policy or update your existing policy to include the returned Publisher ID hash value.

  11. Using the AdobePolicyManager.jar, create a new DRM Policy (update your existing policy) to include the returned Publisher ID hash value, an optional App ID, and min and max version attributes in the included flashaccess-tools.properties file.

    
    java -jar libs/AdobePolicyManager.jar new app_allowlist.pol
    
  12. Package the content by using the new DRM policy and confirm the playback of the allow listed content in your iOS app.

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