iOS - Renewing a Distribution Certificate – Mag+ Designd Support

A distribution certificate identifies your team/organization within a distribution provisioning profile and allows you to submit your app to the Apple App Store.

After renewing your Distribution Certificate, you will need to upload it to the mag+ Publish portal, rebuild your app, and submit an update to iTunes Connect.

The steps below will guide you through the process of renewing an iOS Distribution Certificate and creating a .p12 file. To read more about certificates and how they work in Apple's App Store, please visit the iOS Dev Center and consult the official Apple documentation.

Note: These steps must be done on the Mac that you will use to submit and publish your apps to the Apple App Store. While you can transfer access to another Mac computer, we recommend following these steps on the actual machine you will use to submit apps.

How to Renew a Distribution Certificate

1. On your Mac, go to the folder Applications > Utilities and open Keychain Access.

2. Go to Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority.

3. Fill out the information in the Certificate Information window as specified below and click "Continue."

In the User Email Address field, enter the email address to identify with this certificate
In the Common Name field, enter your name
In the Request group, click the "Saved to disk" option

4. Save the file to your hard drive.

Note: The assistant creates a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file which contains a public/private key pair.

6. Click "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles."

7. Go to Certificates > Click on "+" button to add a new certificate.

8. Select "iOS Distribution (App Store and Ad Hoc)" option and click "Continue."

Note: To use your certificates, you must have the intermediate signing certificate in your OS X system keychain. This is automatically installed by Xcode. However, if you need to reinstall the intermediate signing certificate, click the link at the bottom of the page.

Note: You created your CSR file in the previous steps, so there's no need to create another one.

9. Click on "Choose File" and select the CSR file you created previously and then click on "Continue."

10. Click on the "Download" button to download a .cer file to your machine.

11. Double-click the .cer file to install it in Keychain Access.

Note: It will have the name "iPhone Distribution <firstname> <lastname>" and will expire one year from today's date.

How to Export Your New Distribution Certificate as a .p12 File

A .p12 file is a specially-formatted and encrypted file that contains your distribution certificate. It's embedded by the mag+ Publishing portal when building your app. iTunes Connect checks for this file when you submit an app and will only accept the app if it contains a .p12 file that matches what you have configured in your iTunes Connect account.

1. On your Mac, launch Keychain Access, select the certificate entry and right-click on it to select "Export."

Note: All certificates you have installed will be in the "login" keychain (Label 1) under the category "My Certificates" (Label 2).

2. In the window that appears, add "Distribution-" to the filename, make sure the File Format is set to "Personal Information Exchange (.p12)" and click on "Save" to save it to your machine.

Note: mag+ Recommends changing the name of the certificate to reflect what it is used for. This ensures that you do not get confused about which certificate belongs to which apps, which is a distribution versus a push notification, etc.

In the window that appears, add "Distribution-" to the filename, make sure the File Format is set to "Personal Information Exchange (.p12)" and click on "Save" to save it to your machine.

3. When asked for a password, leave it blank and click on "Ok."

Note: You MUST NOT enter a password in this step, otherwise the mag+ Publish portal will not be able to build your app.

4. When asked for the computer password, enter it and click on "Allow."

5. Your .p12 file will be saved in the location you specified.

7. Click on "Change" under the Distribution Certificate heading and delete your existing Distribution Certificate, and click on "Save."

Certificate Renewal: Next Steps

After uploading your new Distribution Certificate, you will now need to generate new App Store and Ad Hoc Provisioning Profiles that use that certificate. For more information, read the article "iOS - Renewing an App Store Distribution Provisioning Profile."