Did Apple change the .mobileprovision file format, and how can I view the current format?

Question

I'm finding many articles on the web where it is implied that you can view the .mobileprovision file contents in a text editor. For example, this Urban Airship post:

When push notifications are enabled for an app, the aps-environment key will appear in the .mobileprovision file specifying the provisioning profile:

<key>Entitlements</key>
<dict>
    <key>application-identifier</key>
...

However the mobilprovision files I have (obtained within the last few days) contain 466 1/2 rows of 8 groups of 4 hex digits, (e.g. 4851 3842 4176 2845 0a09 01a2 404d 4382). How can I view this type of file?

For the curious, the first few bytes decoded to ASCII to `HQ8B Av(E` then head into control-characters.. — sarnold, Jun 12 '12 at 00:04

score 41 · Answer 1 · answered May 31 '13 at 14:13

Provisioning Profiles are encoded. To decode them and examine the XML you can use this via command line:

security cms -D -i #{@profilePath}

where #{@profilePath} is the filepath to your .mobileprovision file.

A fuller Ruby example is:

require 'plist'
profile = `security cms -D -i #{@profilePath}`
xml = Plist::parse_xml(profile)
appID = xml['Entitlements']['application-identifier']

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 06 '12 at 13:10

16

If you want Sublime Text 2 to be able to read .mobileprovision profiles this is the setting

"enable_hexadecimal_encoding": false,

answered Aug 06 '12 at 13:10

Skabber

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You would want that specifically for that filetype, I'ld recon - not globally. – Till Dec 11 '20 at 21:16

score 15 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 12 '12 at 00:35

15

You are using a text-editor that is a bit too clever for you :D.

Your editor finds out that the file actually is binary and shows it as a hex-dump - for example Sublime 2 does it that way. Open that same file using TextEdit. You will see a couple of lines of binary garbledegock and then some plain-text (XML) that should contain the information you are looking for.

However, do not edit that file using TextEdit, that will render it unusable!

answered Jun 12 '12 at 00:35

Till

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Yes I am using Sublime 2! I haven't been using it that long and didn't realize it would do this kind of thing... TextEdit does show the XML content... thanks – jwl Jun 12 '12 at 14:46

score 12 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 16:52

12

You can use openssl to output the contents of the signed profile.

openssl smime -in /path/to/your.mobileprovision -inform der -verify

answered Jul 03 '13 at 16:52

Skabber

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Did Apple change the .mobileprovision file format, and how can I view the current format?

4 Answers4

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