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I work for a company that is interested in building iPhone apps. However, we are not clear on one issue:

Does the iPhone developer certificate work on more than one computer at a time?

Vadim Kotov
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simonwjackson
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    One big reason would be to increase the number of people who can do ad-hoc builds, since only the primary account holder can do them. – Kendall Helmstetter Gelner Dec 07 '09 at 18:25
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    Most developers I know use two computers, a desktop and a laptop. It's much better to figure this out now before you are offsite and can't do a build for a device. – TheGeoff Apr 23 '12 at 16:41

4 Answers4

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This information was posted on http://www.iphonedev.org/node/3 and was not written by me.

Step 1: To export your private key and certificate for safe-keeping and for enabling development on multiple systems, open up the Keychain Access Application and select the ‘Keys’ category.

Step 2: Control-Click on the private key associated with your iPhone Development Certificate and click ‘Export Items’ in the menu. The private key is identified by the iPhone Developer: public certificate that is paired with it.

Step 3: Save your key in the Personal Information Exchange (.p12) file format.

Step 4: You will be prompted to create a password which is used when you attempt to import this key on another computer.

Step 5: You can now transfer this .p12 file between systems. Double-click on the .p12 to install it on a system. You will be prompted for the password you entered in Step 4.

William
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  • Here's a link for exporting the certificate and the private key with screenshots on how to do it: https://sites.google.com/a/injoit.com/knowledge-base/for-clients/ios-iphone-ipad-apps/exporting-keychain-certificates – Silver Gonzales Jul 09 '13 at 13:24
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The process has gotten simpler since the original response; see Exporting and Importing Signing Certificates (Mac Developer Library).

In summary: In Xcode Organizer, go to Devices > Teams and choose Export. On the second machine, Devices > Teams > Import.

Jespertheend
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J. Perkins
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4

Yes, you can. You'll need to download your certificate onto each of the machines and have the private key you generated for that certificate on each machine. In the developer portal there are instructions for exporting the key (in the certificate section how to). You'll also need the provisioning profiles, again these can be downloaded from the portal.

lyonanderson
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In short, yes. The certificate is tied to the developer, not the machine.

It's also possible to share a single certificate between multiple developers, although there it's not so clear cut what you can and can't do (i.e., that's another question :-) ).

philsquared
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