Use xcodebuild (Xcode 8) and automatic signing in CI (Travis/Jenkins) environments

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I basically run into the same issue using Jenkins CI and the Xcode Plugin.
I ended up doing the build and codesigning stuff myself using xcodebuild.

0. Prerequisites

In order to get the following steps done successfully, you need to have installed the necessary provisioning profiles and certificates. That means your code signing should already be working in general.

1. Building an .xcarchive

xcodebuild -project <path/to/project.xcproj> -scheme <scheme-name> -configuration <config-name> clean archive -archivePath <output-path> DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=<dev-team-id>
  • DEVELOPMENT_TEAM: your 10 digit developer team id (something like A1B2C3D4E5)

2. Exporting to .ipa

xcodebuild -exportArchive -archivePath <path/to/your.xcarchive> -exportOptionsPlist <path/to/exportOptions.plist> -exportPath <output-path>

Example of an exportOptions.plist:

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>method</key>
    <string>development</string>
    <key>teamID</key>
    <string> A1B2C3D4E5 </string>
</dict>
</plist>
  • method: is one of development, app-store, ad-hoc, enterprise
  • teamID: your 10 digit developer team id (something like A1B2C3D4E5)

This process is anyway closer to what you would do with Xcode manually, than what for example the Jenkins Xcode Plugin does.

Note: The .xcarchive file will always be develpment signed, but selecting “app-store” as method in the 2nd step will do the correct distribution signing and also include the distribution profile as “embedded.mobileprovision”.

Hope this helps.

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