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:

Answer 1

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!

Answer 2

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']

Answer 3

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

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

Answer 4

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

"enable_hexadecimal_encoding": false,