ethanliew / adhocgenerate

Wireless ad hoc distribution of iOS applications

NOTE: see also the companion article at http://gknops.github.com/adHocGenerate.

adHocGenerate

adHocGenerate is a script designed to be used in a Post Action of an Xcode4's Archive action.

It produces all data required for wireless ad hoc distribution of an iOS application:

• IPA archive with embedded mobileprovision (which must contain the intended users UDIDs)
• Manifest
• HTML file containing the necessary link to trigger wireless installation.

Installation

To install adHocGenerate first clone the git repository from github. In a terminal window change to the directory you want to clone the repository to, then clone it:

cd /some/directory
git clone git://github.com/gknops/adHocGenerate.git

There are several ways how you can use the script:

Using from cloned repository

You can use the script directly from the repository. For this use the complete path inside the Post Action, for example:

/some/directory/WirelessdHoc/adHocGenerate

Copying or linking to a directory inside PATH

You can copy or symlink adHocGenerate to a directory amongst your PATHs. This makes it possible not to use a path at all when invoking the script inside the Post Action.

Copying to your project

If you share this project with others, it might be best to copy the script into your project and add it to your source code repository in order to avoid external references. For example if you copy it into a AdHoc directory inside your project, you can use

${PROJECT_DIR}/AdHoc/adHocGenerate

as path inside your Post Action.

Configuration

The script is controlled via environment variables and an optional template for the HTML page.

It is run from a Post Action of the Archive action, so that it is run every time you archive your product. Optionally duplicate your Scheme first if you do want control over when the AdHoc distribution data is generated.

Bring up the Scheme Editor, click the disclosure triangle before the Archive action, and click the + button. Select New Run Script Action from the drop down menu, and fill it in like in this example:

AdHoc_TITLE="Tile_For_Your_App_Here"
AdHoc_IDENTITY="The_Name_Of_Your_Distribution_Identity"
AdHoc_PROVISONING_PROFILE="/See/Below/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX.mobileprovision"
AdHoc_DESTDIR="/Where/To/Store/Files"
AdHoc_IPA_URL="Absolute_URL_Of_IPA_On_Your_Web_Server"

mkdir -p $AdHoc_DESTDIR

export AdHoc_TITLE AdHoc_IDENTITY AdHoc_PROVISONING_PROFILE AdHoc_DESTDIR AdHoc_IPA_URL

# May need to include the path
/some/path/adHocGenerate

Change /some/path/adHocGenerate in the last line to a path as discussed in the [Installation][] section.

The various environment variables are described below.

Mandatory environment variables

These required environment variables are:

AdHoc_TITLE

A title for your app (human readable).

AdHoc_IDENTITY

This is the Identity Name of your developer profile used for distribution. You can find it in the Origanizer's Devices tab, on the left select Developer Profile in the LIBRARY group.

AdHoc_PROVISONING_PROFILE

The path of your AdHoc distribution profile. To find that select the Origanizer's Devices tab, on the left select Provisioning Profiles in the LIBRARY group. Right- or Control-click on the correct Profile, and select Reveal Profile in Finder from the context menu. Tip: drag the file onto a Terminal window, the full path will appear and you can easily copy it.

AdHoc_DESTDIR

A directory on your disk where to place the generated files.

AdHoc_IPA_URL

The absolute URL the IPA file will have on your web server.

Optional environment variables

AdHoc_NAME

Used as file name for the IPA and manifest files, defaults to the content of the TARGETNAME environment variable.

AdHoc_HTML_INDEX_NAME

The name used for the HTML file, defaults to index.html.

AdHoc_PLIST_URL

The full URL for the manifest. Defaults to the content of the AdHoc_IPA_URL environment variable, replacing the .ipa extension with .plist.

AdHoc_HTML_TEMPLATE_PATH

By default adHocGenerate will use a very simple built-in template for the HTML file. You can however provide your own template. As an example you could add a file named AdHocTemplate.html file and place it into a AdHocsubdirectory in your project. In that example you would set AdHoc_HTML_TEMPLATE_PATH to ${PROJECT_DIR}/AdHoc/AdHocTemplate.html. See the next section for a description of this template.

Optional HTML template

The HTML template (see the description of the optional AdHoc_HTML_TEMPLATE_PATH environment variable in the previous section) can have arbitrary content. adHocGenerate will replace variables inside that template, these variables are surrounded by dollar signs, for example $variable$.

Available are all environment variables Xcode provides, plus all of the AdHoc_* variables you added to the Post Action.

In addition if not defined by you, adHocGenerate will provide a variable named AdHoc_ShortVersion which will contain the CFBundleShortVersionString value of your apps Info.plist file.

Copying to web server

Because it is easy to add another Post Action to copy the generated files to a web server, adHocGenerate does not take care of that. See the CocoaHeads BlitzTalk document at http://gknops.github.com/adHocGenerate.

Debugging

Note that unfortunately Xcode's log does not contain any error messages a Post Action generates. Please check the syslog instead, for example with Console.app.