Extension - Signing

The Signing extension provides access to Blue Cedar's External Signing service, which allows you to sign modified mobile apps on a local signing server. Enabling this extension gives you access to the Signing step in the Testing or Production stages of your workflows. Click Add to enable, and then click the gear icon to configure.

Overview

This table presents a summary of the External Signing extension—what it provides, what you need to know about enabling and configuring it, and what are the corresponding workflow steps and other relevant topics. The rest of this page provides configuration details.

Services provided by this extension	The External Signing extension provides access to Blue Cedar's External Signing service, which bundles everything you need to sign modified mobile apps on a local signing server.
Extension configuration	Create configurations for Android and iOS apps with signing credentials for your organization.
Related workflow steps	Add a Signing step to the Testing and/or Production stage of your workflows. This step bundles the signing credentials and a signing script with your app, pauses the workflow, and sends email to any users specified in the notification list. See Signing - External Signing by Blue Cedar for details about the workflow step. See Signing apps for details about how to download the bundle, sign the app, and upload the signed app.
Other related topics	When a workflow is paused for signing, that status appears in the Deployment Workflow widget on the Dashboard, where you can navigate to the page for downloading the signing bundle and uploading the signed app. See Using the Dashboard bak for details.

About code signing

Code signing is security technology that mobile app developers use to certify that they created the app. Once an app is signed, the mobile device's operating system can detect any change to the app—whether the change is introduced accidentally, or by malicious code. When you have integrated an app with the Blue Cedar Platform, the app must be re-signed to validate that the integration is a deliberate and desired change to the app.

The External Signing extension supports signing by verifying signing credentials and bundling everything you need to sign externally—including a script for signing—in a zip file. The details vary depending on the OS of the app (iOS or Android).

There are three separate elements for external app signing:

Enable and configure the signing extension. This is a one-time task for each set of signing credentials. See below.
Include the signing step in a workflow. Do this when you create a workflow for an app. See Signing - External Signing by Blue Cedar.
Download the signing bundle, sign the app on a local (external) signing server, and upload the signed app. Do this when the workflow pauses for signing. See Signing apps.

Prerequisites

You'll need a local signing server to which you can transfer or copy your downloaded signing bundle. See Signing apps under .zip file instructions for local signing server system requirements.

Enable External Signing by Blue Cedar

From the Blue Cedar Platform main menu, select Extensions > Signing. The platform shows the External Signing by Blue Cedar extension.

Before users can include signing in workflows, you must enable the extension. On the External Signing by Blue Cedar card, click Add Extension.

Configure the extension

Code signing requires signing credentials that are platform-specific. Create or upload these credentials when you enable the extension. You can configure multiple sets of credentials and choose among them when adding the step to a workflow

On the External Signing by Blue Cedar card, click the gear icon. Choose each platform and create signing configurations:

Android: Create a keystore with a name, password, and alias, or import a keystore file.
iOS: Add a certificate using its certificate ID, or import a certificate.

Give each entry a name: these names are available as choices when you add signing to a workflow.

Next steps

The External Signing extension is now available for workflows. When you add signing to a workflow, choose signing keystores or certificates as configured above.