Can't find private key for Apple Development P

Question

I've consulted many sources out there and still can't figure this out.

http://code.google.com/p/apns-php/wiki/CertificateCreation

Basically after I download the Development Push SSL Certificate from the iOS Provisioning Portal > App IDS (with Enable for Apple Push Notification service selected) and I double click the certificate (filename aps_development.cer) to open it, the Keychain opens. I then select "login" and "Certificates" on the left panels. On the right panel I see "Apple Development IOS Push Services:..." and all instructions I've consulted so far have told me to "expand" this option by clicking the arrow next to the name to reveal the private key, but there is no expand option for this certificate. Can anyone help me find this private key? Did I download the wrong certificate?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yet another answer to this...

After you create your CSR, before actually uploading it to the Apple site, you can go look within Keychain Access under the logins -> keys and see that you already have new public and private keys with the same name as you entered in your new CSR's CommonName.

So when you upload the CSR to the Apple, then download the certificate, then double-click the certificate, Keychain access is just matching up that downloaded certificate with the public key that was already in your Keychain Access list and it attaches the private key.

So if you are not able to get the private key after all of this, try recreate your CSR.

The strange thing to me is that, I had read that you could use the same CSR each time you recreate your certificate, but for some reason that is not working for me. Perhaps because the old expired certificate that I was replacing was no longer in my Keychain Access list and so therefore there was no public/private key pair that matched the newly generated certificate.

Answer 2

I was just double clicking on the certificate. What helped me eventually was to drag the certificate into the relevant section.

More details can be found in this blog: How to Export a Push Notification Certificate in a p12 file?

Answer 3

I noticed that the expand icon is actually visible when clicking on 'My Certificates' in the left menu (Keychain).

Answer 4

on the machine you are trying to access this cert, do you have the key with which you signed the Certificate Signing Request (based on which apple created that certificate for you)?

You should ask the person who created that certificate. Thats probably the only way you can get the private key.

Answer 5

My problem was that I was not looking under "Certificates" but under "All Items":

Answer 6

The .cer file does not contain the private key, only the public one. So all of these solutions are relevant only from the computer who issued the original CSR, or from a computer where the original certificate's keypair was imported to Keychain.

If you don't have access to the private key, yiou would have to generate a new certificate. However - you do not have to invalidate the old one from Apple's certificate portal, as you may use multiple APNS certificates for the same app ID.