Hi all! I’m having trouble distributing an iOS app with a DNS Proxy NetworkExtension via AdHoc. The app and extension work perfectly with development profiles, but when I export and install the AdHoc IPA, I get a “permission denied” error when trying to install/enable the DNS Proxy extension. What I’ve done: Both the app and the DNS Proxy extension have their own App IDs in the Apple Developer portal. Both App IDs have the same App Group enabled: group.com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2. The extension App ID has the NetworkExtension capability with dns-proxy enabled. I created two AdHoc provisioning profiles (one for the app, one for the extension), both including the same devices and the correct entitlements. I assigned the correct AdHoc profiles to each target in Xcode and exported the IPA via Organizer. I install the IPA on a registered device using Apple Configurator. Entitlements (extracted from the signed binaries on device): App: <key>application-identifier</key><string>6PBG234246.com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2</string> <key>com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension</key><array> <string>packet-tunnel-provider</string> <string>dns-proxy</string> </array> <key>com.apple.developer.team-identifier</key><string>6PBG234246</string> <key>com.apple.security.application-groups</key><array> <string>group.com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2</string> </array> <key>get-task-allow</key><false/> DNSProxy Extension: <key>application-identifier</key><string>6PBG234246.com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2.DNSProxy</string> <key>com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension</key><array> <string>dns-proxy</string> </array> <key>com.apple.developer.team-identifier</key><string>6PBG234246</string> <key>com.apple.security.application-groups</key><array> <string>group.com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2</string> </array> <key>get-task-allow</key><false/> Error message (from my app’s logs): Error instalando DNS Proxy: permission denied Usuario: Roberto AppGroup: group.com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2 AppGroupPath: /private/var/mobile/Containers/Shared/AppGroup/D8AD2DED-AD96-4915-9B7A-648C9504679B Entitlements: BundleId: com.irakai.SafeLinkApp2 Debug info: Error Domain=NEDNSProxyErrorDomain Code=1 "permission denied" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=permission denied} Other details: The device is included in both AdHoc profiles. The App Group is present and identical in both entitlements. The extension’s bundle identifier matches the App ID in the portal. The extension is signed with the correct AdHoc profile. I have tried rebooting the device and reinstalling the IPA. The error only occurs with AdHoc; development builds work fine. Questions: Is there anything else I should check regarding AdHoc provisioning for NetworkExtension DNS Proxy? Are there any known issues with AdHoc and NetworkExtension on recent iOS versions? Is there a way to get more detailed diagnostics from the system about why the permission is denied? Could this be a bug in iOS, or am I missing a subtle configuration step? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I need to know the https address of a certain page within my app. This is going to be used as a redirect URL. I don't think it is a good idea to use deep links because it has to be an https address. I don't think Universal Links will work because it is not my website that I will be communicating with.

I’m working on an iOS parental-control app that needs to block specific network traffic (e.g. certain domains or URLs). We’ve already obtained the Family Controls entitlement (since our app is explicitly a parental-control solution), but we do not use MDM to supervise devices. In testing, our NEFilterDataProvider extension only activates when the device is enrolled under a managed Family Controls profile. I am aware that we can use a PacketTunnel to achieve this but i was wondering if there is any simpler solution to this? Thanks for you time!

There are multiple report of crashes on URLConnectionLoader::loadWithWhatToDo. The crashed thread in the stack traces pointing to calls inside CFNetwork which seems to be internal library in iOS. The crash has happened quite a while already (but we cannot detect when the crash started to occur) and impacted multiple iOS versions recorded from iOS 15.4 to 18.4.1 that was recorded in Xcode crash report organizer so far. Unfortunately, we have no idea on how to reproduce it yet but the crash keeps on increasing and affect more on iOS 18 users (which makes sense because many people updated their iOS to the newer version) and we haven’t found any clue on what actually happened and how to fix it on the crash reports. What we understand is it seems to come from a network request that happened to trigger the crash but we need more information on what (condition) actually cause it and how to solve it. Hereby, I attach sample crash report for both iOS 15 and 18. I also have submitted a report (that include more crash reports) with number: FB17775979. Will appreciate any insight regarding this issue and any resolution that we can do to avoid it. iOS 15.crash iOS 18.crash

Our application currently uses NEFilterPacketProvider to filter network traffic based on Layer 4 rules (5-tuple: source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port, and protocol) on a packet-by-packet basis. We now want to extend this filtering to also consider the associated process—for example, allowing traffic from a specific source IP to a destination IP and port only if it's associated with a specific local process. That is, we’d like to make filtering decisions not just based on the 5-tuple, but also on the identity of the process either sending or receiving the traffic. We’ve looked into NEFilterSocketProvider, which does expose Layer 7 information such as process identifiers. However, it doesn’t seem to be tightly synchronized with the packet flow handled by NEFilterPacketProvider. As a result, there’s a risk that we might only get process information after the TCP handshake is complete, or before the socket is fully bound—at which point some of the 5-tuple fields (such as the local port) may still be unavailable. What we need is a way to correlate the 5-tuple with the relevant process name (either sender or receiver) at the time the first packet—e.g., a SYN packet—is about to be sent or received. Is there a recommended way to achieve this kind of early, process-aware filtering using NetworkExtension APIs?

I've implemented a custom VPN system extension for macOS, utilizing Packet Tunnel Provider. One of the users reported a problem: he was connected to the VPN, and then his Mac entered sleep mode. Upon waking, the VPN is supposed to connect automatically (because of the on-demand rules). The VPN's status changed to 'connecting', but it remained stuck in this status. From my extension logs, I can see that the 'startTunnelWithOption()' function was called 2 minutes after the user clicked the 'connect' button. From the system logs, I noticed some 'suspicious' logs, but I can't be sure if they are related to the problem. Some of them are: kernel: (Sandbox) Sandbox: nesessionmanager(562) deny(1) system-fsctl (_IO "h" 47) entitlement com.apple.developer.endpoint-security.client not present or not true (I don't need this entitlement at the extension) nesessionmanager: [com.apple.networkextension:] NESMVPNSession[Primary Tunnel:XXXXXX(null)]: Skip a start command from YYYYY:session in state connecting NetworkExtension.com.***: RunningBoard doesn't recognize submitted process - treating as a anonymous process sysextd: activateDecision found existing entry of same version: state activated_enabled, ID FAE... Are any of the logs related to the above problem? How can I debug such issues? What info should I get from the user?

Hi, I had a few questions regarding the multicast networking entitlement. What are the criteria for approval? Do ad-hoc multicast protocols fall under the approval criteria? How long do approvals for multicasting generally take?

When the machine connects to the network cable through the Thunderbolt interface using the docking station, if the Network Extension shown in the following code is running at this time, after unplugging and reinserting the docking station, the machine will not be able to obtain a valid IP address through DHCP until the system is restarted. @interface MyTransparentProxyProvider : NETransparentProxyProvider @end @implementation MyTransparentProxyProvider - (void)startProxyWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)options completionHandler:(void (^)(NSError *))completionHandler { NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings *objSettings = [[NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings alloc] initWithTunnelRemoteAddress:@"127.0.0.1"]; // included rules NENetworkRule *objIncludedNetworkRule = [[NENetworkRule alloc] initWithRemoteNetwork:nil remotePrefix:0 localNetwork:nil localPrefix:0 protocol:NENetworkRuleProtocolAny direction:NETrafficDirectionOutbound]; NSMutableArray<NENetworkRule *> *arrIncludedNetworkRules = [NSMutableArray array]; [arrIncludedNetworkRules addObject:objIncludedNetworkRule]; objSettings.includedNetworkRules = arrIncludedNetworkRules; // apply [self setTunnelNetworkSettings:objSettings completionHandler: ^(NSError * _Nullable error) { // TODO } ]; if (completionHandler != nil) completionHandler(nil); } - (BOOL)handleNewFlow:(NEAppProxyFlow *)flow { return NO; } @end This problem will not occur if the IP of the DNS server or all UDP ports 53 are excluded in the Network Extension. @interface MyTransparentProxyProvider : NETransparentProxyProvider @end @implementation MyTransparentProxyProvider - (void)startProxyWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)options completionHandler:(void (^)(NSError *))completionHandler { NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings *objSettings = [[NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings alloc] initWithTunnelRemoteAddress:@"127.0.0.1"]; // included rules NENetworkRule *objIncludedNetworkRule = [[NENetworkRule alloc] initWithRemoteNetwork:nil remotePrefix:0 localNetwork:nil localPrefix:0 protocol:NENetworkRuleProtocolAny direction:NETrafficDirectionOutbound]; NSMutableArray<NENetworkRule *> *arrIncludedNetworkRules = [NSMutableArray array]; [arrIncludedNetworkRules addObject:objIncludedNetworkRule]; // excluded rules NENetworkRule *objExcludedNetworkRule = [[NENetworkRule alloc] initWithRemoteNetwork:[NWHostEndpoint endpointWithHostname:@"" port:@(53).stringValue] remotePrefix:0 localNetwork:nil localPrefix:0 protocol:NENetworkRuleProtocolUDP direction:NETrafficDirectionOutbound]; NSMutableArray<NENetworkRule *> *arrExcludedNetworkRules = [NSMutableArray array]; [arrExcludedNetworkRules addObject:objExcludedNetworkRule]; objSettings.includedNetworkRules = arrIncludedNetworkRules; objSettings.excludedNetworkRules = arrExcludedNetworkRules; // apply [self setTunnelNetworkSettings:objSettings completionHandler: ^(NSError * _Nullable error) { // TODO } ]; if (completionHandler != nil) completionHandler(nil); } - (BOOL)handleNewFlow:(NEAppProxyFlow *)flow { return NO; } @end Is MyTransparentProxyProvider in what place do wrong? To handle the connection on port 53, it is necessary to add the implementation of NEDNSProxyProvider? In -[MyTransparentProxyProvider handleNewFlow:] how to reverse DNS? getnameinfo() doesn't work, it returns EAI_NONAME.

I've built a VPN app that is based on wireguard on macOS (I have both AppStore ver. and Developer ID ver). I want to achieve split tunneling function without changing the system route table. Currently, I'm making changes in PacketTunnelProvider: NEPacketTunnelProvider. It has included/excluded routes that function as a split tunnel, just that all changes are immediately reflected on the route table: if I run netstat -rn in terminal, I would see all rules/CIDRs I added, displayed all at once. Since I have a CIDR list of ~800 entries, I'd like to avoid changing the route table directly. I've asked ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, .etc. An idea was to implement an 'interceptor' to intercept all packets in packetFlow(_:readPacketsWithCompletionHandler:), extract the destination IP from each packet, check if it matches your CIDR list, and either reinject it back to the system interface (for local routing) or process it through your tunnel. Well, LLMs could have hallucinations and I've pretty new to macOS programming. I'm asking to make sure I'm on the right track, not going delusional with those LLMs :) So the question is, does the above method sounds feasible? If not, is it possible to achieve split tunneling without changing the route table?

I'm currently developing an iOS app with image upload functionality. To enhance upload speed, I'm considering implementing parallel uploads using Swift’s TaskGroup. However, I have concerns that in environments with limited bandwidth, parallelization might introduce overhead and contention, ultimately slowing down uploads instead of improving them. Specifically, I'm curious about: Is this concern valid? Does parallelizing uploads become counterproductive in low-bandwidth conditions due to overhead and network contention? If so, I'm considering dynamically adjusting the concurrency level based on network conditions. Does anyone have experience or best practices regarding such an approach? Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

1、已经检查过手机的存储空间，还有一百多G的空间。app端进行网络接口情况的时候报错了，报错信息如下： Error : Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=28 "No space left on device" UserInfo={_NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalDataTask <7DB1CBFD-B9BE-422D-9C9A-78D8FC04DC1B>.<76>, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=1, _kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=28, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=( "LocalDataTask <7DB1CBFD-B9BE-422D-9C9A-78D8FC04DC1B>.<76>" ), _NSURLErrorNWPathKey=satisfied (Path is satisfied), interface: pdp_ip0[lte], ipv4, ipv6, dns, expensive, estimated upload: 65536Bps, uses cell} 2、手机型号是iPhone 15 Plus，iOS 17.6.1

I am trying to activate an application which sends my serial number to a server. The send is being blocked. The app is signed but not sandboxed. I am running Sequoia on a recent iMac. My network firewall is off and I do not have any third party virus software. I have selected Allow Applications from App Store & Known Developers. My local network is wifi using the eero product. There is no firewall or virus scanning installed with this product. Under what circumstances will Mac OS block outgoing internet connections from a non-sandboxed app? How else could the outgoing connection be blocked?

I would like to inquire about the feasibility of developing an iOS application with the following requirements: The app must support real-time audio communication based on UDP. It needs to maintain a TCP signaling connection, even when the device is locked. The app will run only on selected devices within a controlled (closed) environment, such as company-managed iPads or iPhones. Could you please clarify the following: Is it technically possible to maintain an active TCP connection when the device is locked? What are the current iOS restrictions or limitations for background execution, particularly related to networking and audio? Are there any recommended APIs or frameworks (such as VoIP, PushKit, or Background Modes) suitable for this type of application?

Hello! My app wants to disable VPN connection. I used the loadFromPreferencesWithCompletionHandler method of NEVPNManager for detection, but regardless of whether the VPN was actually connected or not, it kept returning NEVPNStatusInvalid. How should I handle this issue? NEVPNManager *vpnManager = [NEVPNManager sharedManager]; [vpnManager loadFromPreferencesWithCompletionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { if (error) { return; } NEVPNStatus status = vpnManager.connection.status; switch (status) { case NEVPNStatusInvalid: // kept returning NEVPNStatusInvalid break; case NEVPNStatusDisconnected: break; case NEVPNStatusConnecting: break; case NEVPNStatusConnected: break; case NEVPNStatusReasserting: break; case NEVPNStatusDisconnecting: break; default: break; } }];

We require the following Network Extension entitlements without the -systemextension suffix: packet-tunnel-provider app-proxy-provider Our application uses the legacy NetworkExtension framework, not the newer System Extensions. Although our provisioning profile has been approved by Apple, the entitlements are still being suffixed automatically with -systemextension. Since our code is built on the legacy NetworkExtension framework, this causes VPN functionality to break. Target platforms: macOS 14 & 15 (distributed outside the Mac App Store via a .pkg installer). Is there a way to use the original (non-systemextension) entitlements in this setup?

We're seeing an issue with bonjour services since macOS 15.4 onwards, specifically when running xcuitests on simulators that communicate with an app via bonjour services, the NWListener fails with -65555: NoAuth Interestingly it only fails on subsequent iterations of the test, first iteration always succeeds. The same code works fine on macOS 15.3.1 and earlier, but not 15.4 or 15.5. Is this related to, or the same issue as here? https://aninterestingwebsite.com/forums/thread/780655 Also raised in feedback assistant: FB17804120

Hi, I am making a AI-Powered app that makes api requests to the openai API. However, for security, I set up a vercel backend that handles the API calls securely, while my frontend makes a call to my vercel-hosted https endpoint. Interestingly, whenever I try to make that call on my device, an iPhone, I get this error: Task <91AE4DE0-2845-4348-89B4-D3DD1CF51B65>.<10> finished with error [-1003] Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1003 "A server with the specified hostname could not be found." UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-72000, NSUnderlyingError=0x1435783f0 {Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=-1003 "(null)" UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=10, _kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-72000, _NSURLErrorNWResolutionReportKey=Resolved 0 endpoints in 3ms using unknown from query, _NSURLErrorNWPathKey=satisfied (Path is satisfied), interface: pdp_ip0[lte], ipv4, ipv6, dns, expensive, uses cell}}, _NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalDataTask <91AE4DE0-2845-4348-89B4-D3DD1CF51B65>.<10>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=( "LocalDataTask <91AE4DE0-2845-4348-89B4-D3DD1CF51B65>.<10>" ), NSLocalizedDescription=A server with the specified hostname could not be found., NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://[my endpoint], NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://[my endpoint], _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=10} I'm completely stuck because when I directly make https requests to other api's like openai's endpoint, without the proxy, it finds the server completely fine. Running my endpoint on terminal with curl also works as intended, as I see api key usages. But for some reason, on my project, it does not work. I've looked through almost every single post I could find online, but a lot all of the solutions are outdated and unhelpful. I'm willing to schedule a call, meeting, whatever to resolve this issue and get help more in depth as well.

I'm using a Mac Studio in a homelab context and use Homebrew to manage the installed services. The services include things that access the local network, for example Prometheus which monitors some other servers, a reverse proxy which fronts other web services on the network, and a DNS server which can use another as upstream. Local Network Access permissions make it impossible to reliably perform unattended updates of services because an updated binary requires a GUI login to grant local network permissions (again). I use brew services to manage the services as launchd agents, i.e. they run in a non-root GUI context. I know that I can also use sudo brew services which instead installs the services as launchd daemons, but running services as root has negative security implication and generally doesn't look like a good idea to me. If only there was a way to disable local network access checks altogether…

Dear Developers, I would like to suggest an optimization for the logic governing the download and installation queue for app updates. Currently, when multiple applications are awaiting updates, the prioritization does not appear to consider the update payload size. My proposal is to implement a logic that prioritizes the download and installation of updates with a smaller delta size (fewer MB) before those with a larger delta. Practical Example: A 1MB update would be processed before a 500MB update, even if their arrival order in the queue was inverted. Potential Benefits: Perceived Speed Optimization (UX): Users would gain access to functional applications more quickly, especially in scenarios with multiple pending updates. Network Efficiency: In limited or intermittent bandwidth scenarios, completing smaller downloads first can reduce the chance of download failures and optimize network resource utilization. Device Resource Management: Frees up temporary storage and processing resources more rapidly for smaller updates. I believe this optimization would bring significant gains in terms of User Experience (UX) and the operational efficiency of the platform. Thank you for your attention and consideration. Sincerely,

I am learning how to use DNS-SD from swift and have created a basic CLI app, however I am not getting callback results. I can get results from cli. Something I am doing wrong here? dns-sd -G v6 adet.local 10:06:08.423 Add 40000002 22 adet.local. FE80:0000... dns-sd -B _adt._udp. 11:19:10.696 Add 2 22 local. _adt._udp. adet import Foundation import dnssd var reference: DNSServiceRef? func dnsServiceGetAddrInfoReply(ref: DNSServiceRef?, flags: DNSServiceFlags, interfaceIndex: UInt32, errorCode: DNSServiceErrorType, hostname: UnsafePointer&lt;CChar&gt;?, address: UnsafePointer&lt;sockaddr&gt;?, ttl: UInt32, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) { print("GetAddr'd") print(hostname.debugDescription.utf8CString) print(address.debugDescription.utf8CString) } var error = DNSServiceGetAddrInfo(&amp;reference, 0, 0, DNSServiceProtocol(kDNSServiceProtocol_IPv6), "adet.local", dnsServiceGetAddrInfoReply, nil) print("GetAddr: \(error)") func dnsServiceBrowseReply(ref: DNSServiceRef?, flags: DNSServiceFlags, interfaceIndex: UInt32, errorCode: DNSServiceErrorType, serviceName: UnsafePointer&lt;CChar&gt;?, regType: UnsafePointer&lt;CChar&gt;?, replyDomain: UnsafePointer&lt;CChar&gt;?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) { print("Browsed") print(serviceName.debugDescription.utf8CString) print(replyDomain.debugDescription.utf8CString) } error = DNSServiceBrowse(&amp;reference, 0, 0, "_adt._udp", nil, dnsServiceBrowseReply, nil) print("Browse: \(error)") Foundation.RunLoop.main.run() Info.plist &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt; &lt;!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"&gt; &lt;plist version="1.0"&gt; &lt;dict&gt; &lt;key&gt;NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription&lt;/key&gt; &lt;string&gt;By the Hammer of Grabthor&lt;/string&gt; &lt;key&gt;NSBonjourServices&lt;/key&gt; &lt;array&gt; &lt;string&gt;_adt._udp.&lt;/string&gt; &lt;string&gt;_http._tcp.&lt;/string&gt; &lt;string&gt;_http._tcp&lt;/string&gt; &lt;string&gt;_adt._udp&lt;/string&gt; &lt;/array&gt; &lt;/dict&gt; &lt;/plist&gt;