The Wi‑Fi Alliance’s Wi‑Fi Aware data communication uses IPv6. However, in Chapter 53 “Wi‑Fi Aware” of the Accessory Design Guidelines for Apple Devices, Release R26, it is stated that “The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) for IPv6 address resolution is not supported.” This has caused confusion among developers: Does Apple’s Wi‑Fi Aware data communication actually use IPv6? What is the impact of “The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) for IPv6 address resolution is not supported” in Apple’s implementation?

I have an accessory which uses both Bluetooth and WiFi to communicate with the app. I am trying to migrate to Accessory Setup Kit. However, the API expects both the bluetooth identifiers and WIFI SSID or SSID prefix in the ASDiscoveryDescriptor. The problem is we only have the WIFI SSID after BLE pairing. Our current flow looks like this: Pair via BLE Connect via BLE Send a BLE command to request WIFI settings (SSID and password) (Each device has a different SSID and password) Connect to WI-FI hotspot by calling NEHotspotConfigurationManager applyConfiguration with the retrieved credentials. Is there a way to set the Wi-Fi SSID of an ASAccessory object after the initial setup? To use Accessory Setup Kit we would need something like this: Call Accessory Setup Kit with bluetooth identifiers in the descriptor, finish the setup and get ASAccessory object. Connect via BLE Send a BLE command to request WIFI settings (SSID and password) Set the SSID of the ASAccessory to the retrieved value. Connect to WI-FI hotspot by calling `NEHotspotConfigurationManager joinAccessoryHotspot. Thanks!

General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Networking TN3151 Choosing the right networking API Networking Overview document — Despite the fact that this is in the archive, this is still really useful. TLS for App Developers forums post Choosing a Network Debugging Tool documentation WWDC 2019 Session 712 Advances in Networking, Part 1 — This explains the concept of constrained networking, which is Apple’s preferred solution to questions like How do I check whether I’m on Wi-Fi? TN3135 Low-level networking on watchOS TN3179 Understanding local network privacy Adapt to changing network conditions tech talk Understanding Also-Ran Connections forums post Extra-ordinary Networking forums post Foundation networking: Forums tags: Foundation, CFNetwork URL Loading System documentation — NSURLSession, or URLSession in Swift, is the recommended API for HTTP[S] on Apple platforms. Moving to Fewer, Larger Transfers forums post Testing Background Session Code forums post Network framework: Forums tag: Network Network framework documentation — Network framework is the recommended API for TCP, UDP, and QUIC on Apple platforms. Building a custom peer-to-peer protocol sample code (aka TicTacToe) Implementing netcat with Network Framework sample code (aka nwcat) Configuring a Wi-Fi accessory to join a network sample code Moving from Multipeer Connectivity to Network Framework forums post NWEndpoint History and Advice forums post Network Extension (including Wi-Fi on iOS): See Network Extension Resources Wi-Fi Fundamentals TN3111 iOS Wi-Fi API overview Wi-Fi Aware framework documentation Wi-Fi on macOS: Forums tag: Core WLAN Core WLAN framework documentation Wi-Fi Fundamentals Secure networking: Forums tags: Security Apple Platform Security support document Preventing Insecure Network Connections documentation — This is all about App Transport Security (ATS). WWDC 2017 Session 701 Your Apps and Evolving Network Security Standards [1] — This is generally interesting, but the section starting at 17:40 is, AFAIK, the best information from Apple about how certificate revocation works on modern systems. Available trusted root certificates for Apple operating systems support article Requirements for trusted certificates in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 support article About upcoming limits on trusted certificates support article Apple’s Certificate Transparency policy support article What’s new for enterprise in iOS 18 support article — This discusses new key usage requirements. Technote 2232 HTTPS Server Trust Evaluation Technote 2326 Creating Certificates for TLS Testing QA1948 HTTPS and Test Servers Miscellaneous: More network-related forums tags: 5G, QUIC, Bonjour On FTP forums post Using the Multicast Networking Additional Capability forums post Investigating Network Latency Problems forums post WirelessInsights framework documentation iOS Network Signal Strength forums post Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" [1] This video is no longer available from Apple, but the URL should help you locate other sources of this info.

I have an issue that causes multiple instances of the push provider to be initialized. And I'd like to ask you what could trigger the instantiation NEAppPushProvider subclass. It seems like it's being triggered excessively. If there's documentation that I have overlooked then just show it to me and I'll be on my way. Here's the details. But really all I want to know is why is my subclass for NEAppPushProvider keeps getting initialized. If you can answer me that than maybe all these details don't really matter but here they are. Here's why I believe there's multiple push provider. I see logs for my push provider initializing but I don't see it de-initializing. I also see redundant logs showing multiple instances trying to log into my server. Each time it initializes, an additional log is added for trying to log into my server. In the app, the system saves it's configuration shortly after initialization, after saving and loading the push configuration, the app doesn't touch config. Meanwhile in the extension, after 8 or so hours, the extension starts creating a new instance of the push provider. Then a few hours later it does it again. And again. Until the watch dog kills us for wasting too much CPU. Normally on a fresh install, I'll observe turning off the wifi to call stop on the push provider and later have the push provider de-initialize. The extension maintains a socket connection to the server, the server can send it messages to display push notifications. The software runs on hospital networks, which will not have access to the internet. It seems like the connection to the server is stable from the logs. I don't detect any disconnections. I'll check with the server to confirm. In the app I call removeFromPreferences to clear out any extensions before logging in/saving push configurations. And I call saveToPreferences on the NEAppPushManager. I do this to make sure I don't have more than one push configuration saved at one time. I also have many logs looking out for this. I used the sample code from apple as the basis of the my own Push Manager. I can post code if you deem it necessary. Hope to here from you soon. Thank you.

The app “Wi-Fi Aware Sample” on Bojie的iPhone quit unexpectedly. Domain: IDEDebugSessionErrorDomain Code: 20 Failure Reason: Message from debugger: The LLDB RPC server has crashed. You may need to manually terminate your process. The crash log is located in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports and has a prefix 'lldb-rpc-server'. Please file a bug and attach the most recent crash log. User Info: { DVTErrorCreationDateKey = "2025-09-17 10:26:56 +0000"; IDEDebugSessionErrorUserInfoUnavailabilityError = "Error Domain=com.apple.dt.deviceprep Code=-10 "Fetching debug symbols for Bojie\U7684iPhone" UserInfo={NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=Xcode will continue when the operation completes., NSLocalizedDescription=Fetching debug symbols for Bojie\U7684iPhone}"; IDERunOperationFailingWorker = DBGLLDBLauncher; } Event Metadata: com.apple.dt.IDERunOperationWorkerFinished : { "device_identifier" = "00008101-001E29E01E63003A"; "device_isCoreDevice" = 1; "device_model" = "iPhone13,3"; "device_osBuild" = "26.0 (23A341)"; "device_osBuild_monotonic" = 2300034100; "device_os_variant" = 1; "device_platform" = "com.apple.platform.iphoneos"; "device_platform_family" = 2; "device_reality" = 1; "device_thinningType" = "iPhone13,3"; "device_transport" = 1; "dvt_coredevice_version" = "477.23"; "dvt_coredevice_version_monotonic" = 477023000000000; "dvt_coresimulator_version" = 1043; "dvt_coresimulator_version_monotonic" = 1043000000000000; "dvt_mobiledevice_version" = "1818.0.1"; "dvt_mobiledevice_version_monotonic" = 1818000001000000; "launchSession_schemeCommand" = Run; "launchSession_schemeCommand_enum" = 1; "launchSession_targetArch" = arm64; "launchSession_targetArch_enum" = 6; "operation_duration_ms" = 1922640; "operation_errorCode" = 20; "operation_errorDomain" = IDEDebugSessionErrorDomain; "operation_errorWorker" = DBGLLDBLauncher; "operation_error_reportable" = 1; "operation_name" = IDERunOperationWorkerGroup; "operation_unavailabilityErrorCode" = "-10"; "operation_unavailabilityErrorDomain" = "com.apple.dt.deviceprep"; "param_consoleMode" = 1; "param_debugger_attachToExtensions" = 0; "param_debugger_attachToXPC" = 1; "param_debugger_type" = 3; "param_destination_isProxy" = 0; "param_destination_platform" = "com.apple.platform.iphoneos"; "param_diag_MainThreadChecker_stopOnIssue" = 0; "param_diag_MallocStackLogging_enableDuringAttach" = 0; "param_diag_MallocStackLogging_enableForXPC" = 1; "param_diag_allowLocationSimulation" = 1; "param_diag_checker_mtc_enable" = 1; "param_diag_checker_tpc_enable" = 1; "param_diag_gpu_frameCapture_enable" = 0; "param_diag_gpu_shaderValidation_enable" = 0; "param_diag_gpu_validation_enable" = 0; "param_diag_guardMalloc_enable" = 0; "param_diag_memoryGraphOnResourceException" = 0; "param_diag_queueDebugging_enable" = 1; "param_diag_runtimeProfile_generate" = 0; "param_diag_sanitizer_asan_enable" = 0; "param_diag_sanitizer_tsan_enable" = 0; "param_diag_sanitizer_tsan_stopOnIssue" = 0; "param_diag_sanitizer_ubsan_enable" = 0; "param_diag_sanitizer_ubsan_stopOnIssue" = 0; "param_diag_showNonLocalizedStrings" = 0; "param_diag_viewDebugging_enabled" = 1; "param_diag_viewDebugging_insertDylibOnLaunch" = 1; "param_install_style" = 2; "param_launcher_UID" = 2; "param_launcher_allowDeviceSensorReplayData" = 0; "param_launcher_kind" = 0; "param_launcher_style" = 99; "param_launcher_substyle" = 0; "param_lldbVersion_component_idx_1" = 0; "param_lldbVersion_monotonic" = 170300230950; "param_runnable_appExtensionHostRunMode" = 0; "param_runnable_productType" = "com.apple.product-type.application"; "param_testing_launchedForTesting" = 0; "param_testing_suppressSimulatorApp" = 0; "param_testing_usingCLI" = 0; "sdk_canonicalName" = "iphoneos26.0"; "sdk_osVersion" = "26.0"; "sdk_platformID" = 2; "sdk_variant" = iphoneos; "sdk_version_monotonic" = 2300527605; } System Information macOS Version 15.5 (Build 24F74) Xcode 26.0 (24141.31) (Build 17A5241o) Timestamp: 2025-09-17T18:26:56+08:00

I need to run multiple, slightly different copies of a modeling tool, which all need access to a model repository on a different machine. Security Settings -> Network tends to pick one modeling tool (and unfortunately the wrong one) for permission, but the dialog offers no way to add the other copies manually. Where can I configure the permission on low level. [macOS Sequoia 15.6.1]

I develop a Network Extension with NEFilterDataProvider and want to understand how to stop or disable it on exit of the base app without deactivating NE from OS and leave ability to start it again without requiring a password from the user. It starts normally, but when I try to disable it: NEFilterManager.sharedManager.enabled = NO; [NEFilterManager.sharedManager saveToPreferencesWithCompletionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { // never called }]; the completion handler has never called. But stopFilterWithReason inside the NE code called by the framework where I only replay with required completionHandler();. Then NE process keeps alive. I also tried to call remove, which should disable NE: [NEFilterManager.sharedManager removeFromPreferencesWithCompletionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { // never called }]; with same result - I freeze forever on waiting completion handler. So what is the correct way to disable NE without explicit deactivation it by [OSSystemExtensionRequest deactivationRequestForExtension:...]?

HI, I am currently developing an app that utilizes Wi-Fi Aware. According to the Wi-Fi Aware framework examples and the WWDC25 session on Wi-Fi Aware, discovery is handled using DevicePairingView and DevicePicker from the DeviceDiscoveryUI module. However, these SwiftUI views present their connection UI modally when tapped. My app's design requires the ability to control the presentation of this UI programmatically, rather than relying on a user tap. While inspecting the DeviceDiscoveryUI module, I found DDDevicePairingViewController and DDDevicePickerViewController, which appear to be the UIViewController counterparts to the SwiftUI views. The initializer for DDDevicePairingViewController accepts a ListenerProvider, so it seems I can pass the same ListenerProvider instance that is used with the DevicePairingView. However, the initializer for DDDevicePickerViewController requires an NWBrowser.Descriptor, which seems incompatible with the parameters used for the SwiftUI DevicePicker. I have two main questions: (1) Can DDDevicePairingViewController and DDDevicePickerViewController be officially used for Wi-Fi Aware pairing? (2) Are there any plans to provide more customization or programmatic control over the DevicePairingView and DevicePicker (for example, allowing us to trigger their modal presentation programmatically)? Thank you.

Hello, How long does it usually take for a URL Filter request to be reviewed? It's been 2.5 weeks since we submitted the request form but we haven't received any feedback yet. Just in case, the request ID is D3633USVZZ

Hi all, I work on a smart product that, for setup, uses a captive portal to allow users to connect and configure the device. It emits a WiFi network and runs a captive portal - an HTTP server operates at 10.0.0.1, and a DNS server responds to all requests with 10.0.0.1 to direct "any and all" request to the server. When iOS devices connect, they send a request to captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html; if it returns success, that means they're on the internet; if not, the typical behavior in the past has been to assume you're connected to a captive portal and display what's being served. I serve any requests to /hotspot-detect.html with my captive portal page (index.html). This has worked reliably on iOS18 for a long time (user selects my products WiFi network, iOS detects portal and opens it). But almost everyone who's now trying with iOS26 is having the "automatic pop up" behavior fail - usually it says "Error opening page - Hotspot login cannot open the page because the network connection was lost." However, if opening safari and navigating to any URL (or 10.0.0.1) the portal loads - it's just the iOS auto-detect and open that's not working iOS18 always succeeds; iOS26 always fails. Anybody have any idea what changes may have been introduced in iOS26 on this front, or anything I can do to help prompt or coax iOS26 into loading the portal? It typically starts reading, but then stops mid-read.

For important background information, read Extra-ordinary Networking before reading this. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" On Host Names I commonly see questions like How do I get the device’s host name? This question doesn’t make sense without more context. Apple systems have a variety of things that you might consider to be the host name: The user-assigned device name — This is a user-visible value, for example, Guy Smiley. People set this in Settings > General > About > Name. The local host name — This is a DNS name used by Bonjour, for example, guy-smiley.local. By default this is algorithmically derived from the user-assigned device name. On macOS, people can override this in Settings > General > Sharing > Local hostname. The reverse DNS name associated with the various IP addresses assigned to the device’s various network interfaces That last one is pretty much useless. You can’t get a single host name because there isn’t a single IP address. For more on that, see Don’t Try to Get the Device’s IP Address. The other two have well-defined answers, although those answers vary by platform. I’ll talk more about that below. Before getting to that, however, let’s look at the big picture. Big Picture The use cases for the user-assigned device name are pretty clear. I rarely see folks confused about that. Another use case for this stuff is that you’ve started a server and you want to tell the user how to connect to it. I discuss this in detail in Showing Connection Information in an iOS Server. However, most folks who run into problems like this do so because they’re suffering from one of the following misconceptions: The device has a DNS name. Its DNS name is unique. Its DNS name doesn’t change. Its DNS name is in some way useful for networking. Some of these may be true in some specific circumstances, but none of them are true in all circumstances. These issues are not unique to Apple platforms — if you look at the Posix spec for gethostname, it says nothing about DNS! — but folks tend to notice these problems more on Apple platforms because Apple devices are often deployed to highly dynamic network environments. So, before you start using the APIs discussed in this post, think carefully about your assumptions. And if you actually do want to work with DNS, there are two cases to consider: If you’re looking for the local host name, use the APIs discussed above. In other cases, it’s likely that the APIs in this post will not be helpful and you’d be better off focusing on DNS APIs [1]. [1] The API I recommend for this is DNS-SD. See the DNS section in TN3151 Choosing the right networking API. macOS To get the user-assigned device name, call the SCDynamicStoreCopyComputerName(_:_:) function. For example: let userAssignedDeviceName = SCDynamicStoreCopyComputerName(nil, nil) as String? To get the local host name, call the SCDynamicStoreCopyLocalHostName(_:) function. For example: let localHostName = SCDynamicStoreCopyLocalHostName(nil) as String? IMPORTANT This returns just the name label. To form a local host name, append .local.. Both routines return an optional result; code defensively! If you’re displaying these values to the user, use the System Configuration framework dynamic store notification mechanism to keep your UI up to date. iOS and Friends On iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and visionOS, get the user-assigned device name from the name property on UIDevice. IMPORTANT Access to this is now restricted. For more on that, see the documentation for the com.apple.developer.device-information.user-assigned-device-name entitlement. There is no direct mechanism to get the local host name. Other APIs There are a wide variety of other APIs that purport to return the host name. These include: gethostname The name property on NSHost [1] The hostName property on NSProcessInfo (ProcessInfo in Swift) These are problematic for a number of reasons: They have a complex implementation that makes it hard to predict what value you’ll get back. They might end up trying to infer the host name from the network environment. The existing behaviour is hard to change due to compatibility concerns. Some of them are marked as to-be-deprecated. IMPORTANT The second issue is particularly problematic, because it involves synchronous DNS requests [2]. That’s slow in general. Worse yet, if the network environment is restricted in some way, these calls can be very slow, taking about 30 seconds to time out. Given these problems, it’s generally best to avoid calling these routines at all. [1] It also has a names property, which is a little closer to reality but still not particularly useful. [2] Actually, that’s not true for gethostname. Rather, that call just returns whatever was last set by sethostname. This is always fast. The System Configuration framework infrastructure calls sethostname to update the host name as the system state changes.

Hello, I have been implementing NEAppPushProvider class to establish my own protocol to directly communicate with our provider server without the need to rely on APNs for background push notifications. I am at a stage where I am able to establish a tcp communicator and receive messages back and forth but I noticed that when I disconnect from the WIFI I've set up by setting a given SSID, I am not getting hit on the Stop method. Below is briefly how I load and save preferences. NEAppPushManager appPushManager = new NEAppPushManager(); appPushManager.LoadFromPreferences((error) => { if (error != null) { Console.WriteLine($"Error loading NEAppPushManager preferences: {error.LocalizedDescription}"); return; } if (!enable) { Console.WriteLine("Disabling Local Push Provider..."); appPushManager.Enabled = false; // ✅ Immediately update UserDefaults before saving preferences userDefaults.SetBool(false, Constants.IsLocalPushEnabled); userDefaults.Synchronize(); appPushManager.SaveToPreferences((saveError) => { if (saveError != null) { Console.WriteLine($"Error disabling Local Push: {saveError.LocalizedDescription}"); } else { Console.WriteLine("Local Push successfully disabled."); } }); return; } // ✅ Now we can safely enable Local Push Console.WriteLine($"Enabling Local Push for SSID: {_currentSSID}"); appPushManager.MatchSsids = new string[] { _currentSSID }; appPushManager.LocalizedDescription = "LocalPushProvider"; appPushManager.ProviderBundleIdentifier = Constants.LocalPushExtensionBundleId; appPushManager.Enabled = true; appPushManager.SaveToPreferences((saveError) => { if (saveError != null) { Console.WriteLine($"Error saving Local Push settings: {saveError.LocalizedDescription}"); } else { Console.WriteLine("✅ Local Push successfully registered."); userDefaults.SetBool(true, Constants.IsLocalPushEnabled); userDefaults.Synchronize(); } }); }); I've read through documentation and was expecting the Stop method to be hit when I turn off Wifi. Am I missing anything? Please let me know if I should provide more info. Currently I just have a console writeline method inside the Stop method to see if it actually gets hit.

Hey there Are there any recommendations or guidance for apps on alternatives to certificate pinning to secure their device network traffic? I want to move away from the overhead and risk associated with rotating certificates when using leaf pinning. However, I also don't want people to be able to perform a MITM attack easily using something like Charles Proxy with a self‑signed certificate added to the trust store. My understanding is that an app cannot distinguish between user‑trusted certificates and system‑trusted certificates in the trust store, so it cannot block traffic that uses user‑trusted certificates.

At WWDC 2015 Apple announced two major enhancements to the Network Extension framework: Network Extension providers — These are app extensions that let you insert your code at various points within the networking stack, including: Packet tunnels via NEPacketTunnelProvider App proxies via NEAppProxyProvider Content filters via NEFilterDataProvider and NEFilterControlProvider Hotspot Helper (NEHotspotHelper) — This allows you to create an app that assists the user in navigating a hotspot (a Wi-Fi network where the user must interact with the network in order to get access to the wider Internet). Originally, using any of these facilities required authorisation from Apple. Specifically, you had to apply for, and be granted access to, a managed capability. In Nov 2016 this policy changed for Network Extension providers. Any developer can now use the Network Extension provider capability like they would any other capability. There is one exception to this rule: Network Extension app push providers, introduced by iOS 14 in 2020, still requires that Apple authorise the use of a managed capability. To apply for that, follow the link in Local push connectivity. Also, the situation with Hotspot Helpers remains the same: Using a Hotspot Helper, requires that Apple authorise that use via a managed capability. To apply for that, follow the link in Hotspot helper. IMPORTANT Pay attention to this quote from the documentation: NEHotspotHelper is only useful for hotspot integration. There are both technical and business restrictions that prevent it from being used for other tasks, such as accessory integration or Wi-Fi based location. The rest of this document answers some frequently asked questions about the Nov 2016 change. #1 — Has there been any change to the OS itself? No, this change only affects the process by which you get the capabilities you need in order to use existing Network Extension framework facilities. Previously these were managed capabilities, meaning their use was authorised by Apple. Now, except for app push providers and Hotspot Helper, you can enable the necessary capabilities using Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor or the Developer website. IMPORTANT Some Network Extension providers have other restrictions on their use. For example, a content filter can only be used on a supervised device. These restrictions are unchanged. See TN3134 Network Extension provider deployment for the details. #2 — How exactly do I enable the Network Extension provider capability? In the Signing & Capabilities editor, add the Network Extensions capability and then check the box that matches the provider you’re creating. In the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles section of the Developer website, when you add or edit an App ID, you’ll see a new capability listed, Network Extensions. Enable that capability in your App ID and then regenerate the provisioning profiles based on that App ID. A newly generated profile will include the com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension entitlement in its allowlist; this is an array with an entry for each of the supported Network Extension providers. To confirm that this is present, dump the profile as shown below. $ security cms -D -i NETest.mobileprovision … <plist version="1.0"> <dict> … <key>Entitlements</key> <dict> <key>com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension</key> <array> <string>packet-tunnel-provider</string> <string>content-filter-provider</string> <string>app-proxy-provider</string> … and so on … </array> … </dict> … </dict> </plist> #3 — I normally use Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor to manage my entitlements. Do I have to use the Developer website for this? No. Xcode 11 and later support this capability in the Signing & Capabilities tab of the target editor (r. 28568128 ). #4 — Can I still use Xcode’s “Automatically manage signing” option? Yes. Once you modify your App ID to add the Network Extension provider capability, Xcode’s automatic code signing support will include the entitlement in the allowlist of any profiles that it generates based on that App ID. #5 — What should I do if I previously applied for the Network Extension provider managed capability and I’m still waiting for a reply? Consider your current application cancelled, and use the new process described above. #6 — What should I do if I previously applied for the Hotspot Helper managed capability and I’m still waiting for a reply? Apple will continue to process Hotspot Helper managed capability requests and respond to you in due course. #7 — What if I previously applied for both Network Extension provider and Hotspot Helper managed capabilities? Apple will ignore your request for the Network Extension provider managed capability and process it as if you’d only asked for the Hotspot Helper managed capability. #8 — On the Mac, can Developer ID apps host Network Extension providers? Yes, but there are some caveats: This only works on macOS 10.15 or later. Your Network Extension provider must be packaged as a system extension, not an app extension. You must use the *-systemextension values for the Network Extension entitlement (com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension). For more on this, see Exporting a Developer ID Network Extension. #9 — After moving to the new process, my app no longer has access to the com.apple.managed.vpn.shared keychain access group. How can I regain that access? Access to this keychain access group requires another managed capability. If you need that, please open a DTS code-level support request and we’ll take things from there. IMPORTANT This capability is only necessary if your VPN supports configuration via a configuration profile and needs to access credentials from that profile (as discussed in the Profile Configuration section of the NETunnelProviderManager Reference). Many VPN apps don’t need this facility. If you were previously granted the Network Extension managed capability (via the process in place before Nov 2016), make sure you mention that; restoring your access to the com.apple.managed.vpn.shared keychain access group should be straightforward in that case. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Revision History 2025-11-11 Removed the discussion of TSI assets because those are no longer a thing. 2025-09-12 Adopted the code-level support request terminology. Made other minor editorial changes. 2023-01-11 Added a discussion of Network Extension app push providers. Added a link to Exporting a Developer ID Network Extension. Added a link to TN3134. Made significant editorial changes. 2020-02-27 Fixed the formatting. Updated FAQ#3. Made minor editorial changes. 2020-02-16 Updated FAQ#8 to account for recent changes. Updated FAQ#3 to account for recent Xcode changes. Made other editorial changes. 2016-01-25 Added FAQ#9. 2016-01-6 Added FAQ#8. 2016-11-11 Added FAQ#5, FAQ#6 and FAQ#7. 2016-11-11 First posted.

I’m developing a iOS VPN app, and I need to execute a task in the main app even when it’s in the background or killed state. I know the Network Extension continues running during those times. Is there a way for the extension to immediately notify the app or trigger a task on the app side?

I have to continuously disable Limit IP Tracking on my local Wi-Fi network. When it's enable I am not able to access some services on the same subnet that falls under rfc1918. Accessing remote network, over site to site vpn, is not affected, just my local network. I opened FB21483619 for this. I would expect to see rfc1918 subnets not included. Also would expect all DNS queries to be sent to the servers provided in DHCP.

Hello Apple Support Team, We are seeing a production crash on iOS 26 devices that appears to originate from Apple system frameworks rather than application code. Crash Summary Crash signature: _xzm_xzone_malloc_freelist_outlined Crashed thread: com.apple.network.connections Frameworks involved: CFNetwork, Security, libdispatch, libsystem_malloc Affected OS: iOS 26.x App built with: Xcode 16 Devices: Multiple models (not device-specific) Reproducibility: Intermittent, higher frequency during app launch / background networking Observed Stack Trace (top frames) _xzm_xzone_malloc_freelist_outlined dispatch_data_create_alloc xpc_data_deserialize SecTrustEvaluateIfNecessary CFNetwork HTTPProtocol / HTTP3Connection com.apple.network.connections App Context The app uses URLSession for networking. Multiple third-party SDKs are integrated (Firebase Analytics, Dynatrace, Appsflyer, and similar analytics/monitoring SDKs). These SDKs perform concurrent background network requests, especially during app launch and foreground transitions. No unsafe memory operations (manual malloc/free, unsafe pointers, or custom networking stacks) are used in the app code. Key Observations The crash is predominantly observed on iOS 26 and not on earlier iOS versions. Stack traces do not include application symbols. Disabling or delaying analytics SDK initialization significantly reduces the crash rate. Reducing concurrent network requests and limiting HTTP/3 usage also mitigates the issue. This suggests a potential regression in CFNetwork / Network.framework / HTTP/3 handling combined with the new memory allocator (xzone) on iOS 26. Impact Random app termination during background networking. Occurs without a clear deterministic repro path, making it difficult to fully mitigate at the app level. Request Could you please help investigate whether this is a known iOS 26 issue related to: HTTP/3 / QUIC networking XPC deserialization Memory allocation in the new xzone allocator High-concurrency network requests We would appreciate guidance on: Recommended mitigations Whether this issue is already tracked internally Any best practices for apps integrating multiple analytics SDKs on iOS 26 Crash logs and additional diagnostics can be provided if needed. Thank you for your support. Best regards, Dhananjay

Hi there, can some one help how to debug this crashes? where I can start to find root causes of this crashes. I've got lot of these NSInvalidArgumentException crashes in myapp last version I have no idea how to reproduce these issues since it doesn't point to any specific code on myapp, so I don't know how to start Fatal Exception: NSInvalidArgumentException -[NWConcrete_nw_protocol_options copyWithZone:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x283391d60 Fatal Exception: NSInvalidArgumentException -[NSConcreteHashTable lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x281d4cbe0 Fatal Exception: NSInvalidArgumentException -[_NSXPCConnectionExportedObjectTable lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x2829d11d0 Fatal Exception: NSInvalidArgumentException -[OS_dispatch_group lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x281a11900 Fatal Exception: NSInvalidArgumentException -[__NSCFData getBytes:maxLength:usedLength:encoding:options:range:remainingRange:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x28210e440 Fatal Exception: NSInvalidArgumentException -[_NSCoreTypesetterLayoutCache copyWithZone:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x283bbc730 Thanks com.kitabisa.ios_issue_dd3c71c96cddb5bb99874640746439d6_crash_session_de9bb41c2b7e43fa9ccfc42e0f649aa3_DNE_0_v2_stacktrace.txt

It works when one device is only a publisher and the other is only a subscriber. However, when both devices act as both publisher and subscriber simultaneously—which Apple’s documentation (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/wifiaware/adopting-wi-fi-aware#Declare-services) indicates is valid—the connection never establishes. After timing out, both NetworkListener and NetworkBrowser transition to the failed state. This appears to be a race condition in Network framework. Task.detached { try await NetworkListener( for: .wifiAware( .connecting( to: .myService, from: .allPairedDevices, datapath: .defaults ) ), using: .parameters { Coder( sending: ..., receiving: ..., using: NetworkJSONCoder() ) { TCP() } } ).run { connection in await self.add(connection: connection) } } Task.detached { try await NetworkBrowser( for: .wifiAware( .connecting( to: .allPairedDevices, from: .myService ) ), using: .tcp ).run { endpoints in for endpoint in endpoints { await self.connect(to: endpoint) } } }

We have a NEFilterDataProvider extension that intercepts all TCP and UDP IPv4/6 traffic. At times just after wakeup from sleep, it causes internet access issues, such as showing "This site can't be reached" when opening websites. The traffic is not being dropped by the extension. According to the logs, the connection is being closed after approximately 4 minutes. During the issue, the flow logs are as follows: Flow 515129771 is connecting New flow: NEFlow type = stream, app = com.google.Chrome.helper... Detaching, ref count = 2 (logged after ~4 minutes) Sending close, how = 2 Removing from group 2, ref count = 2 Destroying, app tx 0, tunnel tx 0, tunnel rx 0 Closing reads, not closed by plugin Closing writes, not sending close Any suggestions on the possible cause and how to further debug it?