Android debug certificate

Question

I read at android site that "The self-signed certificate used to sign your application in debug mode (the default on Eclipse/ADT and Ant builds) will have an expiration date of 365 days from its creation date."

but when i use jarsigner to take inforamtion about my certificate and write at command line

jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs myapp.apk

i get information that my debug certificate valid time is from 29.08.11 16:07 to 21.08.41 16:07

It's mean that my debug certificate valid 30 years, but it must be valid only 1 years. Maybe this is problem of jarsigner or all is correct? Why so it turns?

Answer 1

Sometime last year Google changed the validity period of the debug certificate generated by the ADT to 30 years from 1 year. I don't know what version of the SDK/ADT the change appeared in but when my debug certificate recently expired after 1 year and I generated a new one with the latest ADT I noticed that's it's valid for 30 years. So there is no problem with your set up.

Answer 2

IMO the best way is: in Eclipse -> right click on the project, select from menu "Android Tools", and then "Export signed application package". In this way you may set 30 years period of the expiration date.

Answer 3

You have to create your own certificate ("myapp.apk") for production mode (when you want to publish your app on the Market).

The debug certificate is only used when you are creating and debugging your app.