How do I load an HTTP URL with App Transport Security enabled in iOS 9?

Question

So, the new beta SDK of iOS released last night has "App Transport Security" which encourages developers to use https instead of http. In principle, this is a great idea, and I already use https in our staging/production environments. However, I don't have https set up in my local development environment, when the iOS app is connecting to a web service I'm running on my laptop.

From a bit of playing around this morning, it appears that the URL loading system will, even if you hand it an http URL, decide to use https instead. Does anyone know how to disable this behaviour -- even just for particular URLs?

Answer 1

See Apple’s Info.plist reference for full details (thanks @gnasher729).

You can add exceptions for specific domains in your Info.plist:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>testdomain.com</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
            <string>TLSv1.2</string>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
            <string>TLSv1.2</string>
            <key>NSRequiresCertificateTransparency</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>

All the keys for each excepted domain are optional. The speaker did not elaborate on any of the keys, but I think they’re all reasonably obvious.

(Source: WWDC 2015 session 703, “Privacy and Your App”, 30:18)

You can also ignore all app transport security restrictions with a single key, if your app has a good reason to do so:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

If your app does not have a good reason, you may risk rejection:

Setting NSAllowsArbitraryLoads to true will allow it to work, but Apple was very clear in that they intend to reject apps who use this flag without a specific reason. The main reason to use NSAllowsArbitraryLoads I can think of would be user created content (link sharing, custom web browser, etc). And in this case, Apple still expects you to include exceptions that enforce the ATS for the URLs you are in control of.

If you do need access to specific URLs that are not served over TLS 1.2, you need to write specific exceptions for those domains, not use NSAllowsArbitraryLoads set to yes. You can find more info in the NSURLSesssion WWDC session.

Please be careful in sharing the NSAllowsArbitraryLoads solution. It is not the recommended fix from Apple.

— kcharwood (thanks @marco-tolman)

Answer 2

As accepted answer has provided required info, and for more info about using and disabling App Transport Security one can find more on this.

For Per-Domain Exceptions add these to the Info.plist:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
  <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
  <dict>
    <key>yourserver.com</key>
    <dict>
      <!--Include to allow subdomains-->
      <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
      <true/>
      <!--Include to allow HTTP requests-->
      <key>NSTemporaryExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
      <true/>
      <!--Include to specify minimum TLS version-->
      <key>NSTemporaryExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
      <string>TLSv1.1</string>
    </dict>
  </dict>
</dict>

But What If I Don’t Know All the Insecure Domains I Need to Use? Use following key in your Info.plist

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
  <!--Include to allow all connections (DANGER)-->
  <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
      <true/>
</dict>

For more detail you can get from this link.

Answer 3

Compiling answers given by @adurdin and @User

Add followings to your info.plist & change localhost.com with your corresponding domain name, you can add multiple domains as well:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>localhost.com</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
            <string>TLSv1.2</string>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
            <string>TLSv1.2</string>
            <key>NSRequiresCertificateTransparency</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

You info.plist must looks like this:

Answer 4

I have solved as plist file.

1. Add a NSAppTransportSecurity : Dictionary.
2. Add Subkey named " NSAllowsArbitraryLoads " as Boolean : YES

Answer 5

Here's what worked for me:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <false/>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key><!-- your_remote_server.com / localhost --></key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
        </dict>
    <!-- add more domain here -->
    </dict>
</dict>

I just wanna add this to help others and save some time:

if you are using: CFStreamCreatePairWithSocketToHost. make sure your host is the same with what you have in your .plist or if you have separate domain for socket just add it there.

CFStreamCreatePairWithSocketToHost(NULL, (__bridge CFStringRef)/*from .plist*/, (unsigned int)port, &readStream, &writeStream);

Hope this is helpful. Cheers. :)

Answer 6

Configurations above didn't work for me. I tried a lot of combinations of keys, this one work fine:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>mydomain.com</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>

Answer 7

Followed this.

I have solved it with adding some key in info.plist. The steps I followed are:

1. Opened my Projects info.plist file

2. Added a Key called NSAppTransportSecurity as a Dictionary.

3. Added a Subkey called NSAllowsArbitraryLoads as Boolean and set its value to YES as like following image.

Clean the Project and Now Everything is Running fine as like before.

Ref Link.

Answer 8

If you just want to disable App Transport Policy for local dev servers then the following solutions work well. It's useful when you're unable, or it's impractical, to set up HTTPS (e.g. when using the Google App Engine dev server).

As others have said though, ATP should definitely not be turned off for production apps.

1) Use a different plist for Debug

Copy your Plist file and NSAllowsArbitraryLoads. Use this Plist for debugging.

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

2) Exclude local servers

Alternatively, you can use a single plist file and exclude specific servers. However, it doesn't look like you can exclude IP 4 addresses so you might need to use the server name instead (found in System Preferences -> Sharing, or configured in your local DNS).

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>server.local</key>
        <dict/>
        <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</dict>