Do I need the Private/Public key for App Distribution and Ad Hoc installs?

Question

I'm working for a company that has already released an app on the store. So - they have already created a Distribution certificate. The person has left, and now I have to set up the Ad Hoc installs and Distribution for a new app.

The iPhone Developer Program User Guide states:

Saving your Private Key and Transferring to Other Systems

It is critical that you save your private key somewhere safe in the event that you need to build your application on multiple Macs or decide to reinstall your system OS. Without your private key, you cannot sign binaries in Xcode and there you will be unable to upload your application to the App Store or install your application on any Apple device. When a CSR is generated, the Keychain Access application creates a private key on your login keychain. This private key is tied to your user account and cannot be reproduced if lost due to an OS reinstall. If you plan to do development and testing on multiple systems, you will need to import your private key onto all of the systems you’ll be doing work on.

I do not have access to these keys which have been generated by someone else using Keychain Access. Can I still build for Ad Hoc and Distribution?

Or do I need to revoke this Distribution Certificate and start again.... will this affect the app that has been already submitted?

Answer 1

You need the keys to install the certificates and build a distributable app (App Store or ad hoc).

You don't need to revoke the existing certificates to create a new certificate for distributing the new app. Just make new certificates specifically for that app.

Answer 2

You need the private key to sign the app. The easiest thing to do is probably to try contacting the "someone else" to recover the key.

I've recently regenerate our Distribution certificate because the old one expired — the only problem is that provisioning profiles created with the old certificate are incompatible with the new certificate, so existing Development/Ad Hoc builds will stop working when those certificates expire.

I haven't heard any problems from customers using App Store builds.