I regularly see folks struggle to debug their Network Extension providers. For an app, and indeed various app extensions, debugging is as simple as choosing Product > Run in Xcode. That’s not the case with a Network Extension provider, so I thought I’d collect together some hints and tips to help you get started. If you have any comments or questions, create a new thread here on DevForums. Put it in the App & System Services > Networking and tag it with Network Extension. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Debugging a Network Extension Provider Debugging a Network Extension provider presents some challenges; its not as simple as choosing Product > Run in Xcode. Rather, you have to run the extension first and then choose Debug > Attach to Process. Attaching is simple, it’s the running part that causes all the problems. When you first start out it can be a challenge to get your extension to run at all. Add a First Light Log Point The first step is to check whether the system is actually starting your extension. My advice is to add a first light log point, a log point on the first line of code that you control. The exact mechanics of this depend on your development, your deployment target, and your NE provider’s packaging. In all cases, however, I recommend that you log to the system log. The system log has a bunch of cool features. If you’re curious, see Your Friend the System Log. The key advantage is that your log entries are mixed in with system log entries, which makes it easier to see what else is going on when your extension loads, or fails to load. IMPORTANT Use a unique subsystem and category for your log entries. This makes it easier to find them in the system log. For more information about Network Extension packaging options, see TN3134 Network Extension provider deployment. Logging in Swift If you’re using Swift, the best logging API depends on your deployment target. On modern systems — macOS 11 and later, iOS 14 and later, and aligned OS releases — it’s best to use the Logger API, which is shiny and new and super Swift friendly. For example: let log = Logger(subsystem: "com.example.galactic-mega-builds", category: "earth") let client = "The Mice" let answer = 42 log.log(level: .debug, "run complete, client: \(client), answer: \(answer, privacy: .private)") If you support older systems, use the older, more C-like API: let log = OSLog(subsystem: "com.example.galactic-mega-builds", category: "earth") let client = "The Mice" let answer = 42 os_log(.debug, log: log, "run complete, client: %@, answer: %{private}d", client as NSString, answer) Logging in C If you prefer a C-based language, life is simpler because you only have one choice: #import <os/log.h> os_log_t log = os_log_create("com.example.galactic-mega-builds", "earth"); const char * client = "The Mice"; int answer = 42; os_log_debug(log, "run complete, client: %s, answer: %{private}d", client, answer); Add a First Light Log Point to Your App Extension If your Network Extension provider is packaged as an app extension, the best place for your first light log point is an override of the provider’s initialiser. There are a variety of ways you could structure this but here’s one possibility: import NetworkExtension import os.log class PacketTunnelProvider: NEPacketTunnelProvider { static let log = Logger(subsystem: "com.example.myvpnapp", category: "packet-tunnel") override init() { self.log = Self.log log.log(level: .debug, "first light") super.init() } let log: Logger … rest of your code here … } This uses a Swift static property to ensure that the log is constructed in a race-free manner, something that’s handy for all sorts of reasons. It’s possible for your code to run before this initialiser — for example, if you have a C++ static constructor — but that’s something that’s best to avoid. Add a First Light Log Point to Your System Extension If your Network Extension provider is packaged as a system extension, add your first light log point to main.swift. Here’s one way you might structure that: import NetworkExtension func main() -> Never { autoreleasepool { let log = PacketTunnelProvider.log log.log(level: .debug, "first light") NEProvider.startSystemExtensionMode() } dispatchMain() } main() See how the main function gets the log object from the static property on PacketTunnelProvider. I told you that’d come in handy (-: Again, it’s possible for your code to run before this but, again, that’s something that’s best to avoid. App Extension Hints Both iOS and macOS allow you to package your Network Extension provider as an app extension. On iOS this is super reliable. I’ve never seen any weirdness there. That’s not true on macOS. macOS lets the user put apps anywhere; they don’t have to be placed in the Applications directory. macOS maintains a database, the Launch Services database, of all the apps it knows about and their capabilities. The app extension infrastructure uses that database to find and load app extensions. It’s not uncommon for this database to get confused, which prevents Network Extension from loading your provider’s app extension. This is particularly common on developer machines, where you are building and rebuilding your app over and over again. The best way to avoid problems is to have a single copy of your app extension’s container app on the system. So, while you’re developing your app extension, delete any other copies of your app that might be lying around. If you run into problems you may be able to fix them using: lsregister, to interrogate and manipulate the Launch Services database pluginkit, to interrogate and manipulate the app extension state [1] IMPORTANT Both of these tools are for debugging only; they are not considered API. Also, lsregister is not on the default path; find it at /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister. For more details about pluginkit, see the pluginkit man page. When debugging a Network Extension provider, add buttons to make it easy to save and remove your provider’s configuration. For example, if you’re working on a packet tunnel provider you might add: A Save Config button that calls the saveToPreferences(completionHandler:) method to save the tunnel configuration you want to test with A Remove Config button that calls the removeFromPreferences(completionHandler:) method to remove your tunnel configuration These come in handy when you want to start again from scratch. Just click Remove Config and then Save Config and you’ve wiped the slate clean. You don’t have to leave these buttons in your final product, but it’s good to have them during bring up. [1] This tool is named after the PluginKit framework, a private framework used to load this type of app extension. It’s distinct from the ExtensionKit framework which is a new, public API for managing extensions. System Extension Hints macOS allows you to package your Network Extension provider as a system extension. For this to work the container app must be in the Applications directory [1]. Copying it across each time you rebuild your app is a chore. To avoid that, add a Build post-action script: Select your app’s scheme and choose Product > Scheme > Edit Scheme. On the left, select Build. Click the chevron to disclose all the options. Select Post-actions. In the main area, click the add (+) button and select New Run Script Action. In the “Provide build settings from” popup, select your app target. In the script field, enter this script: ditto "${BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR}/${FULL_PRODUCT_NAME}" "/Applications/${FULL_PRODUCT_NAME}" Now, each time you build your app, this script will copy it to the Applications directory. Build your app now, both to confirm that this works and to enable the next step. The next issue you’ll find is that choosing Product > Run runs the app from the build products directory rather than the Applications directory. To fix that: Edit your app’s scheme again. On the left, select Run. In the main area, select the Info tab. From the Executable popup, choose Other. Select the copy of your app in the Applications directory. Now, when you choose Product > Run, Xcode will run that copy rather than the one in the build products directory. Neat-o! For your system extension to run your container app must activate it. As with the Save Config and Remote Config buttons described earlier, it’s good to add easy-to-access buttons to activate and deactivate your system extension. With an app extension the system automatically terminates your extension process when you rebuild it. This is not the case with a system extension; you’ll have to deactivate and then reactivate it each time. Each activation must be approved in System Settings > Privacy & Security. To make that easier, leave System Settings running all the time. This debug cycle leaves deactivated but not removed system extensions installed on your system. These go away when you restart, so do that from time to time. Once a day is just fine. macOS includes a tool, systemextensionctl, to interrogate and manipulate system extension state. The workflow described above does not require that you use it, but it’s good to keep in mind. Its man page is largely content free so run the tool with no arguments to get help. [1] Unless you disable System Integrity Protection, but who wants to do that? You Can Attach with the Debugger Once your extension is running, attach with the debugger using one of two commands: To attach to an app extension, choose Debug > Attach to Process > YourAppExName. To attach to a system extension, choose Debug > Attach to Process by PID or Name. Make sure to select Debug Process As root. System extensions run as root so the attach will fail if you select Debug Process As Me. But Should You? Debugging networking code with a debugger is less than ideal because it’s common for in-progress network requests to time out while you’re stopped in the debugger. Debugging Network Extension providers this way is especially tricky because of the extra steps you have to take to get your provider running. So, while you can attach with the debugger, and that’s a great option in some cases, it’s often better not to do that. Rather, consider the following approach: Write the core logic of your provider so that you can unit test each subsystem outside of the provider. This may require some scaffolding but the time you take to set that up will pay off once you encounter your first gnarly problem. Add good logging to your provider to help debug problems that show up during integration testing. I recommend that you treat your logging as a feature of your product. Carefully consider where to add log points and at what level to log. Check this logging code into your source code repository and ship it — or at least the bulk of it — as part of your final product. This logging will be super helpful when it comes to debugging problems that only show up in the field. Remember that, when using the system log, log points that are present but don’t actually log anything are very cheap. In most cases it’s fine to leave these in your final product. Now go back and read Your Friend the System Log because it’s full of useful hints and tips on how to use the system log to debug the really hard problems. General Hints and Tips Install the Network Diagnostics and VPN (Network Extension) profiles [1] on your test device. These enable more logging and, most critically, the recording of private data. For more info about that last point, see… you guessed it… Your Friend the System Log. Get these profiles from our Bug Reporting > Profiles and Logs page. When you’re bringing up a Network Extension provider, do your initial testing with a tiny test app. I regularly see folks start out by running Safari and that’s less than ideal. Safari is a huge app with lots of complexity, so if things go wrong it’s hard to tell where to look. I usually create a small test app to use during bring up. The exact function of this test app varies by provider type. For example: If I’m building a packet tunnel provider, I might have a test function that makes an outgoing TCP connection to an IP address. Once I get that working I add another function that makes an outgoing TCP connection to a DNS name. Then I start testing UDP. And so on. Similarly for a content filter, but then it makes sense to add a test that runs a request using URLSession and another one to bring up a WKWebView. If I’m building a DNS proxy provider, my test app might use CFHost to run a simple name-to-address query. Also, consider doing your bring up on the Mac even if your final target is iOS. macOS has a bunch of handy tools for debugging networking issues, including: dig for DNS queries nc for TCP and UDP connections netstat to display the state of the networking stack tcpdump for recording a packet trace [2] Read their respective man pages for all the details. On the other hand, the build / run / debug cycle is simpler on iOS than it is on macOS, especially when you’re building a system extension on macOS. Even if your ultimate goal is to build a macOS-only system extension, if your provider type supports app extension packaging then you should consider whether it makes sense to adopt that packaging just for to speed up your development. If you do decide to try this, be aware that a packaging change can affect your code. See Network Extension Provider Packaging for more on that. [1] The latter is not a profile on macOS, but just a set of instructions. [2] You can use an RVI packet trace on iOS but it’s an extra setup step. Revision History 2026-04-01 Added a suggestion about provider packaging to the General Hints and Tips section. 2023-12-15 Fixed a particularly egregious typo (and spelling error in a section title, no less!). 2023-04-02 Fixed one of the steps in Sytem Extension Hints.

Hello, Our users are seeing random crashes in our packet filter system extension on macOS. Any help pointing me in the right direction to either avoid the issue or fix it would be greatly appreciated. Attached is the crash log. Thank you. packetfilter.crash Crashed Thread: 2 Dispatch queue: com.apple.network.connections Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS) Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000112918700 Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY Termination Signal: Bus error: 10 Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xa Terminating Process: exc handler [40687] ... Thread 2 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.network.connections 0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff2089b46e os_channel_get_next_slot + 230 1 com.apple.NetworkExtension 0x00007fff2e2e2643 __40-[NEFilterPacketInterpose createChannel]_block_invoke + 560 2 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff20718806 _dispatch_client_callout + 8 3 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff2071b1b0 _dispatch_continuation_pop + 423 4 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff2072b564 _dispatch_source_invoke + 2061 5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff20720318 _dispatch_workloop_invoke + 1784 6 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff20728c0d _dispatch_workloop_worker_thread + 811 7 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff208bf45d _pthread_wqthread + 314 8 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff208be42f start_wqthread + 15

Greetings, I would like to understand this URLCache behavior for two different requests to the same end point but with a different header value. Here is a code with comment explaining the behavior. // Create a request to for a url. let url = URL(string: "https://&lt;my url&gt;?f=json")! var request = URLRequest(url: url) // Set custom header with a value. request.setValue("myvalue", forHTTPHeaderField: "CustomField") // Send request to get the response. let (data, response) = try await URLSession.shared.data(for: request) print("data: \(String(describing: String(data: data, encoding: .utf8)))") print("response: \(response)") // Create second request to the same url but with different value of custom header field. var request2 = URLRequest(url: url) request2.setValue("newvalue", forHTTPHeaderField: "CustomField") // Check the URL cache for second request and it returns the response // of the first request even though the second request has different header value. let cachedResponse = URLCache.shared.cachedResponse(for: request2) print("cachedResponse: \(cachedResponse?.response)") Is this a bug in URLCache that request headers are not matched while returning the response? Is this an expected behavior? If yes, why?

Most apps perform ordinary network operations, like fetching an HTTP resource with URLSession and opening a TCP connection to a mail server with Network framework. These operations are not without their challenges, but they’re the well-trodden path. If your app performs ordinary networking, see TN3151 Choosing the right networking API for recommendations as to where to start. Some apps have extra-ordinary networking requirements. For example, apps that: Help the user configure a Wi-Fi accessory Require a connection to run over a specific interface Listen for incoming connections Building such an app is tricky because: Networking is hard in general. Apple devices support very dynamic networking, and your app has to work well in whatever environment it’s running in. Documentation for the APIs you need is tucked away in man pages and doc comments. In many cases you have to assemble these APIs in creative ways. If you’re developing an app with extra-ordinary networking requirements, this post is for you. Note If you have questions or comments about any of the topics discussed here, put them in a new thread here on DevForums. Make sure I see it by putting it in the App & System Services > Networking area. And feel free to add tags appropriate to the specific technology you’re using, like Foundation, CFNetwork, Network, or Network Extension. Links, Links, and More Links Each topic is covered in a separate post: The iOS Wi-Fi Lifecycle describes how iOS joins and leaves Wi-Fi networks. Understanding this is especially important if you’re building an app that works with a Wi-Fi accessory. Network Interface Concepts explains how Apple platforms manage network interfaces. If you’ve got this far, you definitely want to read this. Network Interface Techniques offers a high-level overview of some of the more common techniques you need when working with network interfaces. Network Interface APIs describes APIs and core techniques for working with network interfaces. It’s referenced by many other posts. Running an HTTP Request over WWAN explains why most apps should not force an HTTP request to run over WWAN, what they should do instead, and what to do if you really need that behaviour. If you’re building an iOS app with an embedded network server, see Showing Connection Information in an iOS Server for details on how to get the information to show to your user so they can connect to your server. Many folks run into trouble when they try to find the device’s IP address, or other seemingly simple things, like the name of the Wi-Fi interface. Don’t Try to Get the Device’s IP Address explains why these problems are hard, and offers alternative approaches that function correctly in all network environments. Similarly, folks also run into trouble when trying to get the host name. On Host Names explains why that’s more complex than you might think. If you’re working with broadcasts or multicasts, see Broadcasts and Multicasts, Hints and Tips. If you’re building an app that works with a Wi-Fi accessory, see Working with a Wi-Fi Accessory. If you’re trying to gather network interface statistics, see Network Interface Statistics. There are also some posts that are not part of this series but likely to be of interest if you’re working in this space: TN3179 Understanding local network privacy discusses the local network privacy feature. Calling BSD Sockets from Swift does what it says on the tin, that is, explains how to call BSD Sockets from Swift. When doing weird things with the network, you often find yourself having to use BSD Sockets, and that API is not easy to call from Swift. The code therein is primarily for the benefit of test projects, oh, and DevForums posts like these. TN3111 iOS Wi-Fi API overview is a critical resource if you’re doing Wi-Fi specific stuff on iOS. TLS For Accessory Developers tackles the tricky topic of how to communicate securely with a network-based accessory. A Peek Behind the NECP Curtain discusses NECP, a subsystem that control which programs have access to which network interfaces. Networking Resources has links to many other useful resources. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Revision History 2025-07-31 Added a link to A Peek Behind the NECP Curtain. 2025-03-28 Added a link to On Host Names. 2025-01-16 Added a link to Broadcasts and Multicasts, Hints and Tips. Updated the local network privacy link to point to TN3179. Made other minor editorial changes. 2024-04-30 Added a link to Network Interface Statistics. 2023-09-14 Added a link to TLS For Accessory Developers. 2023-07-23 First posted.

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" Network Interface APIs Most developers don’t need to interact directly with network interfaces. If you do, read this post for a summary of the APIs available to you. Before you read this, read Network Interface Concepts. Interface List The standard way to get a list of interfaces and their addresses is getifaddrs. To learn more about this API, see its man page. A network interface has four fundamental attributes: A set of flags — These are packed into a CUnsignedInt. The flags bits are declared in <net/if.h>, starting with IFF_UP. An interface type — See Network Interface Type, below. An interface index — Valid indexes are greater than 0. A BSD interface name. For example, an Ethernet interface might be called en0. The interface name is shared between multiple network interfaces running over a given hardware interface. For example, IPv4 and IPv6 running over that Ethernet interface will both have the name en0. WARNING BSD interface names are not considered API. There’s no guarantee, for example, that an iPhone’s Wi-Fi interface is en0. You can map between the last two using if_indextoname and if_nametoindex. See the if_indextoname man page for details. An interface may also have address information. If present, this always includes the interface address (ifa_addr) and the network mask (ifa_netmask). In addition: Broadcast-capable interfaces (IFF_BROADCAST) have a broadcast address (ifa_broadaddr, which is an alias for ifa_dstaddr). Point-to-point interfaces (IFF_POINTOPOINT) have a destination address (ifa_dstaddr). Calling getifaddrs from Swift is a bit tricky. For an example of this, see QSocket: Interfaces. IP Address List Once you have getifaddrs working, it’s relatively easy to manipulate the results to build a list of just IP addresses, a list of IP addresses for each interface, and so on. QSocket: Interfaces has some Swift snippets that show this. Interface List Updates The interface list can change over time. Hardware interfaces can be added and removed, network interfaces come up and go down, and their addresses can change. It’s best to avoid caching information from getifaddrs. If thats unavoidable, use the kNotifySCNetworkChange Darwin notification to update your cache. For information about registering for Darwin notifications, see the notify man page (in section 3). This notification just tells you that something has changed. It’s up to you to fetch the new interface list and adjust your cache accordingly. You’ll find that this notification is sometimes posted numerous times in rapid succession. To avoid unnecessary thrashing, debounce it. While the Darwin notification API is easy to call from Swift, Swift does not import kNotifySCNetworkChange. To fix that, define that value yourself, calling a C function to get the value: var kNotifySCNetworkChange: UnsafePointer<CChar> { networkChangeNotifyKey() } Here’s what that C function looks like: extern const char * networkChangeNotifyKey(void) { return kNotifySCNetworkChange; } Network Interface Type There are two ways to think about a network interface’s type. Historically there were a wide variety of weird and wonderful types of network interfaces. The following code gets this legacy value for a specific BSD interface name: func legacyTypeForInterfaceNamed(_ name: String) -> UInt8? { var addrList: UnsafeMutablePointer<ifaddrs>? = nil let err = getifaddrs(&addrList) // In theory we could check `errno` here but, honestly, what are gonna // do with that info? guard err >= 0, let first = addrList else { return nil } defer { freeifaddrs(addrList) } return sequence(first: first, next: { $0.pointee.ifa_next }) .compactMap { addr in guard let nameC = addr.pointee.ifa_name, name == String(cString: nameC), let sa = addr.pointee.ifa_addr, sa.pointee.sa_family == AF_LINK, let data = addr.pointee.ifa_data else { return nil } return data.assumingMemoryBound(to: if_data.self).pointee.ifi_type } .first } The values are defined in <net/if_types.h>, starting with IFT_OTHER. However, this value is rarely useful because many interfaces ‘look like’ Ethernet and thus have a type of IFT_ETHER. Network framework has the concept of an interface’s functional type. This is an indication of how the interface fits into the system. There are two ways to get an interface’s functional type: If you’re using Network framework and have an NWInterface value, get the type property. If not, call ioctl with a SIOCGIFFUNCTIONALTYPE request. The return values are defined in <net/if.h>, starting with IFRTYPE_FUNCTIONAL_UNKNOWN. Swift does not import SIOCGIFFUNCTIONALTYPE, so it’s best to write this code in a C: extern uint32_t functionalTypeForInterfaceNamed(const char * name) { int fd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0); if (fd < 0) { return IFRTYPE_FUNCTIONAL_UNKNOWN; } struct ifreq ifr = {}; strlcpy(ifr.ifr_name, name, sizeof(ifr.ifr_name)); bool success = ioctl(fd, SIOCGIFFUNCTIONALTYPE, &ifr) >= 0; int junk = close(fd); assert(junk == 0); if ( ! success ) { return IFRTYPE_FUNCTIONAL_UNKNOWN; } return ifr.ifr_ifru.ifru_functional_type; } Finally, TN3158 Resolving Xcode 15 device connection issues documents the SIOCGIFDIRECTLINK flag as a specific way to identify the network interfaces uses by Xcode for device connection traffic. Revision History 2025-12-10 Added info about SIOCGIFDIRECTLINK. 2023-07-19 First posted.

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" Working with a Wi-Fi Accessory Building an app that works with a Wi-Fi accessory presents specific challenges. This post discusses those challenges and some recommendations for how to address them. Note While my focus here is iOS, much of the info in this post applies to all Apple platforms. IMPORTANT iOS 18 introduced AccessorySetupKit, a framework to simplify the discovery and configuration of an accessory. I’m not fully up to speed on that framework myself, but I encourage you to watch WWDC 2024 Session 10203 Meet AccessorySetupKit and read the framework documentation. IMPORTANT iOS 26 introduced WiFiAware, a framework for setting up communication with Wi-Fi Aware accessories. Wi-Fi Aware is an industry standard to securely discover, pair, and communicate with nearby devices. This is especially useful for stand-alone accessories (defined below). For more on this framework, watch WWDC 2025 Session 228 Supercharge device connectivity with Wi-Fi Aware and read the framework documentation. For information on how to create a Wi-Fi Aware accessory that works with iPhone, go to Developer > Accessories, download Accessory Design Guidelines for Apple Devices, and review the Wi-Fi Aware chapter. Accessory Categories I classify Wi-Fi accessories into three different categories. A bound accessory is ultimately intended to join the user’s Wi-Fi network. It may publish its own Wi-Fi network during the setup process, but the goal of that process is to get the accessory on to the existing network. Once that’s done, your app interacts with the accessory using ordinary networking APIs. An example of a bound accessory is a Wi-Fi capable printer. A stand-alone accessory publishes a Wi-Fi network at all times. An iOS device joins that network so that your app can interact with it. The accessory never provides access to the wider Internet. An example of a stand-alone accessory is a video camera that users take with them into the field. You might want to write an app that joins the camera’s network and downloads footage from it. A gateway accessory is one that publishes a Wi-Fi network that provides access to the wider Internet. Your app might need to interact with the accessory during the setup process, but after that it’s useful as is. An example of this is a Wi-Fi to WWAN gateway. Not all accessories fall neatly into these categories. Indeed, some accessories might fit into multiple categories, or transition between categories. Still, I’ve found these categories to be helpful when discussing various accessory integration challenges. Do You Control the Firmware? The key question here is Do you control the accessory’s firmware? If so, you have a bunch of extra options that will make your life easier. If not, you have to adapt to whatever the accessory’s current firmware does. Simple Improvements If you do control the firmware, I strongly encourage you to: Support IPv6 Implement Bonjour [1] These two things are quite easy to do — most embedded platforms support them directly, so it’s just a question of turning them on — and they will make your life significantly easier: Link-local addresses are intrinsic to IPv6, and IPv6 is intrinsic to Apple platforms. If your accessory supports IPv6, you’ll always be able to communicate with it, regardless of how messed up the IPv4 configuration gets. Similarly, if you support Bonjour, you’ll always be able to find your accessory on the network. [1] Bonjour is an Apple term for three Internet standards: RFC 3927 Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses RFC 6762 Multicast DNS RFC 6763 DNS-Based Service Discovery WAC For a bound accessory, support Wireless Accessory Configuration (WAC). This is a relatively big ask — supporting WAC requires you to join the MFi Program — but it has some huge benefits: You don’t need to write an app to configure your accessory. The user will be able to do it directly from Settings. If you do write an app, you can use the EAWiFiUnconfiguredAccessoryBrowser class to simplify your configuration process. HomeKit For a bound accessory that works in the user’s home, consider supporting HomeKit. This yields the same onboarding benefits as WAC, and many other benefits as well. Also, you can get started with the HomeKit Open Source Accessory Development Kit (ADK). Bluetooth LE If your accessory supports Bluetooth LE, think about how you can use that to improve your app’s user experience. For an example of that, see SSID Scanning, below. Claiming the Default Route, Or Not? If your accessory publishes a Wi-Fi network, a key design decision is whether to stand up enough infrastructure for an iOS device to make it the default route. IMPORTANT To learn more about how iOS makes the decision to switch the default route, see The iOS Wi-Fi Lifecycle and Network Interface Concepts. This decision has significant implications. If the accessory’s network becomes the default route, most network connections from iOS will be routed to your accessory. If it doesn’t provide a path to the wider Internet, those connections will fail. That includes connections made by your own app. Note It’s possible to get around this by forcing your network connections to run over WWAN. See Binding to an Interface in Network Interface Techniques and Running an HTTP Request over WWAN. Of course, this only works if the user has WWAN. It won’t help most iPad users, for example. OTOH, if your accessory’s network doesn’t become the default route, you’ll see other issues. iOS will not auto-join such a network so, if the user locks their device, they’ll have to manually join the network again. In my experience a lot of accessories choose to become the default route in situations where they shouldn’t. For example, a bound accessory is never going to be able to provide a path to the wider Internet so it probably shouldn’t become the default route. However, there are cases where it absolutely makes sense, the most obvious being that of a gateway accessory. Acting as a Captive Network, or Not? If your accessory becomes the default route you must then decide whether to act like a captive network or not. IMPORTANT To learn more about how iOS determines whether a network is captive, see The iOS Wi-Fi Lifecycle. For bound and stand-alone accessories, becoming a captive network is generally a bad idea. When the user joins your network, the captive network UI comes up and they have to successfully complete it to stay on the network. If they cancel out, iOS will leave the network. That makes it hard for the user to run your app while their iOS device is on your accessory’s network. In contrast, it’s more reasonable for a gateway accessory to act as a captive network. SSID Scanning Many developers think that TN3111 iOS Wi-Fi API overview is lying when it says: iOS does not have a general-purpose API for Wi-Fi scanning It is not. Many developers think that the Hotspot Helper API is a panacea that will fix all their Wi-Fi accessory integration issues, if only they could get the entitlement to use it. It will not. Note this comment in the official docs: 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. Even if you had the entitlement you would run into these technical restrictions. The API was specifically designed to support hotspot navigation — in this context hotspots are “Wi-Fi networks where the user must interact with the network to gain access to the wider Internet” — and it does not give you access to on-demand real-time Wi-Fi scan results. Many developers look at another developer’s app, see that it’s displaying real-time Wi-Fi scan results, and think there’s some special deal with Apple that’ll make that work. There is not. In reality, Wi-Fi accessory developers have come up with a variety of creative approaches for this, including: If you have a bound accessory, you might add WAC support, which makes this whole issue go away. In many cases, you can avoid the need for Wi-Fi scan results by adopting AccessorySetupKit. You might build your accessory with a barcode containing the info required to join its network, and scan that from your app. This is the premise behind the Configuring a Wi-Fi Accessory to Join the User’s Network sample code. You might configure all your accessories to have a common SSID prefix, and then take advantage of the prefix support in NEHotspotConfigurationManager. See Programmatically Joining a Network, below. You might have your app talk to your accessory via some other means, like Bluetooth LE, and have the accessory scan for Wi-Fi networks and return the results. Programmatically Joining a Network Network Extension framework has an API, NEHotspotConfigurationManager, to programmatically join a network, either temporarily or as a known network that supports auto-join. For the details, see Wi-Fi Configuration. One feature that’s particularly useful is it’s prefix support, allowing you to create a configuration that’ll join any network with a specific prefix. See the init(ssidPrefix:) initialiser for the details. For examples of how to use this API, see: Configuring a Wi-Fi Accessory to Join the User’s Network — It shows all the steps for one approach for getting a non-WAC bound accessory on to the user’s network. NEHotspotConfiguration Sample — Use this to explore the API in general. Secure Communication Users expect all network communication to be done securely. For some ideas on how to set up a secure connection to an accessory, see TLS For Accessory Developers. Revision History 2025-11-05 Added a link to the Accessory Design Guidelines for Apple Devices. 2025-06-19 Added a preliminary discussion of Wi-Fi Aware. 2024-09-12 Improved the discussion of AccessorySetupKit. 2024-07-16 Added a preliminary discussion of AccessorySetupKit. 2023-10-11 Added the HomeKit section. Fixed the link in Secure Communication to point to TLS For Accessory Developers. 2023-07-23 First posted.

Hello all, Does anyone know how long it will take Apple to approve multicast entitlement approval after the Apple form is submitted? Any input would be appreciated. Thank you Allyson

Hi Team, I have a Network Extension application and UI frontend for it. The UI frontend talks to the Network Extension using XPC, as provided by NEMachServiceName. On M2 machine, The application and XPC connection works fine on clean installation. But, when the application is upgraded, the XPC connection keeps failing. Upgrade steps: PreInstall script kills the running processes, both UI and Network Extension Let installation continue PostInstall script to launch the application after installation complete. Following code is successful to the point of resume from UI application NSXPCInterface *exportedInterface = [NSXPCInterface interfaceWithProtocol:@protocol(IPCUIObject)]; newConnection.exportedInterface = exportedInterface; newConnection.exportedObject = delegate; NSXPCInterface *remoteObjectInterface = [NSXPCInterface interfaceWithProtocol:@protocol(IPCExtObject)]; newConnection.remoteObjectInterface = remoteObjectInterface; self.currentConnection = newConnection; [newConnection resume]; But it fails to get the object id<IPCExtObject> providerProxy = [self.currentConnection remoteObjectProxyWithErrorHandler:^(NSError *registerError) { }]; Please note, this only fails for M2. For M1, this exact code is running fine. Additionally, if I uninstall the application by dropping it in Trash and then installing the newer version, then too, the application works fine.

Hello, We are facing what we believe is a compatibility issue with two networking APIs. If the Network extension VPN configuration has includeAllNetworks flag enabled and the NEHotspotHelper is registered. The user has internet connection but it is blocked, and there user will get internet back only after restarting the device. VPN Configuration is as below while connecting to VPN, { localizedDescription = WLVPN WireGuard Configuration enabled = YES protocolConfiguration = { serverAddress = <18-char-str> passwordReference = {length = 20, bytes = 0x67656e70ed0d05c06b1b4896bf4fef2031e1a92d} disconnectOnSleep = NO includeAllNetworks = YES excludeLocalNetworks = YES excludeCellularServices = YES excludeAPNs = YES excludeDeviceCommunication = YES enforceRoutes = NO providerBundleIdentifier = com.wlvpn.ios.consumervpn.network-extension } onDemandEnabled = NO onDemandRules = () } After running the code shown below. Regardless if the VPN is connected or not, the user needs to restart his device to regain internet access. private let neHelperQueue = DispatchQueue(label: "com.wlvpn.ios.consumervpn.hotspot", attributes: DispatchQueue.Attributes.concurrent) let options: [String: NSObject] = [kNEHotspotHelperOptionDisplayName : "" as NSObject] let status = NEHotspotHelper.register(options: nil, queue: neHelperQueue) { cmd in NSLog("Received command: \(cmd.commandType.rawValue)") } We need to use the includeAllNetworks flag to prevent the novel "Tunnel vision" vulnerability. Can we please have some help getting confirmation if both functionalities are compatible or if there's a way to enable them at the same time?

Recently, my application was having trouble sending udp messages after it was reinstalled. The cause of the problem was initially that I did not grant local network permissions when I reinstalled, I was aware of the problem, so udp worked fine after I granted permissions. However, the next time I repeat the previous operation, I also do not grant local network permissions, and then turn it back on in the Settings, and udp does not work properly (no messages can be sent, the system version and code have not changed). Fortunately, udp worked after rebooting the phone, and more importantly, I was able to repeat the problem many times. So I want to know if the process between when I re-uninstall the app and deny local network permissions, and when I turn it back on in Settings, is that permissions have been granted normally, and not fake, and not required a reboot to reset something for udp to take effect. I'm not sure if it's the system, or if it's a similar situation as described here, hopefully that will help me find out

We're encountering an issue with our Network Extension (utilizing NEPacketTunnelProvider and NETransparentProxy) on macOS 14.5 (23F79). On some systems, the VPN fails to automatically start after a reboot despite calling startVPNTunnel(). There are no error messages. Our code attempts to start the tunnel: ....... do { try manager.connection.startVPNTunnel() Logger.default("Started tunnel successfully") } catch { Logger.error("Failed to launch tunnel") } ...... System log analysis reveals the tunnel stopping due to userLogout (NEProviderStopReason(rawValue: 12)) during reboot. However, the Transparent Proxy stops due to userInitiated (NEProviderStopReason(rawValue: 1)) for the same reboot. We need to understand: Why the VPNTunnel isn't starting automatically. Why the userLogout reason is triggered during reboot. Additional Context: We have manually started the VPN from System Settings before reboot.

Network is not working when over 50MB size file upload smb using NEFilterDataProvider in macOS The event received through NEFilterDataProvider is returned immediately without doing any other work. override func handleNewFlow(_ flow: NEFilterFlow) -> NEFilterNewFlowVerdict { guard let socketFlow = flow as? NEFilterSocketFlow, let auditToken = socketFlow.sourceAppAuditToken, let remoteEndpoint = socketFlow.remoteEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint, let localEndpoint = socketFlow.localEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint else { return .allow() } return .filterDataVerdict(withFilterInbound: true, peekInboundBytes: Int.max, filterOutbound: true, peekOutboundBytes: Int.max) } override func handleInboundData(from flow: NEFilterFlow, readBytesStartOffset offset: Int, readBytes: Data) -> NEFilterDataVerdict { guard let socketFlow = flow as? NEFilterSocketFlow, let auditToken = socketFlow.sourceAppAuditToken, let remoteEndpoint = socketFlow.remoteEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint, let localEndpoint = socketFlow.localEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint else { return .allow() } return NEFilterDataVerdict(passBytes: readBytes.count, peekBytes: Int.max) } override func handleOutboundData(from flow: NEFilterFlow, readBytesStartOffset offset: Int, readBytes: Data) -> NEFilterDataVerdict { guard let socketFlow = flow as? NEFilterSocketFlow, let auditToken = socketFlow.sourceAppAuditToken, let remoteEndpoint = socketFlow.remoteEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint, let localEndpoint = socketFlow.localEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint else { return .allow() } return NEFilterDataVerdict(passBytes: readBytes.count, peekBytes: Int.max) } override func handleInboundDataComplete(for flow: NEFilterFlow) -> NEFilterDataVerdict { guard let socketFlow = flow as? NEFilterSocketFlow, let auditToken = socketFlow.sourceAppAuditToken, let remoteEndpoint = socketFlow.remoteEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint, let localEndpoint = socketFlow.localEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint else { return .allow() } return .allow() } override func handleOutboundDataComplete(for flow: NEFilterFlow) -> NEFilterDataVerdict { guard let socketFlow = flow as? NEFilterSocketFlow, let auditToken = socketFlow.sourceAppAuditToken, let remoteEndpoint = socketFlow.remoteEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint, let localEndpoint = socketFlow.localEndpoint as? NWHostEndpoint else { return .allow() } return .allow() } how can i fix it?

When a VPN is active, RCS messaging does not work on iOS 18. I work on an iOS VPN app, and we were very appreciative of the excludeCellularServices network flag that was released during the iOS 16 cycle. It's a great solution to ensure the VPN doesn't interfere with cellular network features from the cellular provider. Separately - As a user, I'm excited that iOS 18 includes RCS messaging. Unfortunately, RCS messaging is not working when our VPN is active (when checking on the iOS 18 release candidate). My guess is that RCS is not excluded from the VPN tunnel, even when excludeCellularServices is true. It seems like RCS should be added in this situation, as it is a cell provider service. Can RCS be added as a service that is excluded from the VPN tunnel when excludeCellularServices is true? (I've also sent this via feedback assistant, as 15094270.)

I am in the middle of investigating an issue arising in the call to setsockopt syscall where it returns an undocumented and unexpected errno. As part of that, I'm looking for a way to list any socket content filters or any such extensions are in play on the system where this happens. To do that, I ran: systemextensionsctl list That retuns the following output: 0 extension(s) which seems to indicate there's no filters or extensions in play. However, when I do: netstat -s among other things, it shows: net_api: 2 interface filters currently attached 2 interface filters currently attached by OS 2 interface filters attached since boot 2 interface filters attached since boot by OS ... 4 socket filters currently attached 4 socket filters currently attached by OS 4 socket filters attached since boot 4 socket filters attached since boot by OS What would be the right command/tool/options that I could use to list all the socket filters/extensions (and their details) that are in use and applicable when a call to setsockopt is made from an application on that system? Edit: This is on a macosx-aarch64 with various different OS versions - 13.6.7, 14.3.1 and even 14.4.1.

My company has a server that supports ticket-based TLS session resumption (per RFC 5077). We have done Wireshark captures that show that our iOS client app, which uses URLSession for REST and WebSocket connections to the server, is not sending the TLS "session_ticket" extension in the Client Hello package that necessary to enable ticket-based resumption with the server. Is it expected that URLSession does not support ticket-based TLS session resumption? If "yes", is there any way to tell URLSession to enable ticket-based session resumption? the lower-level API set_protocol_options_set_tls_tickets_enabled() hints that the overall TLS / HTTP stack on IOS does support ticket-based resumption, but I can't see how to use that low-level API with URLSession. I can provide (lots) more technical details if necessary, but hopefully this is enough context to determine whether ticket-based TLS resumption is supported with URLSession. Any tips / clarifications would be greatly appreciated.

Our app is developed for iOS, but some users also run it on macOS (as an iOS app via Apple Silicon). The app requires local network permission, which works perfectly on iOS. Previously, the connection also worked fine on macOS, but since the recent macOS update, the app can no longer connect to our device. Additionally, our app on macOS doesn't prompt for local network permission at all, whereas it does on iOS. Is this a known issue with iOS apps running on macOS? Has anyone else experienced this problem, or is there a workaround? Any help would be appreciated!

Hello, I am writing a NetworkExtension VPN using custom protocol and our client would like to able to use 5G network slice on the VPN, is this possible at all? From Apple's documentation, I found the following statement: If both network slicing and VPN are configured for an app or device, the VPN connection takes precedence over the network slice, rendering the network slice unused. Is it possible to assign a network slice on a NetworkExtension-based VPN and let the VPN traffic uses the assign network slice? Many thanks

Starting on macOS Sequoia, flows originated in Firefox have an empty sourceAppAuditToken. Other apps contain a valid token. Background: in order to fetch process info for a certain NEFilterFlow, my content filter extension uses sourceAppAuditToken, audit_token_to_pid() and proc_* (as recommended in #126820). When that fails, we use SecCodeCopyGuestWithAttributes, recommended in some other thread as a better alternative. Both approaches break when the sourceAppAuditToken is empty since they need the pid. Debugging: My logging shows audit token is empty for Firefox Typical logs from com.apple.networkextension also indicate it fails to fetch the same info I'm looking for: com.apple.networkextension debug 11:22:07.024588-0300 Fetching appInfo from cache for pid: 948 uuid: 5C40B765-C6C9-3641-A822-2BC44D264361 bundle id: (null) com.apple.networkextension debug 11:22:07.024657-0300 Calling delegate lookup handler with pid: 948, uuid: 5C40B765-C6C9-3641-A822-2BC44D264361, bundleID: (null) com.apple.networkextension debug 11:22:07.025856-0300 Could not look up appInfo for pid: 948 bundle id: (null) uuid: 5C40B765-C6C9-3641-A822-2BC44D264361 com.apple.networkextension error 11:22:07.025897-0300 Could not find app info, return the original flow without filling in app info Handling new flow: identifier = D89B5B5D-793C-4940-D992-4E90F2AD1900 procPID = 953 eprocPID = 948 direction = outbound inBytes = 0 outBytes = 0 signature = {length = 32, bytes = 0x4afeafde b484aa0c c5cb8698 0567343d ... 7cdee33e 135666dd } socketID = 19adf2904e92d9 localEndpoint = 0.0.0.0:0 remoteEndpoint = 17.33.202.170:443 protocol = 6 family = 2 type = 1 procUUID = 0C68E603-967E-3643-B225-378BD2A655F7 eprocUUID = 5C40B765-C6C9-3641-A822-2BC44D264361 Perhaps there's a bug when generating the audit token or could it be something with the Firefox signature? I double-checked Firefox and it seems fine: $ codesign --verify --verbose /Applications/Firefox.app /Applications/Firefox.app: valid on disk /Applications/Firefox.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement Not sure if relevant, but codesign with -dv showed different flags in CodeDirectory when compared to chrome: codesign -dv /Applications/Firefox.app ... CodeDirectory v=20500 size=863 flags=0x10000(runtime) hashes=18+5 ... Versus chrome CodeDirectory v=20500 size=1821 flags=0x12a00(kill,restrict,library-validation,runtime) hashes=46+7 location=embedded

We use as content filter in our app to monitor flows, we gather data about the flow and block flows deemed suspicious. Our content filter is activated/deactivated by a UI app but the flows are reported via XPC to a separate daemon process for analysis. As of macOS 15, we are seeing cases where flows are missing or flows are not received at all by the content filter. The behaviour is not consistent, some devices seem to receive flows normally but others don't. It appears Intel devices are much less prone to showing the problem, whereas Arm devices routinely exhibit missing flows. On macOS 14 or earlier, there is no sign of missing flows. Testing on earlier beta versions of macOS 15 did not appear to show the problem, however I can't rule out if issue was present but it wasn't spotted. Experimenting with simple examples of using a content filter (e.g. QNE2FilterMac) does not appear to reproduce the issue. Questions, What has changed between macOS 14 and 15 that could be the cause of the lack of flows? Is our approach to using an app activated content filter reporting to a daemon connected via XPC unsupported?

My application needs local network access. When it is started for the first time, the user gets a prompt to enable local network access (as expected). The application is then shown as enabled in Privacy & Security / Local Network and local network access is working. If macOS is then shutdown and restarted, local network access is blocked for the application even though it is still shown as enabled in Privacy & Security / Local Network. Local network access can be restored either by toggling permission off and on in Privacy & Security / Local Network or by disabling and enabling Wi-Fi. This behaviour is consistent on Sequoia 15.1. It happens sometimes on 15.0 and 15.0.1 but not every time. Is my application doing something wrong or is this a Sequoia issue? If it is a Sequoia issue, is there some change I can make to my application to work around it?