Modifying entitlement files created by IBM MobileFirst 7.1 for a hybrid iOS App

Question

I have a project using IBM MobileFirst 7.1 with a Hybrid application deployed for iOS.

In this same Hybrid application, we are using some other native iOS SDKs that uses Keychain. We had encountered an issue with the other SDK, that was resolved by modifying the entitlement plist files.

We want to know if it is safe or not to modify Entitlements-Debug.plist and Entitlements-Release.plist files, and if modifying these files can have any impact on the IBM MobileFirst application.

The modification we were asked to do is to add The bundle seed ID on keychain-access-groups (something like 5F537T7102.*)

The old file was having the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>application-identifier</key>
    <string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)$(CFBundleIdentifier)</string>
    <key>keychain-access-groups</key>
    <array>
      <string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)worklight.group</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

The new file is having the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>application-identifier</key>
    <string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)$(CFBundleIdentifier)</string>
    <key>keychain-access-groups</key>
    <array>
        <string>5F537T7102.*</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Is this modification safe and will not have any drawbacks on the application?

Answer 1

By default, MobileFirst applications are part of the worklight.group access group that is defined in the entitlement property file in order to support feature called Simple Data Sharing.

If you are using Simple Data Sharing feature, then your modification may affect the feature else you are good to go.

More information about the Simple Data Sharing feature for iOS Native Applications can be found here .