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Open Signing with a DevCert

If you want to use m with certified capabilities on Symbian 3rd/5th Edition phones, the only way is currently to obtain an ACS publisher ID certificate from a certificate issuer and your own developer certificate ("DevCert") from Symbian Signed. This allows you to sign the .sis files containing the binaries with certified capabilities. A developer certificate has the following restrictions:

  • It is bound to a set of specific IMEIs (currently up to 1000), i.e. specific devices, specified when obtaining the certificate. This means that the packages are not installable on other devices.
  • Its validity is currently limited to 36 months.

Obtaining a DevCert

Step by step, a DevCert can be obtained as follows:

First, register yourself with an ACS publisher ID, and install the required software:

  1. Go to www.trustcenter.de/order/publisherid/dev and order your ACS publisher ID certificate. The certificate is not free, it has to be regularly renewed, and obtaining it requires verification of your (our your company's) identity by the issuer.
  2. Go to www.symbiansigned.com and register yourself, with your certified ID.
  3. Download the DevCertRequest application from Symbian Signed, and install it on a PC running Windows.
Then, for each DevCert, execute the following steps:
  1. Make sure you know the IMEI of the phones you want to create the certificate for.
  2. Run the DevCertRequest application. The result will be two files, a certificate request file (.csr suffix) and a private key file (.key suffix), possibly encripted by a password you have chosen.

    The application will tell you quite precisely what it needs. When asked for the application capabilities, select them all. The DevCert version of m requires at least the following 17 capabilities: CommDD, DiskAdmin, LocalServices, Location, MultimediaDD, NetworkControl, NetworkServices, PowerMgmt, ProtServ, ReadDeviceData, ReadUserData, SurroundingsDD, SwEvent, TrustedUI, UserEnvironment, WriteDeviceData, WriteUserData.

  3. Log in to www.symbiansigned.com, select "My Symbian Signed" and request a developer certificate. Upload the certificate request generated before. After a few seconds, the actual certificate should be ready for download from "My DevCerts". Download the file, giving it a .cer or .cert suffix.

Signing m with the DevCert

To sign m with a developer certificate, you need the following:
  1. The unsigned DevCert version of the m installation packages for your device, e.g. mEnvironment-S60-3rd-DC.sis and mShell-S60-3rd-DC.sis.
  2. The signsis.exe application. As this 1.2 MB application cannot be distributed separately, you must download and install an entire Symbian 3rd Edition C++ SDK for (e.g. from developer.nokia.com) to get it.
  3. Your developer certificate file, e.g. MyDevCert.cer.
  4. Your private key file to autenticate the developer certificate, e.g. MyDevCert.key, with password.
Then sign the unsigned installation packages by running the following commands from the Windows command prompt[8]:


signsis -s mEnvironment-S60-3rd-DC.sis 
  mEnvironment-S60-3rd-MyDC.sis 
  MyDevCert.cer MyDevCert.key password
signsis -s mShell-S60-3rd-DC.sis mShell-S60-3rd-MyDC.sis 
  MyDevCert.cer MyDevCert.key password

mEnvironment-S60-3rd-MyDC.sis and mShell-S60-3rd-MyDC.sis should now be installable on the phones specified in the developer certificate.


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