How to send APNs push messages using APNs Auth Key and standard CLI tools?

Question

Apple recently added a new authentication method to APNS ( Apple Push Notification Authentication Key (Sandbox & Production)).

The downloaded key is a .p8 file with a private key:

$ cat APNSAuthKey_3HHEB343FX.p8 -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----- MIGTAgEAMBMGByqGSM49AgEGCCqGSM49AwEHBH...Already.Revoked...lHEjCX1v51W -----END PRIVATE KEY----- 

I am using APNs messages using the old method - adding them to keychain, asking for a certificate and using OpenSSL to send messages to gateway.production.push.apple.com:2195.

How do I send push notifications using standard CLI Linux tools (OpenSSL, Python etc.) using the new format?

Answer 1

If you have curl with HTTP/2 support and openssl with ECDSA support installed on your machine, you can use the following script to test push notifications using an APNs Auth Key:

#!/bin/bash  deviceToken=b27371497b85611baf9052b4ccfb9641ab7fea1d01c91732149c99cc3ed9342f  authKey="./APNSAuthKey_ABC1234DEF.p8" authKeyId=ABC1234DEF teamId=TEAM123456 bundleId=com.example.myapp endpoint=https://api.development.push.apple.com  read -r -d '' payload <<-'EOF' {    "aps": {       "badge": 2,       "category": "mycategory",       "alert": {          "title": "my title",          "subtitle": "my subtitle",          "body": "my body text message"       }    },    "custom": {       "mykey": "myvalue"    } } EOF  # --------------------------------------------------------------------------  base64() {    openssl base64 -e -A | tr -- '+/' '-_' | tr -d = }  sign() {    printf "$1" | openssl dgst -binary -sha256 -sign "$authKey" | base64 }  time=$(date +%s) header=$(printf '{ "alg": "ES256", "kid": "%s" }' "$authKeyId" | base64) claims=$(printf '{ "iss": "%s", "iat": %d }' "$teamId" "$time" | base64) jwt="$header.$claims.$(sign $header.$claims)"  curl --verbose \    --header "content-type: application/json" \    --header "authorization: bearer $jwt" \    --header "apns-topic: $bundleId" \    --data "$payload" \    $endpoint/3/device/$deviceToken 

NOTE: I use a slight variation of this script for testing on macOS with homebrew versions of curl and openssl: http://thrysoee.dk/apns/

Apple now have documentation for this method to Send a Push Notification Using a Token.

Answer 2

You can send push notification by NODE JS using Apple Push Notification Authentication Key (Sandbox & Production). There is a tutorial provided by Elad Nava in this link

This tutorial has all steps of creating the Apple Push Notification Authentication Key and setting up a local server to run Node JS code for sending push notification. You can run the code in your local machine and test the push notification.

Hope this will help.