In the context of APNs, does p8 and p12 mean token and certificate based authentication respectively?

Question

From what I know, PKCS 8 is often used to store private keys, and PKCS 12 is often used to store certificates.

And to communicate with APNs, you need authentication tokens or certificates.

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/CommunicatingwithAPNs.html

Does that mean those .p8 files are keys used to create tokens, and those .p12 files are used as certificates?

Answer 1

Yes. Apple Push Notification Authentication Key (P8 format) is used to generate Server side tokens. You do not need a certificate here. (This is mainly used when you have multiple apps under the same account as this key is same for all the apps unlike certificates). So using a same connection, your provider can talk to multiple apps using a mandatory 'authorization' header. Every post request gets validated henceforth by APNS cloud using this header.

P12 format exist for generating Certificates for authenticating provider against a particular AppID. Here for every individual app, a separate certificate is required. You do not need 'authorization' header here as connection itself is authenticated.

I hope it helps.