Use Apple Push Notification Service through Java

Question

Am trying to implement a Java program which sends an Apple Push Notification to an iPhone client app... Found the following library: Java APNs

Provider code:

Created the following code (from Javapns) to use in my app:

try {
    PayLoad payLoad = new PayLoad();

    payLoad.addAlert("My alert message");
    payLoad.addBadge(45);
    payLoad.addSound("default");

    PushNotificationManager pushManager = PushNotificationManager.getInstance();
    pushManager.addDevice("iPhone", "f4201f5d8278fe39545349d0868a24a3b60ed732");
    log.warn("Initializing connectiong with APNS...");

    // Connect to APNs
    pushManager.initializeConnection(HOST, PORT, 
                                 "/etc/Certificates.p12", "password", 
    SSLConnectionHelper.KEYSTORE_TYPE_PKCS12);

    Device client = pushManager.getDevice("Lambo");

    // Send Push
    log.warn("Sending push notification...");
    PushNotificationManager.getInstance().sendNotification(client, payLoad);
 }
 catch (Exception e) {
    throw new ApnsPushNotificationException("Unable to send push " + e);
 }

When I run this app (as you can see through the Log4j statements) there's no exceptions which occur:

  WARN  [MyCode] Initializing connectiong with APNS...
  WARN  [MyCode] Sending push notification...

But my client app doesn't receive any notifications!

IDPP Registration Process:

Also, did the following on the iPhone Developer Program Portal (IDPP):

• Created the APNS based SSL Certificate and Keys

• Created and installed the provisioning profile

• Installed the SSL Certificate and Key on the server.

Have read over the Apple Push Notification Service Guide several times and noticed a few things:

(1) On page 15, it states that the device token is not the same as the device UDID (which I am currently incorrectly passing in as the second parameter inside the PushNotificationManager.addDevice() method (see above)).

On page 17, it states:

"APNs generates a device token using information contained in the unique device certificate. The device token contains an identifier of the device. It then encrypts the device token with a token key and returns it to the device. The device returns the device token to the requesting application as an NSData object. The application then must deliver the device token to its provider in either binary or hexidecimal format."

iPhone OS Client Implementation

(2) After reading pages 33 - 34, I discovered that I didn't include the Objective-C code to have the app register with APNs.

Am not an Objective-C developer, so is this where I can recover the device code or do I have to get it from the certificate?

Where do I obtain the device token (sorry, someone else wrote the Objective-C client app and I am a Java Developer)?

Question(s):

(1) With the exception of not knowing where to get the device token and the mobile client code registration, is there anything else that I have not looked over or missed?

(2) Am I using the Javapns library the right way?

Thank you for taking the time to read this...

Answer 1

As a shameful self-advertising, I encourage to use java-apns library. Your code will look like:

ApnsService service =
     APNS.newService()
     .withCert("/etc/Certificates.p12", "password")
     .withSandboxDestination() // or .withProductionDestination()
     .build();

String payload =
    APNS.newPayload()
    .alertBody("My alert message")
    .badge(45)
    .sound("default")
    .build();

String deviceToken = "f4201f5d8278fe39545349d0868a24a3b60ed732";

log.warn("Sending push notification...");
service.push(deviceToken, payload);

Answer 2

Just a little tip, in order to convert your received token into a format suitable for registration with javapns, this code will do the trick:

- (NSString *)convertTokenToDeviceID:(NSData *)token {
NSMutableString *deviceID = [NSMutableString string];

// iterate through the bytes and convert to hex
unsigned char *ptr = (unsigned char *)[token bytes];

for (NSInteger i=0; i < 32; ++i) {
    [deviceID appendString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%02x", ptr[i]]];
}

return deviceID;

}

Answer 3

I tried this and I keep getting hanged when sending the notification, and nothing gets sent.

The issue stems from the following function:

         public void sendNotification(Device device, PayLoad payload) 

It seems that the bufferedreader has NULL

           BufferedReader in = 
           new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(this.socket.getInputStream() ) );

So when this portion of the code gets hit it just hangs there in endless loop

  logger.debug( "In: [" + in.readLine() + "]" );

This output is [null]

So then right after then the loops get executed:

      while ( ! this.socket.isInputShutdown() ) {
          while( in.ready() ) {
              logger.debug("ready now");
              logger.debug(in.readLine());
              System.out.println( this.socket.getInputStream().read() );
          }
      }

The code enters the first while loop and waits for the BufferedReader in to be ready and just keeps waiting..... ad that is your hanging