CocoaFob is a set of helper code snippets for registration code generation and verification in Objective-C applications, integrated with registration code generation in Potion Store http://www.potionfactory.com/potionstore and FastSpring http://fastspring.com.

The current implementation uses DSA to generate registration keys, which significantly reduces chances of crackers producing key generators for your software. Unfortunately, it also means the registration code can be quite long and has variable length.

To make registration codes human-readable, CocoaFob encodes them using a slightly modified base32 to avoid ambiguous characters. It also groups codes in sets of five characters separated by dashes. A sample registration code produced using a 512-bit DSA key looks like this:

GAWQE-FCUGU-7Z5JE-WEVRA-PSGEQ-Y25KX-9ZJQQ-GJTQC-CUAJL-ATBR9-WV887-8KAJM-QK7DT-EZHXJ-CR99C-A

One of the advantages of DSA is that for a given registration name, each generated code is different, as there is a random element introduced during the process.

The name 'CocoaFob' is a combination of 'Cocoa' (the Mac and iOS programming framework) and 'Fob' (a key fob is something you keep your keys on).

CocoaFob provides the following for your application:

• Secure asymmetric cryptography-based registration key generation and verification using DSA.

• Support for key generation in Objective-C and Ruby and verification in Objective-C for integration in both your Cocoa application and Potion Store.

• Support for custom URL scheme for automatic application registration.

There is no framework or a library to link against. You include the files you need in your application project directly and are free to modify the code in any way you need.

You may also find other snippets of code useful, such as base32 and base64 encoding/decoding functions, as well as categories extending NSString and NSData classes with base32 and base64 methods.

The best way to get the latest version of the code is to clone the main Git repository:

git://github.com/glebd/cocoafob.git

You can also download the latest version from the CocoaFob home page at http://github.com/glebd/cocoafob/.

For more complete examples of how to use CocoaFob, look at the following projects by Alex Clarke: CodexFab https://github.com/machinecodex/CodexFab/ and LicenseExample https://github.com/machinecodex/CodexFab_LicenseExample/.

To register an application that uses CocoaFob, it is necessary to provide a string of source information, which may be as simple as a registration name or arbitrarily complex in case your application is processing the included information in a user-friendly way. For example, as suggested in the sample implementation of Potion Store licence generator, a source string may contain application name, user name and number of copies:

myapp|Joe Bloggs|1

When sending registration mail, you need to provide both the source string and the registration code. Potion Store does this for you. However, small modifications are needed to make automatic activation work.

Potion Store supports automatic activation of an installed application by clicking on a special link in a registration email or on the Thank You store page. For this to work, you need to:

• make your application support a registration URL scheme;

• modify Potion Store so that automatic activation link contains not only registration code, but registration source string as well.

The stock implementation of Potion Store registration code support assumes a registration code is all that is needed to register an application. However, CocoaFob needs to know both registration name and registration code in order to verify the licence. This means when Potion Store generates an automatic registration URL for your application, it needs to include registration source string in it. One of the possible solutions is as follows:

• In your database migration 001_create_tables.rb, increase the length of license_key column in line_items table to 128 characters:

    t.column "license_key", :string, :limit => 128

• In the file app/models/line_item.rb, add the following line at the top:

    require "base64"`

• In the same file find function called license_url near the bottom of the file. Replace it with the following (or modify to your heart's content):

  def license_url
    licensee_name_b64 = Base64.encode64(self.order.licensee_name)
    return "#{self.product.license_url_scheme}://#{licensee_name_b64}/#{self.license_key}" rescue nil
  end

This will make generated registration codes to contain base64-encoded licensee name. When your application is opened by clicking on the registration link, it will parse the code, extract the registration name and use it to verify the licence.

The following files in objc directory provide a sample implementation of support for custom URL schema for application registration. The code is almost literally taken from [3].

To support registration URLs in your application:

• Add files MyApp.scriptSuite and MyApp.scriptTerminology to your project's resources, adjusting strings inside appropriately.

• Add the following to your application's Info.plist file under /plist/dict key (replace mycompany and myapp with strings appropriate for your company and application):

  <key>NSAppleScriptEnabled</key>
  <string>YES</string>
  <key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
  <array>
      <dict>
          <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
          <array>
              <string>com.mycompany.myapp.lic</string>
          </array>
      </dict>
  </array>

• Add the files URLCommand.h and URLCommand.m to your project, paying attention to the TODO: comments in them. Specifically, you may want to save registration information to your application's preferences, and also broadcast a notification of a changed registration information after verifying the supplied registration URL.

• Be sure the URL scheme name in the Info.plist file (com.mycompany.myapp.lic) is the same as the one in the database generation script for Potion Store. It is the file db/migrate/001_create_tables.rb, and the variable is called license_url_scheme.

Test the URL schema support by making a test purchase which results in displaying an activation link, and clicking on it. If you are running your application in debugger, place a breakpoint in the instance method performWithURL: of the class URLCommand. The breakpoint will be triggered when you click on the registration link. You can extract the link into a standalone HTML file so that is available for testing without making any additional test purchases.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Included keys are for demonstration and testing purposes only. DO NOT USE THE INCLUDED KEYS IN YOUR SOFTWARE. Before incorporating CocoaFob into your application, you need to generate a pair of your own DSA keys. I used key length of 512 bit which I thought was enough for the registration code generation purposes.

(0) Make sure OpenSSL is installed. (If you're using Mac OS X, it already is.)

(1) Generate DSA parameters:

openssl dsaparam -out dsaparam.pem 512

(2) Generate an unencrypted DSA private key:

openssl gendsa -out privkey.pem dsaparam.pem

(3) Extract public key from private key:

openssl dsa -in privkey.pem -pubout -out pubkey.pem

See [2] for more information.

CocoaFob is distributed under the BSD License http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php. See the LICENSE file.

[0] The Mac developer community that continues to amaze me.

[1] Base32 implementation is Copyright © 2007 by Samuel Tesla and comes from Ruby base32 gem: http://rubyforge.org/projects/base32/.

[2] OpenSSL key generation HOWTO: http://www.openssl.org/docs/HOWTO/keys.txt

[3] Handling URL schemes in Cocoa: a blog post by Kimbro Staken

[4] Registering a protocol handler for an App: a post on CocoaBuilder mailing list

[5] PHP implementation courtesy of Sandro Noel

[6] Security framework-based implementation by Matt Stevens, http://codeworkshop.net

[7] New API by Danny Greg, http://dannygreg.com