This page shows you how to enable App Check in an Apple app, using the
built-in App Attest provider. When you enable App Check, you help ensure
that only your app can access your project's Firebase resources. See an
Overview
of this feature.
App Check uses
App Attest
to verify that requests to Firebase services are coming from your authentic app.
App Check currently does not use App Attest to
analyze fraud risk
.
If you want to use App Check with your own custom provider, see
Implement a custom App Check provider
.
1. Set up your Firebase project
You will need Xcode 12.5+ to use App Attest.
Add Firebase to your Apple project
if you haven’t already
done so.
Register your apps to use App Check with the App Attest provider in the
App Check
section of the
Firebase console.
You usually need to register all of your project's apps, because once you
enable enforcement for a Firebase product, only registered apps will be able
to access the product's backend resources.
Optional
: In the app registration settings, set a custom time-to-live
(TTL) for App Check tokens issued by the provider. You can set the TTL
to any value between 30 minutes and 7 days. When changing this value, be
aware of the following tradeoffs:
- Security: Shorter TTLs provide stronger security, because it reduces the
window in which a leaked or intercepted token can be abused by an
attacker.
- Performance: Shorter TTLs mean your app will perform attestation more
frequently. Because the app attestation process adds latency to network
requests every time it's performed, a short TTL can impact the performance
of your app.
- Quota and cost: Shorter TTLs and frequent re-attestation deplete your
quota faster, and for paid services, potentially cost more.
See
Quotas & limits
.
The default TTL of
1 hour
is reasonable for most apps. Note that the App Check library refreshes
tokens at approximately half the TTL duration.
2. Add the App Check library to your app
Add the dependency for App Check to your project's
Podfile
:
pod 'FirebaseAppCheck'
Or, alternatively, you can use
Swift Package
Manager
instead.
Make sure you're also using the latest version of any other Firebase SDKs
you depend on.
Run
pod install
and open the created
.xcworkspace
file.
In Xcode, add the
App Attest
capability to your app.
In your project's
.entitlements
file, set the App Attest environment to
production
.
3. Initialize App Check
You will need to initialize App Check before you use any other Firebase
SDKs.
First, write an implementation of
AppCheckProviderFactory
. The specifics of
your implementation will depend on your use case.
For example, If you only have users on iOS 14 and later, you can simply always
create
AppAttestProvider
objects:
Swift
Note:
This Firebase product is not available on watchOS targets.
class YourSimpleAppCheckProviderFactory: NSObject, AppCheckProviderFactory {
func createProvider(with app: FirebaseApp) -> AppCheckProvider? {
return AppAttestProvider(app: app)
}
}
Objective-C
Note:
This Firebase product is not available on watchOS targets.
@interface YourSimpleAppCheckProviderFactory : NSObject <FIRAppCheckProviderFactory>
@end
@implementation YourSimpleAppCheckProviderFactory
- (nullable id<FIRAppCheckProvider>)createProviderWithApp:(nonnull FIRApp *)app {
return [[FIRAppAttestProvider alloc] initWithApp:app];
}
@end
Or, you can create
AppAttestProvider
objects on iOS 14 and later, and fall
back to
DeviceCheckProvider
on earlier versions:
Swift
Note:
This Firebase product is not available on watchOS targets.
class YourAppCheckProviderFactory: NSObject, AppCheckProviderFactory {
func createProvider(with app: FirebaseApp) -> AppCheckProvider? {
if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {
return AppAttestProvider(app: app)
} else {
return DeviceCheckProvider(app: app)
}
}
}
Objective-C
Note:
This Firebase product is not available on watchOS targets.
@interface YourAppCheckProviderFactory : NSObject <FIRAppCheckProviderFactory>
@end
@implementation YourAppCheckProviderFactory
- (nullable id<FIRAppCheckProvider>)createProviderWithApp:(nonnull FIRApp *)app {
if (@available(iOS 14.0, *)) {
return [[FIRAppAttestProvider alloc] initWithApp:app];
} else {
return [[FIRDeviceCheckProvider alloc] initWithApp:app];
}
}
@end
After you have implemented a
AppCheckProviderFactory
class, configure
App Check to use it:
Swift
Note:
This Firebase product is not available on watchOS targets.
let providerFactory = YourAppCheckProviderFactory()
AppCheck.setAppCheckProviderFactory(providerFactory)
FirebaseApp.configure()
Objective-C
Note:
This Firebase product is not available on watchOS targets.
YourAppCheckProviderFactory *providerFactory =
[[YourAppCheckProviderFactory alloc] init];
[FIRAppCheck setAppCheckProviderFactory:providerFactory];
[FIRApp configure];
Next steps
Once the App Check library is installed in your app, start distributing the
updated app to your users.
The updated client app will begin sending App Check tokens along with every
request it makes to Firebase, but Firebase products will not require the tokens
to be valid until you enable enforcement in the App Check section of the
Firebase console.
Monitor metrics and enable enforcement
Before you enable enforcement, however, you should make sure that doing so won't
disrupt your existing legitimate users. On the other hand, if you're seeing
suspicious use of your app resources, you might want to enable enforcement
sooner.
To help make this decision, you can look at App Check metrics for the
services you use:
Enable App Check enforcement
When you understand how App Check will affect your users and you're ready to
proceed, you can enable App Check enforcement:
Use App Check in debug environments
If, after you have registered your app for App Check, you want to run your
app in an environment that App Check would normally not classify as valid,
such as a simulator during development, or from a continuous integration (CI)
environment, you can create a debug build of your app that uses the
App Check debug provider instead of a real attestation provider.
See
Use App Check with the debug provider on Apple platforms
.