/ mobile

Quick n' dirty self signing guide

As you might have noticed there hasn't been very much activity on gsmblog lately. This is due to the fact that I have been busy getting the new version of gsmstuff.net running, and also been traveling a bit lately. But updates should be more regular from now on.

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Anyhow, I wanted to try out the early bird version of mShell for 3rd edition, and realized that I would have to sign the application myself to be able to install it. I realized that I actually never had done that before, and when trying to do it I realized it would be easier with a tutorial. Unfortunately all of the guides out there seemed to be rather lousy. Most of them step by step guides, with millions of pictures that just made things harder to understand. So I decided to make my own quick and dirty guide, for those of us who have used a computer before, and don't need a picture-by-picture tutorial. So here goes.

Authors Note:

Symbiansigned has changed their signing process.

This guide is no longer valid. I also no longer can be of any help with the signing process, so please don't bother sending me any more requests.

  Download the zip file at from the bottom of this page, unzip the two files, and put them in the same directory as the [Symbian](/tag/symbian) program you want to sign.

Go to Symbiansigned and register a new account. Log on to the page with your new account, and download the developer certificate request tool. Install the developer certificate tool.

Start the developer certificate tool. On the first screen you will be asked to specify an output file. Hit the > button, navigate to the folder where the Symbian application you want to sign is, and enter any filename you like. Hit next.

In the next screen choose the no option for ACS Pub ID available. Hit the > button next to the Private key file and select the sultan.key file you unzipped previously. Enter 0123456 as Private key file password. Hit next.

In the next screen fill out Country, State and Company. You can fill out anything you like, it doesn't really matter what you fill out, just that you fill out something. Hit next.

In the next screen hit the > button next to IMEI(s). In the popup window that appears fill in the EMEI of the device you are planning on running the Symbian application on. Hit add. Select all of the options below Application Capabilities, and hit the add button, followed by the next button.

In the next screen, hit finish. The filename you entered in step 1 with a .csr ending should now have been created in the same directory as the Symbian application you are going to sign.

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Log on to Symbiansigned again. Go to the My Symbian signed page, and click the Developer>Certificates>Request link. Upload the .csr file you previously created.

Now click the My Devcerts link. There should be a brand new certificate there that you can download. Download it into the directory where the application you want to sign is. (I had trouble with opera calling it a .htm file, so I had to rename the file manually to .cer afterwards)

Finally, hit winkey+r, type cmd and hit enter. Use the cd command to switch to the directory where your Symbian application is located. Enter the command signsis aaaaa.sis aaaaa_signed.sis bbbb.cer sultan.key 0123456 where aaaaa is the name of the Symbian application you want to sign and bbbb is the .cer file you downloaded above. A new version of your Symbian application named aaaaa_signed.sis should be available in the same folder, ready to install.

Be sure to hang on to the cer file, because you can re-use it any time you like for signing a different application. Just redo the last step with the new application

If you didn't get this to work, feel free to contact me using the contact form. Include your e-mail address, what Symbian application you are trying to sign and your IMEI and I'll help you out, and send you the signed application.

Photo by Helloquence / Unsplash