For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

Enabling OpenSSL for Cordova iOS

The MobileFirst iOS SDK uses native iOS APIs for cryptography. We can configure the MobileFirst V8.0.0 to use the OpenSSL cryptography library in your Cordova iOS app.

The encryption/decryption functionalities are provided with the following Javascript APIs:

WL.SecurityUtils.encryptText WL.SecurityUtils.decryptWithKey

Option 1: Native encryption/decryption

By default MobileFirst provides native encryption/decryption, without using OpenSSL. This is equivalent to explicitly setting the encryption/decryption behavior:

WL.SecurityUtils.enableNativeEncryption(true)

Option 2: Enabling OpenSSL

MobileFirst provided OpenSSL is disabled by default.

To install the necessary frameworks for supporting OpenSSL, first install the Cordova plug-in:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-mfp-encrypt-utils

The following code enables the OpenSSL option for the encryption/decryption:

WL.SecurityUtils.enableNativeEncryption(false)

With this setup, the encryption/decryption calls use OpenSSL as in previous versions of MobileFirst.

Migration options

If you have an IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Foundation project written in an earlier version, you may need to incorporate changes to continue using OpenSSL.

• If the application is not using encryption/decryption APIs, and no encrypted data is cached on the device, no action is needed.
• If the application is using encryption/decryption APIs you have the option of using these APIs with or without OpenSSL.
  • Migrating to native encryption:
    1. Make sure the default native encryption/decryption option is chosen (see Option 1).
    2. Migrating cached data: If the previous installation of IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation saved encrypted data to the device using OpenSSL, but the native encryption/decryption option is now chosen, the stored data must be decrypted. The first time the application attempts to decrypt the data it will fall back to OpenSSL and then encrypt it using native encryption. This way the data will be auto-migrated to native encryption.

       Note: To allow the decryption from OpenSSL, you must add the OpenSSL frameworks by installing the Cordova plug-in:

       cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-mfp-encrypt-utils

  • Continuing with OpenSSL: If OpenSSL is required use the setup described in Option 2.

Parent topic: Develop Cordova apps for iOS