the manager lands in manager/, next to ios/ and web/. it is a fork of this repo's own app, not of feather, so scripts/apply-rebrand.sh excludes it the same way it excludes web/ — the generic feather-to- ftstore rule would rewrite its app.ftstore.manager identity and mangle the lineage notes in its docs. zsign and idevicekitten were vendored copies in the old repo. they are registered as submodules here instead, pinned to the same commits ios/ uses and verified byte-identical to what was vendored. that keeps 71 MB of duplicated source out of the tree and leaves the xcode project's relative paths intact, so project.pbxproj needed no edits. the server moves to ftstore.app in both apps: managerrepoclient, the seeded default source and managerconfig's fallback. downloadmanager keeps the old admin host in its user-agent allowlist — that check is permissive, not identifying, and dropping it would stop sending the header to installs whose stored override still names the old host. the rest of the admin rename lands too: the client id, the base-url environment variable, the info.plist key, and user-facing errors. the userdefaults override key is renamed with a one-time migration read, so an existing install keeps the address its owner configured instead of falling back to the default. tags gain a third namespace: manager-v* for releases, manager-dev for the rolling prerelease. both repos published to a tag called `dev` before; sharing it here would make each build overwrite the other's release assets.
5.5 KiB
FTStore Manager
A tiny companion app that installs and updates FTStore from a private FTStore Admin — after you import a signing certificate.
FTStore Manager is a stripped-down fork of FTStore (itself a fork of Feather, GPL-3.0). It keeps only the parts needed to:
- Import a signing certificate (
.p12+.mobileprovision). - Download FTStore from a private FTStore Admin, sign it with your certificate, and install it on-device (OTA) — no computer, no pairing file.
- Keep FTStore up to date on a Stable or Developer channel.
Everything else from FTStore (the store browser, the app library, tweaks, advanced signing options, the device-pairing install method) has been removed.
The PAT never ships in the app
FTStore lives in a private GitHub repo (FTStuff/FTStore Admin), so downloading it needs
a GitHub token. Embedding a token in an iOS app is not secure — anyone with the
.ipa can recover an embedded secret at runtime, no matter how it's obfuscated.
So the Manager never contains the token. Instead, FTStore Admin (the Next.js server you already run) exposes a small proxy that holds the token server-side and streams FTStore back to the app:
FTStore Manager ──HTTPS──▶ FTStore Admin proxy ──token (server-side)──▶ GitHub (private repo)
(no token) /api/ftstore-app/* FTStuff/FTStore Admin
The only thing the app needs is your FTStore Admin address. The GitHub token stays server-side in FTStore Admin and is never exposed to the Manager.
Part 1 — FTStore Admin proxy (server)
Two endpoints were added to FTStore Admin (src/app/api/ftstore-app/). They reuse FTStore Admin's
existing server-side GitHub token (GITHUB_TOKEN / DB setting):
| Endpoint | Purpose |
|---|---|
GET /api/ftstore-app/manifest?channel=stable|dev |
Returns { version, updatedAt, size, downloadURL } for the channel. |
GET /api/ftstore-app/download?channel=stable|dev |
Streams the FTStore IPA bytes (the only path that touches the token). |
Channels
- stable → the newest non-
devrelease ofFTStuff/FTStore Adminthat has anFTStore*.ipaasset. Version = the release tag (e.g.v2.8.2). - dev → the release tagged
dev. The version string never changes, so freshness is tracked by the asset'supdated_attimestamp.
Prerequisites: FTStore Admin must be reachable from your device, have GITHUB_TOKEN /
GITHUB_OWNER / GITHUB_REPO configured, and contain an FTStore*.ipa asset on a
stable release and/or on the dev release.
Part 2 — the app
- Identity: display name
FTStore Manager, bundle idapp.ftstore.manager(distinct fromapp.ftstore, so installing FTStore is never a self-install — that's why OTA works without a pairing file). - Config: inject the FTStore Admin address at build time via the
FTSTORE_ADMIN_BASE_URLuser-defined setting inFTStore.xcconfig(it flows intoInfo.plistasFTStoreAdminBaseURL), or use the built-in default. Nothing secret is committed. - Flow: the home screen shows FTStore's state (Not installed / Up to date / Update available) and one button. Tapping it downloads via the proxy, auto-signs with your certificate (prompting you to import one the first time), and installs over the air.
New / changed source (everything else is unmodified FTStore engine)
FTStore/Manager/
ManagerConfig.swift FTStore Admin base URL (Info.plist + override)
FTStoreAdminClient.swift Calls the FTStore Admin manifest endpoint
FTStoreUpdateManager.swift Decides install vs update (stable=version, dev=updatedAt)
ManagerHomeView.swift The single-screen UI
ManagerSettingsView.swift FTStore Admin address, channel, install method, certificates
FTStore/FTStoreManagerApp.swift @main entry (replaces FTStoreApp.swift)
Small edits: AppInstallManager gained an install(InstallRequest) entry point and
DownloadManager gained an optional auth-header parameter; ServerPackModel moved into
Backend/Server/Models/.
Building
macOS + Xcode required (this is a Swift/Xcode project — it can't build on Linux/Windows). Dependencies are vendored (no submodule init needed):
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/FTStuff/FTStore.git
cd FTStore/manager
make # builds packages/FTStore-Manager.ipa (the Manager)
Or open FTStore.xcworkspace in Xcode, or run the Manager Release GitHub Action
(workflow_dispatch or push a v* tag).
The optional
LicensePlist/AltSourceKit/IDeviceKittenSwift packages remain linked (the OTA installer reuses a couple of helpers from them). They can be pruned in Xcode if you want a leaner build.
License & credits
GPL-3.0, inherited from FTStore / Feather. The original Feather copyright notices are
preserved (LICENSE). Huge thanks to:
- Samara / claration — Feather, which FTStore (and this) builds on.
- Felitendo — FTStore and FTStore Admin.
- Zsign, idevice, Vapor, Nuke, *.backloop.dev, plistserver.