Using jarsigner -verify on an APK asks me to specify an alias?

Question

I'm trying to check the signature information on an APK. The docs say to use

jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs app.apk

and various SO questions agree. But if I grab JDK 1.7 and do that, I get the error:

Please specify alias name

Which is hard to work with, considering that googling the error message returns nothing but links to the jarsigner source.

What's going on?

if you use an ide like eclispse its far more easy. – Its not blank Dec 07 '11 at 03:46 — Its not blank, Dec 07 '11 at 03:46

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 07 '11 at 03:35

3

An alias should only be required if you are signing an APK. What version of the JDK are you using? Is it the Sun/Oracle JDK?

BTW, you shouldn't use Java 7 for android development, it is not officially supported. Also note that the jarsigner default digest algorithm has been changed, so signing with Java 6 and Java 7 will produce different results if you don't explicitly specify the digest algorithm.

answered Dec 07 '11 at 03:35

Nikolay Elenkov

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I was using JDK1.7.0_01, I'm trying 1.6 now. (I'm not a Java guy, I just grabbed what appeared to be the recommended release from Sun.) – fenomas Dec 07 '11 at 04:09

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '13 at 11:34

2

I found the same error could be happening if the alias contains spaces:

ALIAS WITH SPACES

I managed to overcome this by specifying the alias with quotes. This works even within properties of Maven files:

'ALIAS WITH SPACES'

answered Jul 25 '13 at 11:34

Giorgio

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 02 '17 at 11:51

1

use:
$ jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs app.apk

on app > build > ouputs > apk path

if you see CN phrase then your .apk is "debug",

else congrats! you signed your .apk, its "release" now.

answered Jan 02 '17 at 11:51

Osman Yalın

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Using jarsigner -verify on an APK asks me to specify an alias?

3 Answers3