Re: MacOS signing

[Ted Reed]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:

> Newer versions of macOS will still let you run unsigned
> software. Depending on how you launch the program, you may have to
> perform extra steps via the Security preferences panel, but it doesnʼt
> stop you.
>
> FWIW, I never have this problem because I launch Emacs from the cli,
> which sidesteps this particular nonsense.
>
> (this is for macOS 11.6.5, Big Sur. Later versions may behave
> differently)

I have a computer running macOS 12.3, which I believe is the most recent
public version and have no trouble running the nixpkgs macport
(mituharu) version on it. As far as I can tell, there's no signing step
in the build scripts, and I've used the same scripts to build it from
scratch with a an additional build-time option without anything
requiring signing that I've seen.

I looked up how to verify such signatures and I think this indicates
that it's not signed, although I'm not 100% certain I got the command
right:

❯ codesign -dv --verbose=4 
/nix/store/0hysqxpi2fwrwpivza8ca7z5fr9hyzkh-emacs-mac-27.2-8.2/Applications/Emacs.app
/nix/store/0hysqxpi2fwrwpivza8ca7z5fr9hyzkh-emacs-mac-27.2-8.2/Applications/Emacs.app:
 code object is not signed at all

I also can launch it from the CLI or via Spotlight without any
difficulty, except that Spotlight has a hard time finding the most
recent version consistently, so I mostly launch from my terminal now,
just to ensure it's using the right one.

-- Ted Reed