I’m working on an iOS parental-control app that needs to block specific network traffic (e.g. certain domains or URLs). We’ve already obtained the Family Controls entitlement (since our app is explicitly a parental-control solution), but we do not use MDM to supervise devices. In testing, our NEFilterDataProvider extension only activates when the device is enrolled under a managed Family Controls profile. I am aware that we can use a PacketTunnel to achieve this but i was wondering if there is any simpler solution to this? Thanks for you time!

Our application currently uses NEFilterPacketProvider to filter network traffic based on Layer 4 rules (5-tuple: source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port, and protocol) on a packet-by-packet basis. We now want to extend this filtering to also consider the associated process—for example, allowing traffic from a specific source IP to a destination IP and port only if it's associated with a specific local process. That is, we’d like to make filtering decisions not just based on the 5-tuple, but also on the identity of the process either sending or receiving the traffic. We’ve looked into NEFilterSocketProvider, which does expose Layer 7 information such as process identifiers. However, it doesn’t seem to be tightly synchronized with the packet flow handled by NEFilterPacketProvider. As a result, there’s a risk that we might only get process information after the TCP handshake is complete, or before the socket is fully bound—at which point some of the 5-tuple fields (such as the local port) may still be unavailable. What we need is a way to correlate the 5-tuple with the relevant process name (either sender or receiver) at the time the first packet—e.g., a SYN packet—is about to be sent or received. Is there a recommended way to achieve this kind of early, process-aware filtering using NetworkExtension APIs?

I've implemented a custom VPN system extension for macOS, utilizing Packet Tunnel Provider. One of the users reported a problem: he was connected to the VPN, and then his Mac entered sleep mode. Upon waking, the VPN is supposed to connect automatically (because of the on-demand rules). The VPN's status changed to 'connecting', but it remained stuck in this status. From my extension logs, I can see that the 'startTunnelWithOption()' function was called 2 minutes after the user clicked the 'connect' button. From the system logs, I noticed some 'suspicious' logs, but I can't be sure if they are related to the problem. Some of them are: kernel: (Sandbox) Sandbox: nesessionmanager(562) deny(1) system-fsctl (_IO "h" 47) entitlement com.apple.developer.endpoint-security.client not present or not true (I don't need this entitlement at the extension) nesessionmanager: [com.apple.networkextension:] NESMVPNSession[Primary Tunnel:XXXXXX(null)]: Skip a start command from YYYYY:session in state connecting NetworkExtension.com.***: RunningBoard doesn't recognize submitted process - treating as a anonymous process sysextd: activateDecision found existing entry of same version: state activated_enabled, ID FAE... Are any of the logs related to the above problem? How can I debug such issues? What info should I get from the user?

When the machine connects to the network cable through the Thunderbolt interface using the docking station, if the Network Extension shown in the following code is running at this time, after unplugging and reinserting the docking station, the machine will not be able to obtain a valid IP address through DHCP until the system is restarted. @interface MyTransparentProxyProvider : NETransparentProxyProvider @end @implementation MyTransparentProxyProvider - (void)startProxyWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)options completionHandler:(void (^)(NSError *))completionHandler { NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings *objSettings = [[NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings alloc] initWithTunnelRemoteAddress:@"127.0.0.1"]; // included rules NENetworkRule *objIncludedNetworkRule = [[NENetworkRule alloc] initWithRemoteNetwork:nil remotePrefix:0 localNetwork:nil localPrefix:0 protocol:NENetworkRuleProtocolAny direction:NETrafficDirectionOutbound]; NSMutableArray<NENetworkRule *> *arrIncludedNetworkRules = [NSMutableArray array]; [arrIncludedNetworkRules addObject:objIncludedNetworkRule]; objSettings.includedNetworkRules = arrIncludedNetworkRules; // apply [self setTunnelNetworkSettings:objSettings completionHandler: ^(NSError * _Nullable error) { // TODO } ]; if (completionHandler != nil) completionHandler(nil); } - (BOOL)handleNewFlow:(NEAppProxyFlow *)flow { return NO; } @end This problem will not occur if the IP of the DNS server or all UDP ports 53 are excluded in the Network Extension. @interface MyTransparentProxyProvider : NETransparentProxyProvider @end @implementation MyTransparentProxyProvider - (void)startProxyWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)options completionHandler:(void (^)(NSError *))completionHandler { NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings *objSettings = [[NETransparentProxyNetworkSettings alloc] initWithTunnelRemoteAddress:@"127.0.0.1"]; // included rules NENetworkRule *objIncludedNetworkRule = [[NENetworkRule alloc] initWithRemoteNetwork:nil remotePrefix:0 localNetwork:nil localPrefix:0 protocol:NENetworkRuleProtocolAny direction:NETrafficDirectionOutbound]; NSMutableArray<NENetworkRule *> *arrIncludedNetworkRules = [NSMutableArray array]; [arrIncludedNetworkRules addObject:objIncludedNetworkRule]; // excluded rules NENetworkRule *objExcludedNetworkRule = [[NENetworkRule alloc] initWithRemoteNetwork:[NWHostEndpoint endpointWithHostname:@"" port:@(53).stringValue] remotePrefix:0 localNetwork:nil localPrefix:0 protocol:NENetworkRuleProtocolUDP direction:NETrafficDirectionOutbound]; NSMutableArray<NENetworkRule *> *arrExcludedNetworkRules = [NSMutableArray array]; [arrExcludedNetworkRules addObject:objExcludedNetworkRule]; objSettings.includedNetworkRules = arrIncludedNetworkRules; objSettings.excludedNetworkRules = arrExcludedNetworkRules; // apply [self setTunnelNetworkSettings:objSettings completionHandler: ^(NSError * _Nullable error) { // TODO } ]; if (completionHandler != nil) completionHandler(nil); } - (BOOL)handleNewFlow:(NEAppProxyFlow *)flow { return NO; } @end Is MyTransparentProxyProvider in what place do wrong? To handle the connection on port 53, it is necessary to add the implementation of NEDNSProxyProvider? In -[MyTransparentProxyProvider handleNewFlow:] how to reverse DNS? getnameinfo() doesn't work, it returns EAI_NONAME.

I've built a VPN app that is based on wireguard on macOS (I have both AppStore ver. and Developer ID ver). I want to achieve split tunneling function without changing the system route table. Currently, I'm making changes in PacketTunnelProvider: NEPacketTunnelProvider. It has included/excluded routes that function as a split tunnel, just that all changes are immediately reflected on the route table: if I run netstat -rn in terminal, I would see all rules/CIDRs I added, displayed all at once. Since I have a CIDR list of ~800 entries, I'd like to avoid changing the route table directly. I've asked ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, .etc. An idea was to implement an 'interceptor' to intercept all packets in packetFlow(_:readPacketsWithCompletionHandler:), extract the destination IP from each packet, check if it matches your CIDR list, and either reinject it back to the system interface (for local routing) or process it through your tunnel. Well, LLMs could have hallucinations and I've pretty new to macOS programming. I'm asking to make sure I'm on the right track, not going delusional with those LLMs :) So the question is, does the above method sounds feasible? If not, is it possible to achieve split tunneling without changing the route table?

I’m encountering an unexpected issue while using NEHotspotConfigurationManager.shared.apply(...) to connect to a Wi-Fi network. Specifically, I’m receiving a userDenied error, even though the user did not interact with any system prompt. Here’s a version of the code I’m using: let config = NEHotspotConfiguration(ssid: ssid, passphrase: passphrase, isWEP: false) // config.joinOnce = true NEHotspotConfigurationManager.shared.apply(config) { error in if let err = error { let nsErr = err as NSError mlog("err.code:\(nsErr.code)") if nsErr.code == NEHotspotConfigurationError.alreadyAssociated.rawValue { self.findWiFiListAndConnect(ssid, passphrase, overtimeSec, timeStart) } else { self.cmdDelegateQueue.async { self.delegate?.wifiClose(nsErr.code) } } } } The error returned is: wifiClose status: 7 Which corresponds to NEHotspotConfigurationError.userDenied. According to the official Apple documentation, this error should only occur when the user explicitly cancels the system dialog. However, in my case: • No system dialog appears. • The user does nothing, yet the error is still returned. • This issue does not happen every time, but it has been observed across multiple devices. Additional info: • iOS version: 18.5 • Device model: iPhone • joinOnce is not set (defaults to false) • Existing configuration is removed using removeConfiguration(...) before applying Is it possible that under certain system states (e.g. backgrounded, network restrictions, or app permissions), iOS silently fails without showing the prompt? Has anyone else encountered this issue, or does anyone know what could cause this behavior? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hello! My app wants to disable VPN connection. I used the loadFromPreferencesWithCompletionHandler method of NEVPNManager for detection, but regardless of whether the VPN was actually connected or not, it kept returning NEVPNStatusInvalid. How should I handle this issue? NEVPNManager *vpnManager = [NEVPNManager sharedManager]; [vpnManager loadFromPreferencesWithCompletionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { if (error) { return; } NEVPNStatus status = vpnManager.connection.status; switch (status) { case NEVPNStatusInvalid: // kept returning NEVPNStatusInvalid break; case NEVPNStatusDisconnected: break; case NEVPNStatusConnecting: break; case NEVPNStatusConnected: break; case NEVPNStatusReasserting: break; case NEVPNStatusDisconnecting: break; default: break; } }];

We require the following Network Extension entitlements without the -systemextension suffix: packet-tunnel-provider app-proxy-provider Our application uses the legacy NetworkExtension framework, not the newer System Extensions. Although our provisioning profile has been approved by Apple, the entitlements are still being suffixed automatically with -systemextension. Since our code is built on the legacy NetworkExtension framework, this causes VPN functionality to break. Target platforms: macOS 14 & 15 (distributed outside the Mac App Store via a .pkg installer). Is there a way to use the original (non-systemextension) entitlements in this setup?

We have a Network Extension system extension implementing NEFilterPacketProvider to inspect all incoming and outgoing network traffic. We also want to monitor socket-level events such as connect(), bind(), and similar, by leveraging the Endpoint Security framework. Does this require developing a separate system extension for Endpoint Security? Additionally, what is the recommended approach for sharing context and data between the Network Extension and the Endpoint Security extensions?

Hi there, I am working on an app that configures a PacketTunnelProvider to establish a VPN connection. Unfortunately, while a VPN connection is established, I am unable to update the app via testflight. Downloading other app updates works fine. I noticed that after I receive the alert that updating failed, the vpn badge appears at the top of my screen (the same ux that occurs when the connection is first established). So it's almost like it tried to close the tunnel, and seeing that the app update failed it restablishes the tunnel. I am unsure of why I would not be able to update my app. Maybe stopTunnel is not being called with NEProviderStopReason.appUpdate?

Did iOS 18.4 ( and 18.5) with iPhone 14 or 15 introduce new network connectivity or battery optimization policies that would break Local Push Connectivity? (suspend PushProvider in a new way that prevents it from listening and reponding to incoming messages from private network server)? We have a private app using local push connectivity for real time local alerts on a local private network & server. The current application version works on prev devices including iPhone 12, iOS 14-18.1 that we know of. A new(er) installation with iPhone 14s & 15s on iOS 18.4 is having new connectivity problems that seem to occur along with sleep. Previously NEAppPushProvider could listen and reply to incoming messages from server for local notifications, incoming sip invites, and connection health messages. We'll be performing addtional testing to narrow the issue in the meantime, but it would be VERY helpful to have clarification regarding any iOS minor patches since 18.1 that are now breaking existing Local Push Connectivity applications. If so what are the recommendations or remedies. Are known issues with Network Extensions patched in 18.5? Are existing applications expected to redesign their networking solutions for 18.3 & 18.4? Did iOS18 versions later than 18.1 begin requiring new entitlements or exceptions for private apps in app store?

This has happened a few times, including out in the field; it's happened on macOS 14 and 15 I think. "This" is: our app runs, activates the extension, it has to get user approval, and... the system dialogue window never appears. The extension stays waiting for user approval. I've got sysdiagnose from one of the systems, and I see the system log about it going into the user approval needed state, and... nothing else. It's there in Settings, and can be approved then. Has anyone run into this? Ever?

Hi, I developed a network extension program on macOS. I tried to update the program by changing the version number. My update process was to first turn off network filtering via "NEFilterManager.sharedManager.enabled = NO", and then use "[OSSystemExtensionRequest activationRequestForExtension:bundleid queue:dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0)];" to let the system replace the old network extension program. However, sometimes the old network extension process will become a zombie process like pid=86621 in the figure. As long as the zombie process exists, the network cannot be used. After about 10 minutes, it will be cleared and the network will be available. Restarting Wi-Fi can also clear the zombie process immediately. Why is this? How to avoid this problem?

Hi all. I'm exploring the new URL Filter framework that supports filtering URLs in encrypted HTTPS traffic. I'm particularly interested in understanding how we can leverage this in System Extensions on macOS. Can URL Filter be implemented within a macOS System Extension? The documentation seems to focus primarily on iOS implementations. I've attempted to evaluate the "Filtering traffic by URL" sample code by running PIRService on localhost (tried both macOS native binary, and Linux container) and SimpleURLFilter on the iOS simulator (26.0 23A5260l). However, the app fails to apply the configuration with NetworkExtension.NEURLFilterManager.Error 8, and PIRService doesn't receive any requests. Is this functionality supported in the simulator environment? Does Keyword Private Information Retrieval support pattern matching or wildcards? For example, would it be possible to create rules that block URLs like "object-storage.example[.]org/malicious-user/*"? Regarding enterprise use cases: While I understand URL filtering uses Private Information Retrieval to enhance user privacy, enterprise security teams often need visibility into network traffic for security monitoring and incident response. Are there supported approaches for enterprises to monitor HTTPS URLs? Any insights or clarification would be greatly appreciated. Shay

I pushed a configuration to my iPhone through MDM to run the content filter. However, when I modify the configuration by adding some vendor-configuration , I lose connection to the debugger and can no longer see logs or the updated configuration in Xcode. I have to build the app again. Could this be an issue with Xcode, or is it related to MDM or the configuration itself?

I have 3 phones iPhone 14 iOS 18.3 iPhone Xr iOS 18.5 iPhone Xr iOS 18.4.1 My app has a network extension, and I've noticed each phone having their connectivity interupted by calls on the push provider, calling stop with the noNetworkAvailable reason. The point of confusion is that each phone seems to get it's interuption at different times. For example one will get an interuption at 1:00, while the others is fine, while at 3:00 another will get an interuption, while the others are fine. This is confusing since a "no network available" seems to imply a problem with the router, or access point, but if that were the case, one would believe it should affect all the phones on the wifi. I don't see less interuptions on the iPhone14 vs the iPhone Xr. Do you believe the iOS version is affecting the performance? Could you please give me some insight, as to what could be going on inside these phones? P.S. I also see an error pop up when using NWConnection, this is inside the App. The state update handler will sometimes return the state, waiting(POSIX(.ENETDOWN)) Is there any relation to what's going on in the extension?

In our iOS application, we need to list available WiFi networks so that users can select one for device configuration. Here's the workflow: Initially, the hardware device acts as a WiFi Access Point (AP). The app should scan for nearby WiFi networks to detect the device's AP. The app connects temporarily to this AP and sends the selected WiFi credentials to the device. The device then connects to the selected WiFi network and stops broadcasting its AP. Is this flow achievable on iOS? We understand that Apple restricts access to WiFi scanning APIs — are there any supported methods (e.g., using NEHotspotHelper) or entitlements (such as MFi) that could enable this?

Hi, We're hoping someone can help us determine why we're running into some odd behavior where a simple HTTP request is intermittently failing with error code NSURLErrorTimedOut (-1001) Background: HTTP request details: The request is sent from a PacketTunnelProvider and is meant to be a Captive Portal check. The request is insecure (HTTP, instead of HTTPS) but we have configured App Transport Security (ATS) to allow insecure HTTP loads from this hostname. See info.plist excerpt below. The request is sent using NSMutableURLRequest/NSURLSessionDataTask using an Ephemeral session configuration. We only modify 2 properties on NSMutableURLRequest The timeoutInterval property is set to 5 seconds. The allowsCellularAccess property is set to NO. No headers or other configuration are modified. NSURLSessionDataTask completionHandler receives an NSError: We checked the NSError's userInfo dictionary for an underlying error (NSUnderlyingErrorKey). The underlying error shows the same code NSURLErrorTimedOut (-1001). We haven't seen any underlying errors with code NSURLErrorAppTransportSecurityRequiresSecureConnection (-1022) . On a laptop, we confirmed that the Captive portal check site is accessible and loads correctly. Laptop and iOS device are on the same Wi-fi. I've witnessed the error in the debugger, and been able to load the site on my laptop at the same time. So, we don't have any reason to believe this is server related. The PacketTunnelProvider is configured to only handle DNS queries and is not intercepting/routing the HTTP traffic. The DNS query for the Captive portal request is handled correctly. In fact, outside of the PacketTunnelProvider, all sites load in Mobile Safari. So, we're not breaking internet on this device. In other words, we have no reason to believe our DNS handling is interfering with the HTTP request since other HTTP requests are working as expected. We setup CFNetwork Diagnostic Logging (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/network/debugging-https-problems-with-cfnetwork-diagnostic-logging) In console.app, we are able to find some logging on the Timeout See excerpt from Console.app's log below. We confirmed that the nscurl tool did not flag the request (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/identifying-the-source-of-blocked-connections) All ATS tests run with nscurl were successful. See nscurl command used below. Questions: What are next steps to debug this intermittent timeout? What should we look for in the CFNetwork Diagnostic Logging to help debug the issue further? Thanks in advance for your help! ATS configuration setup in both the UI and the PacketTunnel's info.plist file: <key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key> <dict> <key>NSExceptionDomains</key> <dict> <key>subdomain.subdomain.example.com</key> <dict> <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key> <true/> <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key> <true/> </dict> </dict> </dict> Excerpt from Console.app's log: CFNetwork Example PacketTunnel 10836 Diagnostics default 11:30:33.029032-0700 CFNetwork Diagnostics [3:834] 11:30:32.946 { Did Timeout: (null) Loader: request GET http://subdomain.subdomain.example.com/content/cpcheck.txt HTTP/1.1 Timeout Interval: 5.000 seconds init to origin load: 0.000592947s total time: 5.00607s total bytes: 0 } [3:834] nscurl command $ /usr/bin/nscurl --ats-diagnostics --verbose http://subdomain.subdomain.example.com/content/cpcheck.txt

Hi, I'm very new to everything related to networking and I've been trying to make some sort of "parental control" app for macOS where if the user tries to access some website domain (e.g youtube.com) the request is denied and the user can't access the website. Turns out I used NEFilterDataProvider and NEDNSProxyProvider to achieve that but it's not 100% bullet proof. First problem I had is that most of the time I can't access the hostname in the NEFilterDataProvider when trying to extract it from the socketFlow.remoteEndpoint. Most of the time I get the ipv4. And the problem is : I don't know the IPV4 behind the domains, specially when they're changing frequently. if let socketFlow = flow as? NEFilterSocketFlow { let remoteEndpoint = socketFlow.remoteFlowEndpoint switch remoteEndpoint { case .hostPort(let host, _): switch host { case .name(let hostname, _): log.info("🌿 Intercepted hostname: \(hostname, privacy: .public)") case .ipv4(let ipv4): let ipv4String = ipv4.rawValue.map { String($0) }.joined(separator: ".") log.info("🌿 Intercepted IPV4: \(ipv4String, privacy: .public)") So that's why I used the DNSProxyProvider. With it I can get the domains. I succeeded to drop some of the flows by not writing the datagrams when I see a domain to block, but that does not work 100% of the time and sometimes, for youtube.com for example then the website is still reachable (and sometimes it works successfully and I can't access it). I guess because the IP behind the domain has already been resolved and so it's cached somewhere and the browser does not need to send an UDP request anymore to know the IP behind the domain? Is there a 100% bullet proof way to block traffic to specific domains? Ideally I would like to get rid of the DNSProxyProvider and use only the NEFilterDataProvider but if I can't access the hostnames then I don't see how to do it.

Hi Team, With Mac OS26, the "Login Items and Extension" is presented under two tabs " apps " and "Extensions" , when trying to enable the item from apps tab the toggle button is not toggling( looks like this is just a status only button (read only not edit). Any one else seeing this issue for their Network system extension app.