[ios] How do I load an HTTP URL with App Transport Security enabled in iOS 9?

So, the new beta SDK of iOS released last night has "App Transport Security" which encourages developers to use https instead of http. In principle, this is a great idea, and I already use https in our staging/production environments. However, I don't have https set up in my local development environment, when the iOS app is connecting to a web service I'm running on my laptop.

From a bit of playing around this morning, it appears that the URL loading system will, even if you hand it an http URL, decide to use https instead. Does anyone know how to disable this behaviour -- even just for particular URLs?

As accepted answer has provided required info, and for more info about using and disabling App Transport Security one can find more on this.

For Per-Domain Exceptions add these to the Info.plist:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
  <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
  <dict>
    <key>yourserver.com</key>
    <dict>
      <!--Include to allow subdomains-->
      <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
      <true/>
      <!--Include to allow HTTP requests-->
      <key>NSTemporaryExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
      <true/>
      <!--Include to specify minimum TLS version-->
      <key>NSTemporaryExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
      <string>TLSv1.1</string>
    </dict>
  </dict>
</dict>

But What If I Don’t Know All the Insecure Domains I Need to Use? Use following key in your Info.plist

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
  <!--Include to allow all connections (DANGER)-->
  <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
      <true/>
</dict>

For more detail you can get from this link.

Compiling answers given by @adurdin and @User

Add followings to your info.plist & change localhost.com with your corresponding domain name, you can add multiple domains as well:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>localhost.com</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
            <string>TLSv1.2</string>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSThirdPartyExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
            <string>TLSv1.2</string>
            <key>NSRequiresCertificateTransparency</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

You info.plist must looks like this:

Followed this.

I have solved it with adding some key in info.plist. The steps I followed are:

1. Opened my Projects info.plist file

2. Added a Key called NSAppTransportSecurity as a Dictionary.

3. Added a Subkey called NSAllowsArbitraryLoads as Boolean and set its value to YES as like following image.

Clean the Project and Now Everything is Running fine as like before.

Ref Link.

Configurations above didn't work for me. I tried a lot of combinations of keys, this one work fine:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>mydomain.com</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>

I have solved as plist file.

1. Add a NSAppTransportSecurity : Dictionary.
2. Add Subkey named " NSAllowsArbitraryLoads " as Boolean : YES

Here's what worked for me:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <false/>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key><!-- your_remote_server.com / localhost --></key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <true/>
        </dict>
    <!-- add more domain here -->
    </dict>
</dict>

I just wanna add this to help others and save some time:

if you are using: CFStreamCreatePairWithSocketToHost. make sure your host is the same with what you have in your .plist or if you have separate domain for socket just add it there.

CFStreamCreatePairWithSocketToHost(NULL, (__bridge CFStringRef)/*from .plist*/, (unsigned int)port, &readStream, &writeStream);

Hope this is helpful. Cheers. :)

If you just want to disable App Transport Policy for local dev servers then the following solutions work well. It's useful when you're unable, or it's impractical, to set up HTTPS (e.g. when using the Google App Engine dev server).

As others have said though, ATP should definitely not be turned off for production apps.

1) Use a different plist for Debug

Copy your Plist file and NSAllowsArbitraryLoads. Use this Plist for debugging.

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

2) Exclude local servers

Alternatively, you can use a single plist file and exclude specific servers. However, it doesn't look like you can exclude IP 4 addresses so you might need to use the server name instead (found in System Preferences -> Sharing, or configured in your local DNS).

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>server.local</key>
        <dict/>
        <key>NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</dict>