How do you test the Push Notification feedback service?

Question

How would you test the APNS feedback service in the sandbox? Or in other words, how do you force a device to be in the feedback?

Answer 1

I realize an answer has been accepted for this but in order to do first round of testing without having to constantly install & remove my application from my phone/ipod I created a VERY simple ruby script to act as the feedback server. I configured my ruby APNS class to connect to this server instead (localhost:2196) and read from it. I did NOT init an SSL connection so I just used the base socket instead. Below is the script I used to 'host' the server.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'socket'

puts 'Opening server'
server = TCPServer.open(2196)

loop {
    puts 'Waiting for connection'
    client = server.accept

    puts 'Connected preparing data'
    data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 0, 32, ['d41c3767074f541814c2207b78f72e538569cb39eae60a8c4a8677549819e174']]
    puts 'Data for delivery: ' + data.inspect

    begin
        data[6] = data[6].pack('H*')
        data = data.pack('c6a*')

        loop {
            puts 'Writing Data'
            client.write data

            puts 'Sleeping for 5 seconds'
            sleep 5
        }
    rescue
    end
    puts 'Done writing, closing'
    client.close
}

This script will listen and when it receives a connection every 5 seconds write a packet to the socket. If the connecting socket closes (for example you kill your feedback process) then this script resets and waits for a new connection.

Remember, do not use the SSL connection stuff just a standard ruby socket. Good luck!