Join a wifi network only on macOS but not iOS [duplicate]
I have iCloud Keychain sync enabled, but I want to stop it syncing WiFi passwords.
I have a portable WiFi hotspot which I use for my laptop and iPad, but I don't want my iPhone to connect to it since it has it's own 3G
Because iCloud is syncing the settings, within about 30 seconds of connecting my laptop to the 3G hotspot, my iPhone will connect itself. If I go into wifi settings on the iPhone and manually disconnect, about 30 seconds later my laptop will disconnect too. It seems with iCloud wifi sync on, I can’t connect my laptop to WiFi without my phone also connecting.
The only way to get around it seems to be disabling Keychain sync in iCloud. I’ve tried Googling, but got no real help on how to disable it without turning off Keychain, which is what I’ve done at the moment.
I also don't want to enable 'Ask before joining networks' on my iPhone, since I'll be manually re-connecting it constantly.
Solution 1:
Unfortunately I can offer no perfect solution however I can confirm this shortcoming in the iCloud Keychain sync. I've been able to reproduce this same behavior. Indeed a selective disabling ability in the keychain settings would do the trick. Until Apple implements functionality like that I think your options are
- turning off wi-fi on your phone when your near that hotspot
- turning off iCloud Keychain sync on your phone.
Because iCloud Keychain was delayed from the original release of iOS 7 I'm guessing Apple just didn't have time to implement finer grain controls on what is and isn't synced.
Solution 2:
I was able to stop my MacBook from using a wifi password that should only be used on the iPhone by going into KeyChain Access -> System -> UNWANTED_WIFI_NETWORK -> Access Control and then removing airport and airportd from the list "Always allow access by these applications". Seems to be still connecting on the iPhone but not the MacBook.