React Native Local Network Permission

A library to handle the local network permission introduced with iOS 14. It is only relevant for iOS, not for Android or web.

Getting started

Add this library to your project:

npm install @generac/react-native-local-network-permission

yarn add @generac/react-native-local-network-permission

Swift Package Manager support

CocoaPods (via the bundled .podspec) is still the primary install path and works for every React Native and Expo app today.

This module also ships SPM scaffolding for the migration described in React Native RFC 0994 (CocoaPods deprecation, December 2026):

• spm.config.json — consumed by Expo's et prebuild pipeline (EXPO_USE_PRECOMPILED_MODULES=1) to generate XCFrameworks. Picked up automatically by Expo's autolinking; no extra setup.
• Package.swift — a forward-compatible manifest. The library target declares its dependency on ExpoModulesCore by name; the consumer's autolinking pipeline (RN CLI's SPM autolinking once it lands, or a hand-written brownfield manifest) is responsible for providing .package(path: ".../node_modules/expo-modules-core"). As a result, this Package.swift does not resolve standalone via "Add Package Dependencies…" in Xcode today — that workflow becomes available once the React Native SPM autolinking proposal lands.

iOS manual configuration

NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription

You need to add the NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription key to your Info.plist file. This should be a description of why your app needs Local Network permissions:

<key>NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription</key>
<string>App requires local network access to do ...</string>

See also: Apple documentation

NSBonjourServices

You need to add the NSBonjourServices key to your Info.plist file. This should be an array of Bonjour services that your app uses:

<key>NSBonjourServices</key>
<array>
  <string>_bonjour._tcp</string>
  <string>_lnp._tcp.</string>
</array>

See also: Apple documentation

Expo

If you are using the Expo managed workflow, you cannot directly edit your Info.plist. Instead, you can add the following to your app.json or app.config.js:

expo: {
  ios: {
    infoPlist: {
      NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription: 'App requires local network access to do ...',
      NSBonjourServices: ['_bonjour._tcp', '_lnp._tcp.'],
    },
  },
}

Usage

This library can be used in both React Native and Expo projects. Note however:

• If using Expo, you need to create a development build, using the Expo Go app will not work;
• If using bare React Native, you need to add Expo modules to your project, see Expo documentation.

import {
  checkLocalNetworkAccess,
  requestLocalNetworkAccess,
} from '@generac/react-native-local-network-permission';

//you need to make sure the local network permission dialog popup once
const result = await requestLocalNetworkAccess();

//then use checkLocalNetworkAccess when you need
const result = await checkLocalNetworkAccess();
//here run the code depends local network access

Jest mocking

If you need to mock this library in your Jest tests, you can use the following code in your testSetup.ts file which you need to reference in your jest.config.js under setupFilesAfterEnv:

jest.mock('@generac/react-native-local-network-permission', () => ({
    checkLocalNetworkAccess: jest.fn(),
    requestLocalNetworkAccess: jest.fn(),
  }),
);

Commit messages

This repository uses a commit message convention which is enforced by a pre-commit hook. If you execute npm run commit instead of git commit -m "some message" you will be guided through the steps to write an acceptable commit message.

It is important that you do this properly, because the semantic-release automation depends on the commit messages to be starting with the proper keyword to determine if a major, minor or patch semantic version should be assigned.

See also

• Apple FAQ 1
• Apple FAQ 2
• Stackoverflow inspiration for this library