Custom Network Protocol and app distribution

Hi,

We're working on implementing our app with custom network protocol (existing solution was to use a kext with an interface filter).

Note that we don't intend to distribute our app via the App Store.

Now in order to add the Custom Network Protocol capability to the app (com.apple.developer.networking.custom-protocol entitlement), Xcode requires a few things...

1. We cannot sign to run locally. Xcode says that our app has entitlements to require signing with a development certificate.

2. Once I "Enable Development Signing" - a provisioning profile is used.

All works fine (on the development Mac) after doing this.

However, now I cannot run this app on just any other Mac.

If I understand this right, each of those Macs will need to be added to the provisioning profile by our (corporate) account admin (or we install Xcode on those machines and open the project - not desirable).

Is there a simpler path?

What happens when we need to distribute our application to our customers (we don't want to go through the App Store).

Are custom network protocol entitled apps only distributable via the App Store?

Thanks.
Devendra.