5-step process for putting third-party applications on your iPhone (from a Mac)

Posted 16 August 2007 @ 3pm in Guides/How-Tos

[UPDATE: There’s now a much easier method for getting apps onto your iPhone, described here]

iPhone hacking. The information on the topic is almost overwhelming. Up to this point, however, we haven’t seen a process/guide that is reasonable or straightforward enough to accomplish the best use of iPhone hacking to date: adding third-party applications (binaries) to the device. So we decided to get involved, and thanks to Lucas Newman of Delicious Monster (who helped tremendously in tweaking this process and the included scripts which were first aggregated by WinAndMac), we now have something that (we think) is a reasonably easy procedure for adding third-party applications that can be performed by the average user.

1. Download everything you need:

These files are all freely available.

Apple Developer Tools (Xcode) (you must sign up for an ADC membership at the page, which is free)
The iPhone Firmware (match with your iPhone’s current firmware): 1.0, 1.0.1 or 1.0.2. (You can check your iPhone’s firmware by going to tapping Settings, then General, then About and looking next to Version) It should automatically expand into a folder named something like “iPhone1,1_1″ If it doesn’t, change the file extension to “.zip”, then expand it.
iActivator
MacPorts
SSH files

2. Install Developer Tools/iPhone Utility Client/iActivator/

First, quit iTunes and iTunes Helper. You can quit iTunes Helper by launching Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities) then finding iTunes Helper in the list and pressing the “Quit Process” button.

You first need to install the Apple Developer tools package (XCode). It’s a big download, but a straightforward installation.

After you’ve restarted, run the MacPorts installer you downloaded in step 1 . Next, launch the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and enter the following commands, pressing Return after each:

sudo port selfupdate (you will be prompted for an administrator password)
sudo port install iphuc

This will install iPHUC (the iPhone Utility Client), which will be used to actually move applications to your iPhone.

iActivator is a standalone application that just needs to be dragged to wherever you want to launch it from; preferably your /Applications folder.

3. Jailbreak your phone

Launch iActivator and click the “Perform Jailbreak” function. Select the folder containing the iPhone firmware you downloaded in step one. (Again, it should be named “iPhone1,1_1″ if you’re using the iPhone 1.0.1 firmware revision). Once you’ve selected the folder, you will be prompted to hold down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously until the dialog box on-screen disappears. This can take several seconds, after which you’ll see a “Waiting for Jailbreak” screen.

After your iPhone briefly enters recovery mode, you should receive a message that jailbreak has been performed successfully.

4. Put SSH on your iPhone

Enter the terminal command: iphuc -a com.apple.afc2 to make sure the iPhone Utility Client is working, then type exit to quit it.

Expand the file “ssh.zip” which you downloaded from the SSH files link in step one. Move the folder “ssh” to the root directory of your hard drive.

Open the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and type the following:

cd /ssh/

then press return.

Type ./iPhoneMacSSHInstall.sh (if you get a “permission denied” error, type chmod +x iPhoneMacSSHInstall.sh, and press return, though this shouldn’t be necessary) A bunch of text will scroll by, after which you’ll be prompted to press and hold the sleep/wake button on your iPhone until it shows the ’slide to turn off’ red slider. Slide it, wait for the phone to turn off, and press (and briefly hold) the power button to turn it on again. Do these steps, and once your iPhone is started and back on the home screen, press the Enter key in the Terminal. More text will fly by. Restart your iPhone again by pressing and holding the sleep/wake and Home buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears.

Upon successfully completing this process, you’ll see the message:

———DONE!——– Test connecting to your iPhone using ssh to see if this worked ex: ssh -l root [IP Address] Remember the root password is: dottie

So go ahead and test it. Type the command:

ssh -l root IPAddress, replacing “IPAddress” with your iPhone’s IP address, then press return.

You can find out your iPhone’s IP address (it must be connected via WiFi first) by tapping Settings, then Wi-Fi, then the arrow next to the name of the network you are connected to.

You will be prompted to enter a password. When this happens, enter dottie and press return. If you see the prompt: -sh-3.2#, you’ve successfully put SSH capabilities on your iPhone!

NOTE: If you receive an error like “connection refused,” SSH was not properly installed on your iPhone. Run the ssh installation script again by starting with cd /ssh/ and then ./iPhoneMacSSHInstall.sh. We’ve had to run the script twice on some in-house Macs in order for the installation to properly take place.

5. Put the application on your iPhone

Get out of SSH (if you are in it) by typing exit then pressing return, which will bring you back to a normal Terminal prompt.
Now, download a binary for the iPhone. A good one to experiement with is the game “Lights Off!” from Delicious Monster. Download it, and expand it, then do the following.
Type scp -r then a space.
Drag the application you downloaded (e.g. Lights Off!) from the Finder to the Terminal window.
Type another space, then root@IPAddress:/Applications/ (replacing IPAddress with your iPhone’s IP Address). When you’re done, your Terminal command should look something like this: scp -r /Users/bwilson/Desktop/Lights\ Off.app/ root@10.10.10.10:/Applications/ (that’s a fake IP address, by the way)
Restart your iPhone: Hold down the sleep/wake button until you see the slider, then slide it off. Power it back on by briefly holding the sleep/wake button.

When you’re done, you should see your application added to the default launcher!

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

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18 Comments

Posted by dfbills
16 August 2007 @ 5pm

How do I get the search paths set correctly for the darwin ports-installed binaries?

Posted by admin
16 August 2007 @ 5pm

Did you install Apple’s Developer Tools?

Posted by dfbills
16 August 2007 @ 5pm

Looks like this process is missing quite a few steps.. maybe time to revisit and edit?

——-PHASE 1: Getting files off your iPhone———

——–PHASE 2: Uploading files and reconfiguring your iPhone———

iphuc 0.6.1 with tab completion.
>> By The iPhoneDev Team: nightwatch geohot ixtli warren nall mjc operator
CFRunLoop: Waiting for iPhone.
notification: iPhone attached.
AMDeviceStartService ‘com.apple.afc2′: -402653150
(iPHUC) /: lcd /ssh
(iPHUC) /: cd /usr/sbin
cd: No such file or directory ‘/usr/sbin’
(iPHUC) /: putfile update
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
cd: No such file or directory ‘/System/Library/LaunchDaemons’
(iPHUC) /: putfile com.apple.update.plist
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /bin
cd: No such file or directory ‘/bin’
(iPHUC) /: putfile chmod
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: putfile sh
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: putfile ls
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: mkdir /etc/init.d
mkdir: AFCDirectoryCreate returned unknown error code: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /etc
cd: No such file or directory ‘/etc’
(iPHUC) /: putfile hackinit.sh
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /etc/init.d
cd: No such file or directory ‘/etc/init.d’
(iPHUC) /: putfile dropbear.sh
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /usr/bin
cd: No such file or directory ‘/usr/bin’
(iPHUC) /: putfile dropbear
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: putfile scp
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /usr/lib
cd: No such file or directory ‘/usr/lib’
(iPHUC) /: putfile libarmfp.dylib
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: mkdir /etc/dropbear
mkdir: AFCDirectoryCreate returned unknown error code: 7
(iPHUC) /: cd /etc/dropbear
cd: No such file or directory ‘/etc/dropbear’
(iPHUC) /: putfile dropbear_rsa_host_key
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: putfile dropbear_dss_host_key
putfile: Failed to open remote file: 7
(iPHUC) /: exit
>> Nothing left to do. Exiting.

Posted by admin
16 August 2007 @ 8pm

dfbills:

Make sure your iPhone has been properly jailbroken with iActivator.

Also, make sure that the ssh folder is located at the root level of your hard drive, that is: /

This is the same directory where your /Applications, /Users and /System folders, etc. are.

Posted by dfbills
17 August 2007 @ 5am

I had it setup correctly, I even tried on two different Intel computers. Looks like the paths settings are not quite right.

I had ssh in:

/ssh

iPhuc was installed properly in:

/opt/local

And the paths were exported correctly to $PATH- I’m not sure what went wrong.

Posted by ShermanUS
17 August 2007 @ 8am

Done this about 10 times. It says that the phone is jailbroken, but somehow I cannot connect to phone: “ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.2 port 22: Connection refused
”
Anybody any ideas ?

Posted by rg2
17 August 2007 @ 8am

Is it safe to assume that since the article doesn’t mention the need for an intel mac that we can now do this on ppc? if not, that needs to be mentioned somewhere as a disclaimer as there are probably more ppc macs out there than intel at this point!

Posted by admin
17 August 2007 @ 12pm

Make sure that you aren’t running iTunes or iTunes helper. If you see the Connection refused message, try running the SSH install scripts again.

Posted by AlenShapiro1
17 August 2007 @ 12pm

Any clues?

This happened while performing the
sudo port install iphuc
step:

—> Extracting iPHUC
Error: Target org.macports.patch returned: shell command “cd /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_iphone_iPHUC/work/iPHUC-r17 && sh ./autogen.sh” returned error 2
Command output: Can’t locate Automake/Config.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /opt/local/share/automake-1.9 /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.1 .) at /opt/local/bin/aclocal line 36.
BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at /opt/local/bin/aclocal line 36.
Can’t locate Autom4te/C4che.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /opt/local/share/autoconf /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.1 .) at /opt/local/bin/autom4te line 39.
BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at /opt/local/bin/autom4te line 39.
Can’t locate Autom4te/ChannelDefs.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /opt/local/share/autoconf /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.1 .) at /opt/local/bin/autoheader line 42.
BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at /opt/local/bin/autoheader line 42.
Can’t locate Automake/Struct.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /opt/local/share/automake-1.9 /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.1 .) at /opt/local/bin/automake line 47.
BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at /opt/local/bin/automake line 47.

Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

Posted by ShermanUS
17 August 2007 @ 1pm

Thanks for (any) help. Tried again -having no iTunes and Helper running (Activity Monitor).
Same:
Last login: Fri Aug 17 07:59:32 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
iMac24:~ iMac24$ iphuc -a com.apple.afc2
iphuc 0.6.1 with tab completion.
>> By The iPhoneDev Team: nightwatch geohot ixtli warren nall mjc operator
CFRunLoop: Waiting for iPhone.
notification: iPhone attached.
AMDeviceStartService ‘com.apple.afc2′: 0
(iPHUC) /: exit
>> Nothing left to do. Exiting.
iMac24:~ iMac24$ cd ssh
iMac24:~/ssh iMac24$ ./iPhoneMacSSHInstall.sh
This shell script will install and enable a SSH server on your iPhone.
This script was created by Dallas Brown (http://www.kdbdallas.com)
This script was based off of Nate True’s (http://cre.ations.net/blog) Windows script

Special thanks to all of the #iphone dev team.

——–PHASE 1: Getting files off your iPhone———

iphuc 0.6.1 with tab completion.
>> By The iPhoneDev Team: nightwatch geohot ixtli warren nall mjc operator
CFRunLoop: Waiting for iPhone.
notification: iPhone attached.
AMDeviceStartService ‘com.apple.afc2′: 0
(iPHUC) /: lcd /ssh
(iPHUC) /: cd /usr/sbin
(iPHUC) /usr/sbin: getfile update update
(iPHUC) /usr/sbin: cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
(iPHUC) /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: getfile com.apple.update.plist com.apple.update.plist
(iPHUC) /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: exit
>> Nothing left to do. Exiting.

mv: rename com.apple.update.plist to com.apple.update.plist.orig: No such file or directory
mv: rename update to update.orig: No such file or directory

——–PHASE 2: Uploading files and reconfiguring your iPhone———

——–PHASE 3: Restarting your iPhone———

Press and hold the Power button on your iPhone until it shows the ’slide to turn off’ red slider.
Slide it, wait for the phone to turn off, and press the power button to turn it on again.

Press Enter to continue…

——–PHASE 4: Putting init framework into place———

mv: rename update.orig to update: No such file or directory

——–PHASE 5: Restarting your iPhone, again———

Restart your phone once more. After that, you’re done!

Press Enter to continue…

——–PHASE 6: Clean up———-

mv: rename com.apple.update.plist.orig to com.apple.update.plist: No such file or directory

iphuc 0.6.1 with tab completion.
>> By The iPhoneDev Team: nightwatch geohot ixtli warren nall mjc operator
CFRunLoop: Waiting for iPhone.
notification: iPhone attached.
AMDeviceStartService ‘com.apple.afc2′: 0
(iPHUC) /: lcd /ssh
(iPHUC) /: cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
(iPHUC) /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: putfile com.apple.update.plist
(iPHUC) /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: exit
>> Nothing left to do. Exiting.

rm: update: No such file or directory
rm: com.apple.update.plist: No such file or directory

———DONE!——–

Test connecting to your iPhone using ssh to see if this worked
ex: ssh -l root [IP Address]

Remember the root password is: dottie

Press Enter to Jail your iPhone or Ctrl-C to keep it free from jail^C
iMac24:~/ssh iMac24$ ssh -l root 192.168.1.2
ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.2 port 22: Connection refused
iMac24:~/ssh iMac24$ cd
iMac24:~ iMac24$ ssh -l root 192.168.1.2
ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.2 port 22: Connection refused
iMac24:~ iMac24$

Posted by digitol_lobo
17 August 2007 @ 2pm

For any of those having issue with installing/compiling iphuc,(readline) make sure you have the LATEST version of Apple Developer tools. -Digitol-

Posted by thoughmas_dotmac
18 August 2007 @ 6am

I cannot install this because I have a PPC processor. Please mention this in the first step of instructions.

Posted by bsmith2
18 August 2007 @ 6am

Hi,

I really want to make this work and would appreciate any help.

I’m using Xcode 2.4.1 and have all files in my computer’s root directory.

I start having trouble early, when I can’t even selfupdate MacPorts:

$ sudo port selfupdate
Password:
MacPorts base version 1.5 installed
Downloaded MacPorts base version 1.520
Configuring, Building and Installing new MacPorts base
Error: /opt/local/bin/port: selfupdate failed: Error installing new MacPorts base: shell command “cd /opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/base && ./configure –prefix=/opt/local –with-install-user=root –with-install-group=admin –with-tclpackage=/Library/Tcl && make && make install” returned error 77
Command output: checking build system type… i686-apple-darwin8.10.1
checking host system type… i686-apple-darwin8.10.1
checking target system type… i686-apple-darwin8.10.1
checking for gcc… gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name…
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log’ for more details.

Problems continue when installing iPhuc:
$ sudo port install iphuc
—> Configuring ncursesw
Error: Target org.macports.configure returned: configure failure: shell command ” cd “/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_devel_ncursesw/work/ncurses-5.6″ && ./configure –prefix=/opt/local –enable-widec –disable-rpath –with-shared –without-debug –without-ada –enable-safe-sprintf –enable-sigwinch –mandir=/opt/local/share/man ” returned error 77
Command output: checking for egrep… grep -E
Configuring NCURSES 5.6 ABI 5 (Sat Aug 18 09:27:25 EDT 2007)
checking build system type… i386-apple-darwin8.10.1
checking host system type… i386-apple-darwin8.10.1
checking target system type… i386-apple-darwin8.10.1
Configuring for darwin8.10.1
checking for prefix… /opt/local
checking for gcc… /usr/bin/gcc-4.0
checking for C compiler default output… configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

Error: The following dependencies failed to build: readline ncurses ncursesw
Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

I can jailbreak ok, but I basically don’t get anywhere because of these errors. Can anyone here offer any help?

Many thanks,
Ben

Posted by thoughmas_dotmac
18 August 2007 @ 5pm

This worked great on an Intel machine. Only took 10-15 mins. Great tutorial, works fine.

Posted by johnsweet_pr
19 August 2007 @ 4pm

Works great. Thanks guys. How do we remove apps from the iphone? Can mac apps, such as ichat, etc, be loaded onto my iphone?

Posted by rg2
20 August 2007 @ 7am

Yes, once you get through the initial process you can install any app on the phone that can be installed on the desktop version of OS X.

Posted by Craig Hazen
20 August 2007 @ 7am

not sure if i’ve done something wrong
able to run jailbreak even installed lights out
but when i run the tests to see if ssh is working, this is what i get…???
any help would be appreciated (have run ssh install 3 times from root level)

thanks

Restart your phone once more. After that, you’re done!

Press Enter to continue…

——–PHASE 6: Clean up———-

iphuc 0.6.1 with tab completion.
>> By The iPhoneDev Team: nightwatch geohot ixtli warren nall mjc operator
CFRunLoop: Waiting for iPhone.
notification: iPhone attached.
AMDeviceStartService ‘com.apple.afc2′: 0
(iPHUC) /: lcd /ssh
(iPHUC) /: cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
(iPHUC) /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: putfile com.apple.update.plist
(iPHUC) /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: exit
>> Nothing left to do. Exiting.

———DONE!——–

Test connecting to your iPhone using ssh to see if this worked
ex: ssh -l root [IP Address]

Remember the root password is: dottie

Press Enter to Jail your iPhone or Ctrl-C to keep it free from jail^C
craig-hazens-computer-3:/ssh craig$ ssh - l root 10.0.1.199
usage: ssh [-1246AaCfgkMNnqsTtVvXxY] [-b bind_address] [-c cipher_spec]
[-D [bind_address:]port] [-e escape_char] [-F configfile]
[-i identity_file] [-L [bind_address:]port:host:hostport]
[-l login_name] [-m mac_spec] [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option] [-p port]
[-R [bind_address:]port:host:hostport] [-S ctl_path]
[-w local_tun[:remote_tun]] [user@]hostname [command]
craig-hazens-computer-3:/ssh craig$ ssh -1 root 10.0.1.199
ssh: root: No address associated with nodename
craig-hazens-computer-3:/ssh craig$ exit
logout
[Process completed]

Posted by pj.greenwell
8 September 2007 @ 12am

For Craig Hazen:

try logging in like this

craig-hazens-computer-3:/ssh craig$ ssh -1 root:dottie@10.0.1.199

I see that you had already noticed that it is ssh -1 (meaning use v1 only) not ssh -l

for everything you could want to know about ssh.

in a new terminal window type at the bash prompt

man ssh
the hit enter

You could also look at a program called Fugu once you confirm your ssh works. That program helps may terminaly challenged people get things done. Not implying tthat you are one of those people.

Fugu - A Mac OS X SFTP, SCP and SSH Frontend

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