Once you have jailbroken your iPhone, installing a Secure Shell will allow you to access your iPhone’s Unix environment and easily copy files to and from the phone over a WiFi connection.
Using SSH requires that your iPhone be connected to the same WiFi network as your desktop machine. If you don’t have access to a WiFi network, you’ll need to use a tool such as iNdependence to install applications on your iPhone instead, so you can skip this section. You might, however, consider installing MobileTerminal, a free terminal program for the iPhone. This will at least allow you to work in the iPhone’s Unix environment, which is necessary to run a small number of examples. MobileTerminal can be downloaded from http://code.google.com/p/mobileterminal/.
If you used iNdependence to perform a jailbreak, OpenSSH can be installed at the touch of a button—namely, the SSH button. Click it and follow the installation procedure. If you used AppSnap or AppTapp, install SSH as follows:
- AppSnapp and AppTapp load a software installer as part of their routine. Once you’ve completed their jailbreak and setup process, you should have a new icon on your iPhone called Installer. Press the icon to run the installer application. The installer may initially prompt you to update itself. If this is the case, continue through the update procedure and restart the installer.
- You will be presented with a category list. Choose the Sources category and select the Community Sources package. Press the Install button at the upper right of the screen and the package will be downloaded and installed.
- Restart the installer. You should now see a System category. Choose this and install the OpenSSH package. After installing, restart your iPhone.
SSH should now be running on the iPhone, but before you can connect to it, you’ll need to know your iPhone’s IP address on the local WiFi network. To find this, do the following:
- Tap the Settings application 1. on your iPhone.
- Select the General tab, then Network, then Wi-Fi.
- Your WiFi network should appear in the list with a blue disclosure arrow to the right.
- Press the blue arrow. You’ll be presented with a screen containing your IP address.
Set up your IP address in the hosts file on your desktop to simplify connectivity. If you’re using Mac OS X or Unix, you can edit your /etc/hosts file. If you’re using Windows XP, edit or create the file C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts . Add the following line to your file:
x.x.x.x iphone
where x.x.x.x represents the IP address of the iPhone.
You’re now ready to connect to your iPhone using an SSH client. If you’re using Mac OS X or Linux with SSH preinstalled, you can do this from a terminal window.
$ ssh -l root iphone
If you’re using Windows XP, you’ll need to download an SSH client. One of the most popular free clients is PuTTY, available at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/.
Depending on which version of the iPhone software you’re running, the default root password is either dottie or alpine . Once logged in, you should be dropped to a shell prompt.