Freeing MobileFinder

[unl0cker]

Edit: ops, didn't see outofbreath's post. :/ I'll leave it anyway


Mobile app is a cool app, need lots of improvements, but is quite nice.

The problem with it is that is design to a jailed phone, and therefore you can't
browser nothing more than the regular folders that comes with it.

Fear not, you can change that.

What you'll need:
iPhone with 2.0+ firm
OpenSSH installed
MobileFinder app installed (via iTunes or manually installed)
10 grams of brain - This is the most important thing!


Now, ssh into your iphone and cd your way to the app Documents directory. This may be /Applications/Documents (if you installed manually the .app) or
/var/mobile/Applications/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX/Documents

XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX is where iTunes installed the app, since you may have tons of it, to quick find it type these commands:

cd /var/mobile/Applications/
find ./ -name *MobileFinder*

This last command will give you something like this:

./12345678-FFFF-CCCC-AAAA-1234567890123/Library/Preferences/com.pixiotech.MobileFinder.plist
./12345678-FFFF-CCCC-AAAA-1234567890123/MobileFinder.app
./12345678-FFFF-CCCC-AAAA-1234567890123/MobileFinder.app/MobileFinder

Now you know that XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX is in fact 12345678-FFFF-CCCC-AAAA-1234567890123.


Let's cd into the proper Documents directory and create the necessary symlinks


For iTunes installed:
cd /var/mobile/Applications/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX/Documents

For the manually installed:
cd /Applications/Documents


And create the symlinks:

ln -s /private/var/mobile/ Home
ln -s / Root

Open MobileFinder. Now you'll see two folders there: Home & Root.

Home takes you to the mobile user home directory, and root to the root of the file system :fail of course.

Now some words: BE EXTRA CAREFUL! Don't delete/modify what you don't know what it is. If you are not comfortable with the OSX file system, don't do this!

Well, thats it. Enjoy it.


UnL0CkER

[3dguymwm]

Thanks for the details, a big help to us terminal newbies

[riverj60]

does this let you set the permissions on files?

[riverj60]

I'm really sorry but only a little bit of what you are saying makes sense to me. I'm on a pc. iPod touch 16gb. I payed for and installed mobilefinder and want to navigate to root files like the old mobilefinder. After I ssh and go to the iTunes documents folder, what do I do? I'm sorry for wasting your time trying to explain it to some noob like me. But please dumb it downs little bit. You can email me at riverj60@gmail.com or reply to this comment. Any help would be VERY appreciated :)

Ps. I have the 10 grams of brain required and am willing to do whatever it takes ;)

[Boiling Ice]

great find mate... many thanks...

I've added "MobileHome" to point to /private/var/mobile..

now when I go to Media folder under mobile home folder, I'm not able to open MxTube or vlc4iphone folders, although I've set the owner to mobile, and set permissions to 777 but still I'm not able to do so..

anyone having the same issue?

[spyboy]

Do u guys think that the developer left that window open on purpose cuz it has everything a "hacker" could want.. all the functions, the permisions thing.. copy/paste.

Edit: It has all the functions we could ever want but we cant use most of them :D as i saw
I think u need to provide intstructions on how to give the application suid (root) priviledges, cuz it cant copy/paste files in the ROOT dir.

[riverj60]

Great find unlocker! i followed your directions and it worked. i guess i could do it. thanks.

[outofbreath]

I have played around with this a bit, but as spyboy mentioned: Since you only start it as "mobile", you of course do not have root access to the filesystem. That means a lot of files are not readable/visible and a most of the filesystem is not writable.
It is pretty much useless except for those who want to see their "mobile" directory for other applications data etc...

[spyboy]

I have played around with this a bit, but as spyboy mentioned: Since you only start it as "mobile", you of course do not have root access to the filesystem. That means a lot of files are not readable/visible and a most of the filesystem is not writable.
It is pretty much useless except for those who want to see their "mobile" directory for other applications data etc...

hmmm so wut if the app cant do notn cuz its on a non-exec location... i MEan like the mobile profile has fewer read/write areas in the file system then the root profile. So maybe thats why apple chose that location to COMPLETELY! eliminate any chance of users messin around with the OS's files. Changin the app to root/apps wont make anny diff i guess.

[anewkindofarmy]

I tried to set this up and after running both commands I only see the home folder with media etc. In finder. I want to see everything ( / )
Any help?

Thanks

[spyboy]

I tried to set this up and after running both commands I only see the home folder with media etc. In finder. I want to see everything ( / )
Any help?

Thanks

use this

cd /var/mobile/Documents
ln -s / /var/mobile/Documents/Root (u can change the "Root" name to anythin)
ln -s /var/mobile/ /var/mobile/Documents/User (again u can change "User")

i hope it doesnt creat any problem :D
Now i gave u every detail so u no where u are.

[anewkindofarmy]

i actually got it working.
thanks for the help though

[dehory]

hmmm so wut if the app cant do notn cuz its on a non-exec location... i MEan like the mobile profile has fewer read/write areas in the file system then the root profile. So maybe thats why apple chose that location to COMPLETELY! eliminate any chance of users messin around with the OS's files. Changin the app to root/apps wont make anny diff i guess.

How about if this symlink hack is used in conjunction with iCommander? You can use iCommander to change permissions so MobileFinder can modify them...

[Desjek-T]

Thanks! Very cool app!!!

[Cocchiararo]

hmmm so wut if the app cant do notn cuz its on a non-exec location... i MEan like the mobile profile has fewer read/write areas in the file system then the root profile. So maybe thats why apple chose that location to COMPLETELY! eliminate any chance of users messin around with the OS's files. Changin the app to root/apps wont make anny diff i guess.

why the heck do you type like that ? do you think its cool or something ? :/

back on topic, this trick can be used with the app Files too.

the suid or root:wheel or whatever to make this run as root would be nice, but i dont know how to do that :(

[spyboy]

why the heck do you type like that ? do you think its cool or something ? :/

back on topic, this trick can be used with the app Files too.

the suid or root:wheel or whatever to make this run as root would be nice, but i dont know how to do that :(

i was in a hurry :D
w.e anyways if u wanna edit the contents of a folder all u gotta do is set it to 777. (either with terminal or icommander) . So far its the only work around. So no body in the whole forum knows the correct command to use... i dont think so.. come on ppl :hack:

[lolof]

Location of the app is not the point of the permission for root write access.
I have deplaced my MobileFinder app to /Applications and the result is the same.
Not possible to modify root files. Pretty much useless at this stage except to see the files....
If the app is deplaced in /Applications, it should be a way to give it all right!
Someone have an idea how ??

[Cocchiararo]

Close, but the correct command is chown, change ownership.
You should run something like this

chown -R root /Applications/Installer

if you feel you want to change the group too, then do this


chown -R root:wheel /Applications/Installer

It's kind of silly to put it into the wheel group, but if you want go ahead.
I would suggest

chown -R root:admin /Applications/Installer

be the command you run.

i played with those commands (obviusly not applied to installer :P) and i couldnt get any result :(