Mount and use your iPhone as a Thumb Drive!

This article is for iPhone OS 2.x. Please refer to this older post for iPhone OS 1.x.

Unknown to many iPhone (and iPod touch) owners is you can mount your device as a thumbdrive! All you need is a Mac (or Linux) and install the Netatalk (an open source implementation of Apple’s AFP protocol) package via Cydia. After that, you can manipulate your device’s content in a Finder window, such as copying files to it for transport/archive, installing themes, etc.

Netatalk 2.0.3-6 is Out!

Go ahead, fire up your Cydia and update your Netatalk soon. The “localhost” bug has been squashed.

Wheeeee ….

Thanks Jay!

AFP (Netatalk) – Now with REAL root access

Today saurik posted an update to Netatalk. It’s now version 2.0.3-5 and it’s a siginificant update — we now have real root access! That means we can now connect as either the root user or as the mobile user while previously we can only connect as the mobile user.

If you have followed my instructions on how to gain access to root in this post, please read its update on how to revert the changes made, otherwise you can only log in as the mobile user (which is quite okay.)

Unfortunately, it still shows up as “localhost” instead of your device’s actual name. But that’s a minor issue and we have the work-around; simply toggle AFP off and on it again using the BossPrefs plugin.

Late Nite Update: I spent the entire saturday evening trying to figure out the “localhost” isssue and got myself really stoned reading a bunch of technical thingy I don’t have any clues on. Sigh.

But lady luck is by my side and I’m pretty sure I’ve found the fix! Hooray.

I’m not putting up the fix here as I feel I should let Saurik (the maintainer of Telesphoreo) double-check it first. So I’m going to shoot him an email about it, and hope to see a version 2.0.3-6 soon.

‘nite.

AFP (Netatalk) Root access – The Complete How-to

Oct 11, 2008 Update: How to enjoy the updated version 2.0.3-5 by reversing changes made in this post:

1. Launch your favorite sFTP client and navigate to /etc/netatalk/.
2. Download this zip, and upload & overwrite the “AppleVolumes.default” file in /etc/netatalk/.
3. Delete the “afpd.conf” file from /etc/netatalk/.
4. Reboot your device.
5. Important: DO NOT use your sFTP client to delete the symbolic file “root”. I repeat, DO NOT use your sFTP client to delete the symbolic file “root”. If you do that, the content of your entire device will be deleted! You’ll have to “Option+Restore” your device after that. Leave the file alone!
6. To connect as “root”, toggle the “Disconnect” button (as seen in the below pic) and type “root” and “alpine” when prompted.

This following instructions for Netatalk 2.0.3-4 is obsolete; do not follow.
(Scroll down for AFP BossPrefs Toggle.)

This is a follow-up on my previous entry about enabling AFP Root Access by hanXa and how I modify hanXa’s instructions so my AFPd (Netatalk 2.0.3-4) behaves like it did in AFPd 1.x. It details, step-by-step, all the how-tos in one post.

1. Needless to say, you must install Netatalk via Cydia. You can find it under the “Networking” section.
2. Download this zip, and use your favorite sFTP client to upload its contents (“AppleVolumes.default” & “afpd.conf”) into /etc/netatalk/. When prompted, you will allow overwriting the existing files.
3. Launch your OS X’s Terminal.app (it’s in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder) and issue the following command:

   ssh -l root 192.168.123.88

Using Veency with Mac OS X Leopard

Veency is a dream come true for me. I’ve always wished I could get in and control my iPod touch on my Mac!

Unfortunately, the current beta release (0.9.2591-1) doesn’t work with Leopard’s build-in Screen Sharing. What a bummer! Fortunately the author, Jay Freeman (aka “saurik”) is aware of this issue and, I’m sure he’s working hard to resolve it.