MobileFinder with Root Access!! (MobileStudio)

**ejking** · 02-20-2009, 01:00 AM

This is a rough guide as to how to get MobileStudio root access instead of the plain old sandbox file dir. As I get things ironed out with this I will post a full guide with pics. Also I am having a few issues if any1 can maybe try to resolve and post so I can include it in my guide (with credit to you).

FYI your phone needs to be jailbroken

Here Goes:

1. Buy MobileStudio from the AppStore and install on the iPhone (its only $2).

2. get terminal access to the iPhone (SSH or terminal locally, tho I recommend SSH since you will be mucking around a little and a full-sized keyboard helps)

3. go find the directory where MobileStudio.app got installed...
it will be under /private/var/mobile/Applications/
you just have to ls each folder until you find it
(for me it was in A94C10F7-F240-428D-B7D6-060225C1FCF0)

4. In that directory you will find 4 Folders:
MobileStudio.app
Documents
tmp
Library

The Documents folder is what MobileStudio looks at.
Delete the documents folder.

5. Now were going to create a symlink to the root (or wherever you want MobileStudio to look, so type the following:
ln -s / /private/var/mobile/Applications/long wired name where MobileStudio.app lives/Documents

if you dont want it to look at the root, just type the path you want it to look at (such as /private/var/mobile) in place of the plain /

6. Start up good ol' MobileStudio from Springboard and VUOLA! ROOT ACCESS!!!

Notes and Problems
mobilefinder runs under the mobile account so anything owned by root wont be accessible by mobilefinder unless you chmod 0777 that file/directory (only change the permissions for what you have to, if you 0777 everything on the root you may brick the phone, trust me I learned the hard way [not sure what i was thinking] plus its just not secure)

plist files in binary format are not readable by mobiletextreader so you may want to plutil -c xml1 your binary plists to modify em with mobilestudio. (ill fill this in a little more in my guide as well, but i have attached a copy of plutil that you can just throw in your /bin directory so it works)

Even with the chmod 0777 mobilestudio seems to only be able to read files and not save or delete or edit them, any1 who can find a solution to this problem would be awesome. I imagine this has something to do with it being written under Apple's SDK and restrictions but there's always a way around anything.
Anyone familiar enough with the official SDK as to why it would be giving a permissions error (Cocoa 513) when the folders/files are chmodded to 0777?

Can anyone confirm if this will always install to /private/var/mobile/Applications/A94C10F7-F240-428D-B7D6-060225C1FCF0/ or if any1 gets a different folder name? thanks

I need your help so i can create a detailed ironclad guide!

**JStraitiff** · 02-20-2009, 02:00 AM

cool!!

im gunna try it tommarrow afternoon when i wake up

**cricketlang** · 02-20-2009, 02:12 AM

Iffy on this one

**JStraitiff** · 02-20-2009, 03:23 AM

cricket what time do you get up?

or are you still up?

**mrblader** · 02-20-2009, 09:15 AM

havent used mobilestudio, but you can just use the old opensourced mobile finder bigboss tweaked to be compatible with FW 2.1 & 2.2

which gives you root access

like I said, i haven't used mobilestudio, so their may be more features available than the old mobilefinder.

if there are, would you mind sharing with me before i purchase this app?

cheers,
MrB

**ejking** · 02-20-2009, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by mrblader

havent used mobilestudio, but you can just use the old opensourced mobile finder bigboss tweaked to be compatible with FW 2.1 & 2.2

which gives you root access

like I said, i haven't used mobilestudio, so their may be more features available than the old mobilefinder.

if there are, would you mind sharing with me before i purchase this app?

cheers,
MrB

Ya MobileStudio has a little bit of a nicer GUI and has all the viewing programs such as TextEdit, ImageEdit, PDF Viewer, and a few others that are built right in to MobileStudio.

Unfortunately, BigBoss only ported over MobileFinder so while its good for copying and pasting its pretty hard (i havent been able to) to get it to link say a plist file to a text editing program currently available for 2.0+. (I dont like having to type in the enitre path of the plist file into the text editor for on-the-fly stuff) With MobileStudio, its much easier since everything is built in. Just have to work out the problem with not being able to write files while in root access.

**SiLeNtKiLLa** · 02-20-2009, 07:44 PM

Worked great for me.... And the app install folder is diff.... here was my symbolic link setup

ln -s / /private/var/mobile/Applications/2865E133-6709-4E38-8330-FF70271201B8/Documents

*** If you remove app from device and re-sync it back, folder name changes ***

**Mes** · 02-20-2009, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by ejking

...go find the directory where MobileStudio.app got installed...
it will be under /private/var/mobile/Applications/

The easy way to find MobileStudio.app is by using the find command...

open SSH
navigate to /private/var/mobile/Applications directory
click Commands/Open Terminal
type: find . -name MobileStudio.app -print
press Execute
Bingo ...

Easiest way to find AppStore apps

(and most other files/directories too)

**SiLeNtKiLLa** · 02-20-2009, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by Mes

The easy way to find MobileStudio.app is by using the find command...

open SSH
navigate to /private/var/mobile/Applications directory
click Commands/Open Terminal
type: find . -name MobileStudio.app -print
press Execute
Bingo ...

Easiest way to find AppStore apps

(and most other files/directories too)

Now this is great info... Thanks.

**JStraitiff** · 02-22-2009, 04:17 PM

no go..... just doesnt work

i confirmed that the symbolic link was there but it doesnt allow the app to see root

**ltjbigshot** · 02-22-2009, 06:34 PM

The first time i did it i messed my phone up by actualy moving the root folder into the MobileStudio folder... hah... luckly it still let me ssh in to fix the problem. Works great now!

**ejking** · 02-23-2009, 04:05 AM

Originally Posted by him121213

no go..... just doesnt work

i confirmed that the symbolic link was there but it doesnt allow the app to see root

hmm, I cant imagine why it wouldnt work. This seems like a stupid question but did you make sure that there's maybe not a typo in the symlink and make sure that there is a capital D in "Documents"?

also when you first started the app after the symlink, does it just show blank with ur desktop background or does it recreate the documents folder?

**ejking** · 02-27-2009, 05:03 AM

There doesn't seem to be a great interest in this topic from the community, so I figured it not worth it to put together a more detailed guide.

I wont be monitoring this thread anymore, but feel free to continue this conversation and leave any helpful tips for others.

Thanks

**leram84** · 03-12-2009, 11:34 AM

mobilefinder in cydia allows u to chose default apps to open .plist, .string, .png, etc. could i just dl mobile studio, and just use the txt editors and stuff, but not the actual finder app that (just use the jb version with the official txt editors)?

**ejking** · 03-16-2009, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by leram84

mobilefinder in cydia allows u to chose default apps to open .plist, .string, .png, etc. could i just dl mobile studio, and just use the txt editors and stuff, but not the actual finder app that (just use the jb version with the official txt editors)?

I did play with that a little but could not find a way. From what I understand it is impossible because all of those reader programs are built in to the single mobilefinder (store version) program as one giant program, not individual programs, so they cannot be called as such. And from what I know of basic programming, I am guessing those programs are "Private" inside of MobileFinder, meaning that the MobileFinder program itself can call them from within itself, however they cannot be called from outside of the program, making it impossible.

If anyone finds a way to do this, PLEASE let us know as this would be very nice, but again, I don't believe it possible.

**jwilcox09** · 03-18-2009, 07:32 PM

i know the creator isn't monitoring, but just wanted to say thanks cause the GUI is a lot better for this than the Cydia version

**swizcore** · 04-03-2009, 10:29 AM

I did this process last night and its working great, of course the only reason I wanted to do this was to edit root files (specifically in the themes folder) so its not very useful until we figure out the Cocoa error when saving edited root files. grrrrrrr

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