pymobiledevice3

pymobiledevice3 started as a fork of pymobiledevice, but became something much more. This tool offers a full python
implementation to work with iDevices (iPhone, etc...).

Main features include:

  • TCP port forwarding
  • Viewing syslog lines (including debug)
  • Profile management
  • Application management
  • File system management (AFC)
  • Crash reports management
  • Network sniffing
  • Mounting images
  • Notification listening and triggering (notify_post() api)
  • Querying and setting SpringBoard options
  • DeveloperDiskImage features:
    • Taking screenshots
    • Simulate locations
    • Process management
    • Sniffing KDebug messages (strace capabilities++)
    • Process monitoring (top like)
    • Accessibility features

Installation

Install the last released version using pip:

python3 -m pip install --user -U pymobiledevice3

Or install the latest version from sources:

git clone [email protected]:doronz88/pymobiledevice3.git
cd pymobiledevice3
python3 -m pip install --user -U -e .

You can also install auto-completion for all available sub-commands by adding the following into your ~/.zshrc:

# python-click<8.0
eval "$(_PYMOBILEDEVICE3_COMPLETE=source_zsh pymobiledevice3)"
# python-click>=8.0
eval "$(_PYMOBILEDEVICE3_COMPLETE=zsh_source pymobiledevice3)"

Lower iOS versions (<13)

If you wish to use pymobiledevice3 with iOS versions lower than 13, Make sure to install M2Crypto
(requires swig and openssl):

On MAC:

brew install swig openssl

LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix openssl)/lib" \
CFLAGS="-I$(brew --prefix openssl)/include" \
SWIG_FEATURES="-cpperraswarn -includeall -I$(brew --prefix openssl)/include" \
python3 -m pip install --user -U m2crypto

On Linux:

sudo apt install swig openssl

Usage

You can either use the CLI:

Usage: pymobiledevice3 [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Options:
  --help  Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  afc              FileSystem utils
  apps             application options
  crash            crash report options
  developer        developer options.
  diagnostics      diagnostics options
  list-devices     list connected devices
  lockdown         lockdown options
  mounter          mounter options
  notification     API for notify_post() & notify_register_dispatch().
  pcap             sniff device traffic
  power-assertion  Create a power assertion (wraps...
  processes        processes cli
  profile          profile options
  springboard      springboard options
  syslog           syslog options

Or import and use the API yourself:

from pymobiledevice3.lockdown import LockdownClient
from pymobiledevice3.services.syslog import SyslogService

lockdown = LockdownClient()
for line in SyslogService(lockdown=lockdown).watch():
    # just print all syslog lines as is
    print(line)

Example

example--2-

Lockdown services

Support Service Description
DONE com.apple.afc File access for /var/mobile/Media
DONE com.apple.crashreportcopymobile File access for /var/mobile/Library/Logs/CrashReports
DONE com.apple.pcapd Sniff device's network traffic
DONE com.apple.syslog_relay Just streams syslog lines as raw strings
DONE com.apple.os_trace_relay More extensive syslog monitoring
DONE com.apple.mobile.diagnostics_relay General diagnostic tools
DONE com.apple.mobile.notification_proxy API wrapper for notify_post() & notify_register_dispatch()
DONE com.apple.crashreportmover Just trigger crash_mover to move all crash reports into crash directory
DONE com.apple.mobile.MCInstall Profile management
DONE com.apple.misagent Provisioning Profiles management
DONE com.apple.mobile.assertion_agent Create power assertion to prevent different kinds of sleep
DONE com.apple.springboardservices Icon related
DONE com.apple.mobile.mobile_image_mounter Image mounter service (used for DeveloperDiskImage mounting)
DONE com.apple.mobile.house_arrest Get AFC utils (file management per application bundle)
DONE com.apple.mobile.installation_proxy Application management
DONE com.apple.instruments.remoteserver Developer instrumentation service, iOS<14 (DeveloperDiskImage)
DONE com.apple.instruments.remoteserver.DVTSecureSocketProxy Developer instrumentation service, iOS>=14 (DeveloperDiskImage)
DONE com.apple.mobile.screenshotr Take screenshot into a PNG format (DeveloperDiskImage)
DONE com.apple.accessibility.axAuditDaemon.remoteserver Accessibility features (DeveloperDiskImage)
DONE com.apple.dt.simulatelocation Allows to simulate locations (DeveloperDiskImage)
DONE com.apple.dt.fetchsymbols Allows fetching of dyld and dyld shared cache files (DeveloperDiskImage)
Not yet com.apple.idamd Allows settings the IDAM configuration (whatever that means...)
Not yet com.apple.atc AirTraffic related
Not yet com.apple.ait.aitd AirTraffic related
Not yet com.apple.mobile.file_relay File access for iOS <= 8
Not yet com.apple.mobile.heartbeat Just a ping to lockdownd service
Not yet com.apple.mobile.insecure_notification_proxy API wrapper for notify_post() & notify_register_dispatch() from whitelist
Not yet com.apple.mobilebackup
Not yet com.apple.mobilebackup2
Not yet com.apple.mobilesync
Not yet com.apple.purpletestr
Not yet com.apple.webinspector Used to debug WebViews

com.apple.instruments.remoteserver.DVTSecureSocketProxy

Exports several ObjC objects and allows calling their respective selectors.
The /Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DVTInstrumentsFoundation.framework/DTServiceHub service reads the
configuration stored from [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] boolForKey:@"DTXConnectionTracer"]
If the value is true, then /tmp/DTServiceHub[PID].DTXConnection.RANDOM.log is created and can be used to debug the
transport protocol.

For example:

root@iPhone (/var/root)# tail -f /tmp/DTServiceHub[369].DTXConnection.qNjM2U.log
170.887982 x4 resuming [c0]: <DTXConnection 0x100d20670 : x4>
170.889120 x4   sent   [c0]: < DTXMessage 0x100d52b10 : i2.0 c0 dispatch:[_notifyOfPublishedCapabilities:<NSDictionary 0x100d0e1b0 | 92 key/value pairs>] >
170.889547 x4 received [c0]: < DTXMessage 0x100d0a550 : i1.0 c0 dispatch:[_notifyOfPublishedCapabilities:<NSDictionary 0x100d16a40 | 2 key/value pairs>] >
170.892101 x4 received [c0]: < DTXMessage 0x100d0a550 : i3.0e c0 dispatch:[_requestChannelWithCode:[1]identifier :"com.apple.instruments.server.services.deviceinfo"] >
170.892238 x4   sent   [c0]: < DTXMessage 0x100d61830 : i3.1 c0 >
170.892973 x4 received [c1f]: < DTXMessage 0x100d0a550 : i4.0e c1 dispatch:[runningProcesses] >
171.204957 x4   sent   [c1f]: < DTXMessage 0x100c557a0 : i4.1 c1 object:(__NSArrayM*)<NSArray 0x100c199d0 | 245 objects> { <NSDictionary 0x100c167c0 | 5 key/value pairs>, <NSDictionary 0x100d17970 | 5 key/value pairs>, <NSDictionary 0x100d17f40 | 5 key/value pairs>, <NSDictionary 0x100d61750 | 5 key/value pairs>, <NSDictionary 0x100c16760 | 5 key/value pairs>, ...  } >
171.213326 x4 received [c0]: < DTXMessage : kDTXInterruptionMessage >
171.213424 x4  handler [c0]: < DTXMessage : i1 kDTXInterruptionMessage >
171.213477 x4 received [c1f]: < DTXMessage : kDTXInterruptionMessage >

For editing the configuration we can simply add the respected key into:
/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist and kill cfprefsd

The valid selectors for triggering can be found using the following Frida script the same way Troy Bowman used for
iterating all classes which implement the protocol DTXAllowedRPC:

frida -U DTServiceHub
for (var name in ObjC.protocols) {
    var protocol = ObjC.protocols[name]
    if ('DTXAllowedRPC' in protocol.protocols) {
        console.log('@protocol', name)
        console.log('  ' + Object.keys(protocol.methods).join('\n  '))
    }
}

The complete list for the relevant APIs can be found here:

com.apple.os_trace_relay

Provides API for the following operations:

  • Show process list (process name and pid)
  • Stream syslog lines in binary form with optional filtering by pid.
  • Get old stored syslog archive in PAX format (can be extracted using pax -r < filename).
    • Archive contain the contents are the /var/db/diagnostics directory

com.apple.mobile.diagnostics_relay

Provides an API to:

  • Query MobileGestalt & IORegistry keys.
  • Reboot, shutdown or put the device in sleep mode.

com.apple.mobile.file_relay

On older iOS versions, this was the main relay used for file operations, which was later replaced with AFC.

com.apple.pcapd

Starting iOS 5, apple added a remote virtual interface (RVI) facility that allows mirroring networks trafic from an iOS
device. On Mac OSX the virtual interface can be enabled with the rvictl command. This script allows to use this service
on other systems.

The bits and bytes

To understand the bits and bytes of the communication with lockdownd you are advised to take a look at this article:

https://jon-gabilondo-angulo-7635.medium.com/understanding-usbmux-and-the-ios-lockdown-service-7f2a1dfd07ae

Sending your own messages

Lockdown messages

Every such subcommand may wrap several relay requests underneath. If you wish to try and play with some the relays
yourself, you can run:

pymobiledevice3 lockdown service <service-name>

This will start an IPython shell where you already have the connection established using the client variable and you
can send & receive messages.

# This shell allows you to communicate directly with every service layer behind the lockdownd daemon.

# For example, you can do the following:
client.send_plist({"Command": "DoSomething"})

# and view the reply
print(client.recv_plist())

# or just send raw message
client.sendall(b"hello")

# and view the result
print(client.recvall(20))

Instruments messages

If you want to play with DTServiceHub which lies behind the developer options, you can also use:

pymobiledevice3 developer shell

To also get an IPython shell, which lets you call ObjC methods from the exported objects in the instruments' namespace
like so:

# This shell allows you to send messages to the DVTSecureSocketProxy and receive answers easily.
# Generally speaking, each channel represents a group of actions.
# Calling actions is done using a selector and auxiliary (parameters).
# Receiving answers is done by getting a return value and seldom auxiliary (private / extra parameters).
# To see the available channels, type the following:
developer.supported_identifiers

# In order to send messages, you need to create a channel:
channel = developer.make_channel('com.apple.instruments.server.services.deviceinfo')

# After creating the channel you can call allowed selectors:
channel.runningProcesses()

# If an answer is expected, you can receive it using the receive method:
processes = channel.receive_plist()

# Sometimes the selector requires parameters, You can add them using MessageAux. For example lets kill a process:
channel = developer.make_channel('com.apple.instruments.server.services.processcontrol')
args = MessageAux().append_obj(80)  # This will kill pid 80
channel.killPid_(args, expects_reply=False)  # Killing a process doesn't require an answer.

# In some rare cases, you might want to receive the auxiliary and the selector return value.
# For that cases you can use the recv_plist method.
return_value, auxiliary = developer.recv_plist()

GitHub

https://github.com/doronz88/pymobiledevice3