Transfer Ringtone to iPhone wirelessly with SSH

Many people say, iPhone is not just a mobile phone, it’s a mobile computer. Pretty right. You may know iPhone is powered by a stripped-down version of Mac OS X, which is actually riding on Unix as its core. So, instead of docking your iPhone and transfer ringtone to/from your iPhone using iBrickr or iFuntastic, you can use SSH to transfer any files (including ringtone) wirelessly. SSH is a remote access tool that is commonly used in Linux/Unix and you can install it on iPhone. With SSH, you can access your iPhone remotely and run command/transfer any files to it.

Before I go further into the details, I should make a disclaimer that the below procedures is not very user friendly, as that compared to iBrickr or iFuntastic. But you can have a better control of the iPhone and transfer the ringtone wirelessly. Okay, let’s get start.

Install OpenSSH on iPhone

That’s the easiest step. Just launch “Installer” and install “BSD Subsystem”, “Community Sources”, and “OpenSSH”. BSD Subsystem and Community Sources are the dependent packages of OpenSSH. So, you need to install them first. After installation, SSH is automatically started up.

Connect to your wireless network

Before you can remotely access the iPhone, you need to know its IP address. The second step is to connect your iPhone to the wireless network. Once connected, go to “Settings” -> “Wi-Fi”. Select the connected network and find out the IP address.

SSH to your iPhone

On Mac, you can launch “Terminal” in Finder and type “ssh root@<your IP address>”. For first time connect, it may take longer (around 30s) to make the connection. When prompt to accept authentication, answer “yes” and press <ENTER>. Next, you’ll be asked for the root password. Type “alpine” if you’re using iPhone 1.1.4 and “dottie” for iPhone 1.1.1 or lower. Now, you should be in the iPhone and you can type usual Unix command to navigate the iPhone. To quit from the iPhone, type “exit” to terminal the session.

Terminal

Microsoft Windows does not come with any SSH client. For Windows users, you can download WinSCP, which is a free SSH client.

Transfer Ringtone to iPhone

As you can now access your iPhone using SSH, you can also freely transfer file (e.g. ringtone) to it. Ringtone files on iPhone is defined with an extension “.m4r”. It is actually the same as your AAC file (remember it’s in AAC format, not MP3) but with different extension. Before you transfer the ringtone, remember to rename the file to “.m4r”.

For Mac user, you can use the same terminal and type “scp root@:/Library/Ringtones”. As usual, you need to type the root password again.

Transfer ringtone with scp

I know you may not be comfortable using command line. A more user friendly way is to use Cyberduck. It offers a GUI to drag and drop file to the iPhone.

Cyberduck

For Windows user, you can also use SCP to the same thing.

Ok! Go back to your iPhone and you should find your ringtone.

Iphone ringtone

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Tagged as: iPhone, ringtone, ssh

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Air Sharing – The Easiest Way to transfer & view Document on iPhone « Tamxiarang2612 ( Pls don’t close my blog !!): July 30, 2009 at 4:06 pm

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 royan August 1, 2008 at 6:48 pm: nice blog

2 richard September 15, 2008 at 3:40 am: Hi, I have an iphone 1st generation pwnage and is running version 2.0.2. i have tried this way but all that it keeps saying is that the connection has been refused. So if anyone has got a way to do it that works it would be appreciated, cheers Rich

3 rex December 9, 2008 at 5:57 am: i don’t see bsd subsystem.. im using the iphone 3g please help.

4 Simon Ng December 9, 2008 at 8:16 am: rex, I guess you’re using Cydia. For cydia, you can just install SSH. You can find SSH in Featured Packages at “Home” screen of Cydia.

5 Sonia December 19, 2008 at 2:20 pm: Please, how can I delete an application installed with Cydia? it has no “x“ to press to delete it.

Thank you,

6 Simon Ng December 19, 2008 at 9:47 pm: Sonia, you can check out this post that briefly describes how you use cydia including upgrade and uninstall Cydia application.

7 Paul November 4, 2009 at 8:14 pm: Is all of this being done on the iphone only or should some of this be done on my PC? Also, what is Installer, and where does it find BDS Subsystems, etc? Am I missing a blog that explains all this? Sorry for the poor background, but I would love to be able to explore the iphone using this technique.

8 megaberl November 5, 2009 at 9:24 pm: So, the only way I can use SSH for iphone Wifi file transfer is if the phone is jailbroken? And jailbraking an iphone is a major procedure that a tech-knowledgeable person should only attempt, am I correct in this? Thanks again for the info.