Install Mobile Terminal Without Jailbreak
Just getting into Jailbreak and OpenSSH on iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and curious how to change the default SSH password? Since Apple sets all iOS devices to 'alpine', If you decide to enable SSH it is important for security reasons to change the password to something unique. Otherwise you risk someone else gaining access to your iPhone or iPad. We'll show you how after the break!
Here's what you need to do to change the default SSH password. Note, this method is only for jailbroken iOS devices with OpenSSH installed and MobileTerminal installed.
- Download MobileTerminal from Cydia. (Make sure its version 426 if using iOS 4.x..)
- Open MobileTerminal
- In MobileTerminal, type in: su root
- It’ll ask you for a password, type in: alpine
- To make the screen a bit cleaner, type in: cd
- Now, to change your password, type in: passwd
- Enter the password you desire (You will not see the characters in the screen as you type them for security reasons)
- Enter the password you entered once more
- To change the password for the Mobile user, type in: passwd mobile
- Enter the password you desire (You will not see the characters in the screen as you type them for security reasons)
- Enter the password you entered once more
All done! You are now secure and may close MobileTerminal. If you have any questions ask in the comments or for additional help, check out our Jailbreak Help Forum.
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I had my iPhone jailbroken and used MobileTerminal all the time. But I just wanted to go back to normal, and I have an app now that allows me to SSH to other computers.
Is there a way to SSH to my phone? I have its IP.
2 Answers
SSH server won't start without jailbreaking it.
You could probably use an app you developed or that you can run using a developer license, which will start the SSH on a port you want (pretending to test it).
TL;DR You can't.
In order to be able to connect to the (or any, for that matter) phone via SSH, it needs to run an SSH server that listens for connections. Although the iPhone theoretically can, Apple does not ship an SSH server by default (or at least doesn't enable it, not too sure).
This is why you need to jailbreak the phone and install your own SSH server.
Also see this Stack Overflow question:
How to read iPhone files without jailbreaking?
I'd like to access files in an iPhone, such as using remotely connecting via ssh and telnet. But it appears that the iPhone's ssh or telnet are not supported. I can ping it, but cannot use telnet or ssh.