Running Patched iOS Applications

Running patched applications on iOS devices require us to side load and run them using external tools. For macOS users, ios-deploy is perfect for this. For Linux users, the libimobiledevice project provides commands to perform similar tasks.

Unfortunately, you will need macOS to patch the IPA. However, once patched, the IPA can be installed and run using idevicedebug on Linux.

To run an IPA, we need to do it using tools that will start the target application with the debugserver started.

toc

• installing and running on macos
  • ios-deploy installation
  • running your application
• installing and running on linux
  • installing libimobiledevice utilities
  • installing the application
  • running the application

installing and running on macOS

For macOS users, the ios-deploy utility can handle the installation and running of patched applications for you. libimobiledevice is available in Homebrew, so following the steps described for Linux users could be adapted for your MAC as well.

ios-deploy installation

Installing ios-deploy is as simple as:

npm install -g ios-deploy

Once installed, you should have the ios-deploy command available in your PATH.

running your application

To install and run your application:

1. Extract the IPA package with unzip my-app.ipa. This should leave you with a Payload/ directory.
2. Attach your iOS device to your computer via USB and ensure that it is unlocked.
3. Run ios-deploy with ios-deploy --bundle Payload/my-app.app -W -d where my-app.app is the folder where your application lives.

You should see the lldb debugger pop up and print out a 'success' message. The application you are running will appear to be in a 'frozen' state for a while. This is because the Frida gadget takes some time to finish loading. After some time, you should be able to run objection explore and land in a successfully connected prompt :)

installing and running on Linux

Using Linux, libimobiledevice is a great set of tools to accomplish the IPA installation and running thereof.

NOTE: Unfortunately, I just cant get ideviceinstaller to work on Kali Linux. If anyone has some insight, or can get it to work, please let me know!

installing libimobiledevice utilities

Depending on your distribution, libimobiledevice and ideviceinstaller may already be in its package repositories. Using an installation of Kali Linux, the required utilities provided by libimobiledevice can be installed with apt install libimobiledevice-utils ideviceinstaller.

Using Arch linux, pacman can be used to install libimobiledevice from 'Extras', and AUR used to install ideviceinstaller.

Of course, you can also compile the utilities from source, grabbing libimobiledevice from here and ideviceinstaller from here.

Once installed, various 'idevice*' commands should be available, such as idevicestatus and idevicedebug.

installing the application

Installing an IPA from a Linux based host can be done with ideviceinstaller, installed in the previous step. All you need is the unlocked, connected iOS device and the IPA to install. In our case, the IPA is the one we patched and code signed as described in the Patching iOS Applications article.

To install your patched IPA, simply run:

$ ideviceinstaller -i my-app-frida-codesigned.ipa
WARNING: could not locate iTunesMetadata.plist in archive!
Copying 'my-app-frida-codesigned.ipa' to device... DONE.
Installing 'com.sensepost.myapp'
Install: CreatingStagingDirectory (5%)
Install: ExtractingPackage (15%)
Install: InspectingPackage (20%)
Install: TakingInstallLock (20%)
Install: PreflightingApplication (30%)
Install: InstallingEmbeddedProfile (30%)
Install: VerifyingApplication (40%)
Install: CreatingContainer (50%)
Install: InstallingApplication (60%)
Install: PostflightingApplication (70%)
Install: SandboxingApplication (80%)
Install: GeneratingApplicationMap (90%)
Install: Complete

Once this process is complete, the application should be available on the iOS devices home screen. Special note should be taken on the line that reads Installing 'com.sensepost.myapp'. This is telling you what the "bundle identifier" is for the application you are installing. You will need this to run the application itself.

running the application

To run the application, simply run the idevicedebug command, specifying the bundle identifier for the app as the last argument. So, if we were to run a SensePost application:

idevicedebug -d run com.sensepost.myapp

And thats it. You can now connect the objection explore REPL!