/iPhone_IPcamera

Repurpose an old iPhone into an IP camera

Primary LanguageJavaScript

Turn an old iphone into a camera webserver

The idea is to repurpose an old iPhone as a wifi camera. There are already many "Ip-Camera" application existing on the App Store, however, my goal was to install and control it through ssh. Moreover, this project was more a test on what is possible to do with an old iPhone. In the past year, I've been purchasing lots of broken iPhone and repaired them for profit but unfortunately, a good amount of them was blocked and forgotten by the previous owner (I always tried to contact them by email/phone but they always ignored me so I assume they don't care about it). I'm trying to figure out what to do with these blocked iPhones. This project is an idea on that and a test on the limitations of what is achievable.

Installation

  1. Jailbreak using checkrain and install Cydia. Search for "OpenSSH" and install the repo. Once installed you can either forward the connection through usb or search for the iphone IP. To forward ssh connection through usb run:

iproxy 23 44

then open a new terminal and run:

ssh root@localhost -p 23

the default root password is alpine. After first ssh connection, I reccomend to change both root and mobile passwords for security and to update the repos.

passwd root

passwd mobile

apt update && apt upgrade

  1. Install git and clone the repo.

apt install git

git clone https://github.com/Rage997/iPhone_IPcamera.git && cd iPhone_IPcamera

  1. Install the dependencies. You can run install_dependecies.sh

chmod 755 ./install_dependecies.sh && ./install_dependecies.sh

  1. Done! You can start the webserver by running node app.js and connect on port 3000. If you are using libusb you can run iproxy 3000 3000 and then open the broswer http://localhost:3000/

TODO

[x] Unfortunately ffmpeg needs to get access granted to control the phone camera. I still haven't managed how to do that therefore this project can be considered incomplete. -> Update: this has been done using activator to take pictures. However, to do so the iPhone screens has to be turned on. This is more a workaround rather than a solution.

[] Write a nice looking front-end

Note: This has been done on a iphone 5s running IOS 12.5.1 imho IOS 12 has the best cydia support for this kind of tweaks. I've also tried using IOS 9 but apt commandline and OPENSSH responsiviness is not as good as in IOS 12