ios-deploy

Install and debug iOS apps from the command line. Designed to work on un-jailbroken devices.

Requirements

Mac OS X. Tested on 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra, iOS 9.0 and iOS 10.0
You need to have a valid iOS Development certificate installed.
Xcode 7 or greater should be installed (NOT just Command Line Tools!)

Roadmap

Development

The 1.x branch has been archived (renamed for now), all development is to be on the master branch for simplicity, since the planned 2.x development (break out commands into their own files) has been abandoned for now.

Installation

If you have previously installed ios-deploy via npm, uninstall it by running:

sudo npm uninstall -g ios-deploy

Install ios-deploy via Homebrew by running:

brew install ios-deploy

Testing

Run:

python -m py_compile src/scripts/*.py && xcodebuild -target ios-deploy-lib && xcodebuild test -scheme ios-deploy-tests

Usage

Usage: ios-deploy [OPTION]...
    -d, --debug                  launch the app in lldb after installation
    -i, --id <device_id>         the id of the device to connect to
    -c, --detect                 only detect if the device is connected
    -b, --bundle <bundle.app>    the path to the app bundle to be installed
    -a, --args <args>            command line arguments to pass to the app when launching it
    -s, --envs <envs>            environment variables, space separated key-value pairs, to pass to the app when launching it
    -t, --timeout <timeout>      number of seconds to wait for a device to be connected
    -u, --unbuffered             don't buffer stdout
    -n, --nostart                do not start the app when debugging
    -I, --noninteractive         start in non interactive mode (quit when app crashes or exits)
    -L, --justlaunch             just launch the app and exit lldb
    -v, --verbose                enable verbose output
    -m, --noinstall              directly start debugging without app install (-d not required)
    -p, --port <number>          port used for device, default: dynamic
    -r, --uninstall              uninstall the app before install (do not use with -m; app cache and data are cleared) 
    -9, --uninstall_only         uninstall the app ONLY. Use only with -1 <bundle_id> 
    -1, --bundle_id <bundle id>  specify bundle id for list and upload
    -l, --list[=<dir>]           list all app files or the specified directory
    -o, --upload <file>          upload file
    -w, --download[=<path>]      download app tree or the specified file/directory
    -2, --to <target pathname>   use together with up/download file/tree. specify target
    -D, --mkdir <dir>            make directory on device
    -R, --rm <path>              remove file or directory on device (directories must be empty)
    -V, --version                print the executable version 
    -e, --exists                 check if the app with given bundle_id is installed or not 
    -B, --list_bundle_id         list bundle_id 
    -W, --no-wifi                ignore wifi devices
    -O, --output <file>          write stdout and stderr to this file
    --detect_deadlocks <sec>     start printing backtraces for all threads periodically after specific amount of seconds

Examples

The commands below assume that you have an app called my.app with bundle id bundle.id. Substitute where necessary.

// deploy and debug your app to a connected device
ios-deploy --debug --bundle my.app

// deploy, debug and pass environment variables to a connected device
ios-deploy --debug --envs DYLD_PRINT_STATISTICS=1 --bundle my.app

// deploy and debug your app to a connected device, skipping any wi-fi connection (use USB)
ios-deploy --debug --bundle my.app --no-wifi

// deploy and launch your app to a connected device, but quit the debugger after
ios-deploy --justlaunch --debug --bundle my.app

// deploy and launch your app to a connected device, quit when app crashes or exits
ios-deploy --noninteractive --debug --bundle my.app

// Upload a file to your app's Documents folder
ios-deploy --bundle_id 'bundle.id' --upload test.txt --to Documents/test.txt

// Download your app's Documents, Library and tmp folders
ios-deploy --bundle_id 'bundle.id' --download --to MyDestinationFolder

// List the contents of your app's Documents, Library and tmp folders
ios-deploy --bundle_id 'bundle.id' --list

// deploy and debug your app to a connected device, uninstall the app first
ios-deploy --uninstall --debug --bundle my.app

// check whether an app by bundle id exists on the device (check return code `echo $?`)
ios-deploy --exists --bundle_id com.apple.mobilemail

// Download the Documents directory of the app *only*
ios-deploy --download=/Documents --bundle_id my.app.id --to ./my_download_location

// List ids and names of connected devices
ios-deploy -c

// Uninstall an app
ios-deploy --uninstall_only --bundle_id my.bundle.id

// list all bundle ids of all apps on your device
ios-deploy --list_bundle_id

Demo

The included demo.app represents the minimum required to get code running on iOS.

make demo.app will generate the demo.app executable. If it doesn't compile, modify IOS_SDK_VERSION in the Makefile.
make debug will install demo.app and launch a LLDB session.

Notes

--detect_deadlocks can help to identify an exact state of application's threads in case of a deadlock. It works like this: The user specifies the amount of time ios-deploy runs the app as usual. When the timeout is elapsed ios-deploy starts to print call-stacks of all threads every 5 seconds and the app keeps running. Comparing threads' call-stacks between each other helps to identify the threads which were stuck.

License

ios-deploy is available under the provisions of the GNU General Public License, version 3 (or later), available here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

Error codes used for error messages were taken from SDMMobileDevice framework, originally reverse engineered by Sam Marshall. SDMMobileDevice is distributed under BSD 3-Clause license and is available here: https://github.com/samdmarshall/SDMMobileDevice

gluonhq/ios-deploy