Have you ever thought about running Linux on iOS?

Have you ever thought about running Linux on an iOS device? Or using shell to transfer files, write scripts, or use Vi to develop code?

Here is the good news, there is now something called iSH that you can use to do the above operations on your iOS device.

iSH is a tool that uses the usermode x86 emulator to bring Linux shell to IOS devices. Based on Alpine Linux, the program takes up little space, has a certain degree of security and is easy to use. There are almost no ads, plug-ins and other things that interfere with users.

process

If you want to install iSH on an IOS device, you first need to install TestFlight. With it, you can install beta versions of programs on your device. How great!

After installing TestFlight, go to this link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/97i7KM8O, and then click "Start Testing". As shown in the figure, you can open TestFlight and receive an invitation to join the iSH beta version.

Install iSH via TestFlight

Once iSH is installed, it can be opened normally on an iOS device. The program will have an ash shell, but you can use the APK package manager to execute related commands and install other packages.

iSH Installation Complete

Of course, iSH has only been online for a short time and can only run under the simulator, so not all Linux programs can be used (some friends who are full of fancy operations should restrain themselves). But there are still some things to do, such as SSH. iSH provides some basic programs that users may use in Linux, such as Vi, wget, zip/unzip, tar, etc. (These can be viewed in the built-in command list at the end of the article)

wget and Vi user interface

Install software in iSH using APK

Alpine Linux uses the APK package manager to install corresponding programs.

APK is very easy to operate and can be used for a series of operations such as searching, installing, listing, deleting packages, etc.

Type apk info to list currently installed packages.

Enter apk search [package_name] to search for the new package you want to add. For example, if you want to search for PHP, enter apk search php.

Enter apk add [package_name] to install a new package. For example, to install PHP, enter apk add php. To install Python, enter apk add python.

Install php and python in iSH

Finally, if you need to delete an installed package, you can enter apk del [package_name]. For example, to delete php, just enter apk delete php.

Transfer files between iSH and iCloud

Now, with iSH, you can do actual development and testing work through iOS devices, so it is also very easy to transfer files to iSH through iCloud.

After installing iSH, a new path will be created in the system's file management so that users can access the iSH file system at any time and send files to other locations through this folder, such as iCloud Drive, mobile phone memory or Dropbox.

File system location

If you want to transfer a file from iSH, just select the file and click "Send" and "Save As".

Unfortunately, this file transfer is still one-way, iSH is still in a state of only exporting but not importing. However, users can also use wget to transfer files to iSH.

/bin/Commands available summary

arch ash base64 bbconfig busybox cat chgrp chmod chown conspy cp date dd df dmesg dnsdomainname dumpkmap echo ed egrep false fatattr fdflush fgrep fsync getopt grep gunzip gzip hostname ionice iostat ipcalc kbd_mode kill link linux32 linux64 ln login ls lzop makemime mkdir mknod mktemp more mount mountpoint mpstat mv netstat nice pidof ping ping6 pipe_progress printenv ps pwd reformime rev rm rmdir run-parts sed setpriv setserial sh sleep stty su sync tar touch true umount uname usleep watch zcat

/usr/bin/Summary of available commands

awk basename beep blkdiscard bunzip2 bzcat bzip2 cal chvt cksum clear cmp comm cpio crontab cryptpw cut dc deallocvt diff dirname dos2unix du dumpleases eject env expand expr factor fallocate find flock fold free fuser getconf getent groups hd head hexdump hostid iconv id install ipcrm ipcs killall ldd less logger lsof lsusb lzcat lzma lzopcat md5sum mesg microcom mkfifo mkpasswd nc nl nmeter nohup nproc nsenter nslookup od passwd paste patch pgrep pkill pmap printf pscan pstree pwdx readlink realpath renice reset resize scanelf seq setkeycodes setsid sha1sum sha256sum sha3sum sha512sum showkey shred shuf smemcap sort split ssl_client strings sum tac tail tee test time timeout top tr traceroute traceroute6 truncate tty ttysize udhcpc6 unexpand uniq unix2dos unlink unlzma unlzop unshare unxz unzip uptime uudecode uuencode vi vlock volname wc wget which whoami whois xargs xxd xzcat yes

OK, the above is a preliminary introduction to iSH. Those who are interested can download it and try it out by themselves, but be careful not to damage your phone.

Reference source: bleepingcomputer, compiled by Karunesh91