Friday, April 22, 2011

Installing VLC on a jailbroken iPad

So, you've got a jailbroken iPad. Cydia is installed. You've got an international flight in 6 hours and you want some movies to pass the time. Here's a 5 minute guide to getting VLC (and movies!) onto your iPad

  1. If you haven't jailbroken your iPad, you won't have Cydia and you cannot proceed. Refer to my previous blog post.
  2. Open Cydia.
  3. Install VLC.
  4. Install OpenSSH. This will install an FTP server on your iPad. An FTP server is like a drop box for files. You connect to the FTP server via an FTP client, and copy your movies across.
  5. Install a FTP client on your computer. If you're using a Mac, the best client is FileZilla. If you're using Windows, the best client is...FileZilla.
  6. Find the IP address of your iPad. This is in the Settings > Wi-Fi > (Your Access Point)
  7. Open FileZilla and enter the following settings
    1. Host: (your iPad's IP adddress)
    2. Username: root
    3. Password: alpine
  8. The FileZilla screen is split vertically. The left side shows the files on your local computer. The right side shows the files on your iPad.
  9. On the right side, navigate to /private/var/mobile/Media.
  10. On the left side, navigate to the folder containing your movies.
  11. Drag the movies from the left to right.
  12. When you're done, open VLC.
There you go! Now load your iPad quickly: movies copy over Wi-Fi, and you might not have enough time to copy everything you want before your flight departs!

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the post, but Filezilla says could not connect using ip and root - alpine. What is root, do i type the word, or is ther a root that I must type in, and what would that be.

    Thanks
    Jurie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry - this is the error that I get.

    Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".
    Error: Could not connect to server
    Status: Waiting to retry...
    Status: Delaying connection for 1 second due to previously failed connection attempt...
    Status: Connecting to 192.168.5.11:21...
    Status: Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".
    Error: Could not connect to server

    ReplyDelete
  3. If that happens, make sure OpenSSH is installed on your iPad/iPhone. ECONNREFUSED means that there is no application listening on the FTP port.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am unable connect. Getting following error message.

    Status: Connecting to 192.168.1.6:21...
    Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
    Error: Could not connect to server

    ReplyDelete
  5. I encountered the same problem but then changed the port to 22 (another port for FTP) and it works.

    ReplyDelete
  6. IT IS NOT A FTP SERVER ITS AN SSH SERVER AND PORT 22 IS SSH NOT FTP!

    ReplyDelete