IOS Filesystem is a dumpsterfire

[mbntr]

My iPhone 7 is jailbroken and I have a terminal installed, how nice, I can also log into it via SSH, which is the main way I do these things.

IOS is based on MacOS, which is based on BSD, a branch of UNIX. Both are based on Darwin (in my case version 19.4.0), in fact IOS uses the UNIX filesystem structure, it's just buried somewhere, somewhere very deep.

So after logging in (for root and "mobile" the password is alpine) I want to know what and where are the directories, and this seems like a normal UNIX like OS, even the commands, infact it uses apt, but there are some catches.

Thanks to apt I was able to install various things like python, which is quite odd, I don't know where apt found a compatible version of python from but it did, it didn't come with pip so I had to install it.

Then I wanted to know If I was able to access some files in the... Files folder, the Pseudo filesystem that IOS is "equipped" with. To do so I decided to search for a file in the Firefox downloads folder, and I did, just had to search for it, and the path was quite odd to me, ./private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/20FB4883-2ECA-40AB-B624-149443E7AC11/Documents/, now I copied a python script this folder and it was able co copy it successfully, going to that folder with the terminal and typing "ls" I get the file I just copied.

BUT wonder of all wonders when I go to that folder with the folders app, I get NOTHING, but somehow that folder has 1 element, my question is WHY ISN'T IT DISPLAYED!

Also what on earth is /Containers?

Could someone who has some knowledge on this explain what the f*ck is happening?

[Bombastinator]

Sounds like the problem is it’s based on Unix but using modern technologies like containers you’re not familiar with.  Apple was famous for using crazy old stuff for a long time and getting into trouble because of it.  The original 68k OS was written in some crazy language designed for teaching programming rather than actually being used and it caused all kinds of problems. One would assume they learned their lesson on that one as it almost killed the company.  Hard to know though.

 

perhaps learning about containers will provide the answer.

[mbntr]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Sounds like the problem is it’s based on Unix but using modern technologies like containers you’re not familiar with.  Apple was famous for using crazy old stuff for a long time and getting into trouble because of it.  The original 68k OS was written in some crazy language designed for teaching programming rather than actually being used and it caused all kinds of problems. One would assume they learned their lesson on that one as it almost killed the company.  Hard to know though.

 

perhaps learning about containers will provide the answer.

huh, I almost forgot about them, I have never encountered containers before, I knew they were implemented in IOS, but for some reason I didn't expect the "files" app to be in one.

It would be nice If IOS had a rispectable file manager.

[Kilrah]

Containers - iOS isolates apps and their documents so that they're not accessible from any other app. 

Files - there are 2 locations where files are stored on each app, one is backed up to iCloud and the other isn't.

 

The system may be based on unix but the filesystem organization beyond the base system is custom to Apple.

 

 

[mbntr]

2 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Containers - iOS isolates apps and their documents so that they're not accessible from any other app. 

Files - there are 2 locations where files are stored on each app, one is backed up to iCloud and the other isn't.

 

The system may be based on unix but the filesystem structures are custom to Apple.

 

 

i basically forgot about containers, I was expecting a more standardized structure, how can an app retrive information from another app in this way?

this system might be more secure but it makes many things way harder.

[Kilrah]

It can't, that's the whole point. There is no way for app 1 to get anything directly from app 2. The only way is for you to go in app 2, do "share" and select app 1, at which point the system makes a copy of the file into app 1's documents folders...

Well now with recent iOS you can also save a file into "files" from app 1 and then access that from app 2.

 

And yes that's why iOS is impractical for any kind of "classic" use, you end up with tons of duplicates and versions if you want to work on something on multiple apps.

[Kilrah]

Looks like there aren't 2 separate folders for iCloud backed up files and those not in iOS13 anymore, all in the same now and backup or not is an app setting.