SSH into iPhone over USB without Wi-Fi

SSH into a Jailbroken iPhone allows to browse files & folders on the device easily. When the iPhone and the computer are connected to the same WiFi network, it is easy to do SSH using any SSH client. SSH into the iPhone is also possible over USB cable and this comes handy in cases when the iPhone is not connected to the network. Steps below explains the procedure to SSH into the iPhone over USB cable.

Steps to SSH into iPhone through USB Cable (windows):

1. Jailbreak the iPhone and install OpenSSH from Cydia.

2. Download Python 2.6 and install it to c:\python26 folder.

3. Download usbmuxd file and extract it to C drive using winrar.

4. Connect the iPhone to windows machine over USB cable.

5. Open command prompt and type the below commands.

C:\> cd usbmuxd-1.0.8 C:\usbmuxd-1.0.8>cd python-client C:\usbmuxd-1.0.8\python-client>\Python26\python.exe tcprelay.py -t 22:2222

6. Download putty and open it.

7. On putty, enter Host Name as 127.0.0.1 and Port as 2222. Select connection type as SSH and click Open.

8. Now you are connected to iPhone over SSH. Type the username as root and the password as alpine to log into the iPhone.

Note: Usbmuxd is a python module. So it works in Mac OS and other platforms as well. But the only limitation is, we can open only one SSH connection at a time.