Using Linux and VMWare to update iPhone firmware

So I was finally able to get update my IPhone to use the 2.2 firmware using VMWare The problem is seems is caused by the restart of the USB interface on the IPhone during the update process. This is done to put the IPhone into the recieve mode for the update but when it reconnects the USBHID module detects the camera and will grab control before vmware is able to. The solution then becomes making USBHID ignore the IPhone when it is put into its receive mode.

WARNING: There are still other things that can go wrong during the update, please make sure to sync your IPhone before doing any updates. If something does go wrong you can restore your phone from another computer running windows and then go back to the VM image to restore your backup.

Here are the things you’ll need:

1. IPhone that needs an update of course
2. Some flavor of Linux – I’m using Gentoo with a 2.6.23 kernel. Note: Your kernel must be configured to load USBHID as a module
3. VMWare >= 6.5.1 – Any 6.X version will probably work it, but 6.5.1 doesn’t require focus to be on the VM inorder for it to capture the USB connection from the IPhone.
4. Windows VMWare Image with ITunes – Using Windows XP SP3 with ITunes 8.0.2

Posted by Will on Jan 08, 2009