Restoring an iPhone inside VirtualBox

It was a little nerve racking for a minute, but I can confirm that it is possible to upgrade and restore iPhone firmware in a virtualbox environment. It is actually simple, the only thing I had to do was re-connect the iPhone to the VM twice during the Restore.

The screenshot shows Ubuntu 8.10 Interpid Ibex as a host, with Windows XP running in a Virtual Machine (VirtualBox) in the foreground. You can see iTunes 8 running, having just completed the firmware upgrade.

I used a custom ipsw that I got from the internet so I didn’t upgrade my baseband. I suggest you do this or something similar to maintain the OPTION to unlock your phone in the future. (I don’t expect to unlock my phone, but I want to keep the option!)

I got the modified 2.2 firmware image from tpb, you can search for it as “iPhone1,2_2.2_5G77_Custom_Restore.ipsw” – it is listed under mac applications (!?)

So, when you’re ready to try to upgrade your firmware, hover your mouse over the usb icon in the VirtualBox tray and make sure it stays connected. Check the connection by right clicking on the USB icon. When the Restore/Upgrade goes through stages it will disconnect the phone and you will need to re-connect it by re-activating the checkbox.

For the Record: I tested VirtualBox 2.0.6 myself and iPhone sync DOES work when you enter a correct /etc/fstab entry.

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