How to SSH into Your Jailbroken Apple TV2 to Install Apps!

f you have recently jailbroken your Apple TV2 for the first time, you might find yourself wondering what to do next. Sure the default NitoTV is cool, but there’s only so much you can do with it.

If you are seriously looking to venture into the world of Apple TV hacking, you might want to pay attention. One of the best ways to access your Apple TV and install files is through SSH. This is just basically a secure connection between 2 devices.

In this case it is between your computer and your Apple TV2. OpenSSH, written by Saurik is installed during the jailbreak process. This is what allows your Apple TV to make a connection with your computer.

I’m on a Mac but I assume it is basically the same process for Windows users with its command line prompt app. Mac users open spotlight and type in Terminal. Once open you want to enter the following:
ssh root@192.168.x.x
Obviously you want to fill in the x’s with your Apple TV2 IP address. To find it, just open the main Apple TV menu and go to Settings > General > Network > IP address.

Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get it right away, it took me a few minutes before I finally got prompted for a password. Also you must make sure you are on the same Wi-Fi network as your Apple TV.
The default Apple password is alpine, like on all of their other iOS devices.  Type it in and hit enter. You should now see Apple-TV:~root# which means you have write access to Apple TV’s hard disk.

For an example I will give you the commands to install XBMC on your AppleTV2 which is a popular home theatre PC software.
echo “deb http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/atv2 ./” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xbmc.list
apt-get update
apt-get install org.xbmc.xbmc-atv2
After the last line is entered, you should see some code scrolling across your Apple TV2 and your machine will restart. After it reboots, you should see XBMC in your Apple TV Main Menu. You have successfully SSH’d into your Apple TV!