Interact with debug service of the iOS device

[ICE-FlatLine]

Is it possible to interact with the debug service of the device via pymobiledevice3 (similar to idevicedebug command of the libimobiledevice library)?

[doronz88]

All the functionality that can be accessed by mounting the DeveloperDiskImage, is wrapped in developer subcommand.

pymobiledevice3 developer debugserver

[ICE-FlatLine]

So debugserver subcommand is equivalent to idevicedebugserverproxy command in libimobiledevice library. However, libimobiledevice also has an idevicedebug command that (at least based on my understanding) allows straightforward launching of the app with the device debugserver session. Basically it is similar to launching an app with Xcode, while the xcode debug console output is shown in the idevicedebug stdout.

I assume that there is no one-command equivalent in pymobiledevice3 for now, correct?

[doronz88]

That's actually a very confusing and wrong libimobiledevice feature. That's not a debugserver feature at all, but DVT, meaning it's handled in DTServiceHub.

You can launch programs (use --help to view more options):

pymobiledevice3 developer dvt launch com.apple.mobilesafari

And also kill applications:

pymobiledevice3 developer dvt kill <pid>

Feel free to look arround the other amazing things DVT allows.

Also, the main project README refers to these commonly used examples:

https://github.com/doronz88/pymobiledevice3#example

[ICE-FlatLine]

I am more-or-less familiar with developer dvt launch command of pymobiledevice3. However, as far as I understand it is different from idevicedebug by the following:

• developer dvt launch doesn't interact with debugserver process of the device, it launches the app and returns the PID of the app on device.
• idevicedebug launches an app, starts debugserver process on device and returns the debug console output of the launched app through the stdout.

Sorry If I am using the terminology incorrectly...

Whether they are both handled under-the-hood by DTServiceHub or not - I am sure you are much more familiar with this than me).

[doronz88]

you have one of three options:

1. launch with dvt and attach with debugserver using lldb
2. launch with debugserver and attach with debugserver using lldb
3. launch with debugserver and attach with debugserver and implement its protocol yourself in order to launch it yourself instead of the well-defined lldb client

[sachatt]

Is there any resolution to this ? With the recent change in iOS17 no longer being supported by libimobiledevices I am trying to find a workaround to launch an add with debug service attached so I can view the outputs.