How to install Cydia tweaks on iOS 11-11.1.2 with Electra toolkit

As you know, Electra allows you to install and run themes. Apart from themes, users can also install Cydia tweaks manually. Here’s how you can sign binaries and install tweaks through SSH.

How can Electra run Cydia tweaks?

Electra developer toolkit comes with full Anemone theming support and limited tweak support. The tweak support is limited because it uses Comex’s Substitute (Substrate alternative).    

The reason behind this is that all jailbreak tweaks so far are inherently written for Cydia Substrate.

As Substitute is so new, developers will require some time to adapt their tweaks for this new framework.

cydia

The initial release of this toolkit was only aimed at developers and hackers. Surprisingly, tweak and theme developers are yet to try it.

Moreover, some of the developers who may have tried it didn’t post any substantial updates online.

Which tweaks are working on iOS 11?

A few users posted about how they were able to run Barrel on their devices.

Apart from Barrel, there is not a single tweak that is working on iOS 11-11.1.2 firmware. This is primarily due to the nature of Substitute because Substrate tweaks still require a lot of modifications to work properly on it.

Here’s a video demonstration of this tweak running on an iPhone X.

According to me, it will still take a few days for the dust to settle so I suggest waiting for now.

Once the developers give you the all clear, you can go ahead and start installing all compatible jailbreak tweaks.

  • Update – A lot of tweaks are now compatible with iOS 11-11.1.2. You can download and install all compatible Debian packages here. Make sure you are running the latest version of the toolkit.

What do you need to keep in mind?

Before you move onto the tutorial, keep the following points in mind.

Important – 

  • This guide is intended for developers and advanced users only. If you are a beginner, stay away from anything involving SSH or filesystem access.
  • This tutorial is tested only with Barrel tweak. You can theoretically install other tweaks as well, but that will be at your own risk.
  • Everything has been tested only on Windows operating system. If you own a Mac, you must make necessary adjustments wherever and whenever possible.
  • All compatible tweaks are now working with this method.
  • You can try any tweak safely, even the ones that are not present in the compatibility list. The chances of messing anything up are zero because post-install scripts don’t run.
  • If something goes wrong, you can always uninstall everything with this tutorial.
  • If you just want to customize your device, you can try theming first with this guide. This is relatively safer and still allows you experiment outside of the stock iOS operating system.
  • Remember, these tweaks will not work in Safari browser or inside App Store apps due to Sandbox restrictions.
  • Binary signing and Cydia Substrate are NOT required if you are using beta 5 version or above. You can skip directly to step 2.

Here’s how to manually sign and install jailbreak tweaks using Cygwin and Electra development toolkit. This tutorial will walk you through installing Barrel Springboard tweak on your device. This guide is conceptualized by developer “qwikscopeurmum”.

Requirements

  • A 64-bit iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
  • Electra jailbreak toolkit
  • Cydia Substrate (older version)
  • A computer running Windows or Mac
  • Debian package of the desired tweak
  • Basic knowledge of SSH and shell programming
  • Cygwin (for Windows)
  • ldid2 (for macOS)
  • iOS Toolchain for Windows
  • WinSCP FTP client
  • 7Zip
  • iTerminal app

How to sign and install jailbreak tweaks on iOS 11-11.1.2 

1. Sign binary files (optional)

Step 1 Firstly, you must install Cydia Substrate on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touchThis is a prerequisite for all Substrate-based tweaks or packages.

Step 2 Download and install Cygwin terminal on your computer.

Step 3 Install iOS Toolchain for Windows from this link. Transfer the following folders inside this archive to Cygwin’s directory. If Windows asks you to copy duplicate files, click on “Yes”.

  • bin
  • include
  • lib
  • libexec
  • share

Step 4 Download the Debian package of Barrel here. Open its .deb file using 7Zip and extract the contents of data.tar archive to any location on your computer.

Step 5 You will now get 3 folders as shown below.

Step 6 Electra can only work if you manually sign your binaries, which have .dylib extension or no extension at all. You don’t need to sign the .plist files.

Step 7 You must go into each folder and then sign the binary files present therein. Here’s the list of binary files that you need to sign for Barrel –

  • BarrelSettings (Applications/BarrelSettings.app folder)
  • threedeeboard.dylib (Library/MobileSubstrate)
  • threedeeprefs (PreferenceBundles/threedeeprefs.bundle folder)

Step 8 Open Cygwin64 Terminal from your desktop.

Step 9 Now go to the location where you extracted all the aforementioned folders. Open all the folders where the binary files are present.

Step 10 Run the following command in each of the folders. Ensure you press the enter/return key after each command.

ldid2 -S <drag binary file here>

Step 11 If it doesn’t display any error, this means the binary file is signed successfully. You are done with the signing part now.

2. Transfer tweak files to your device

Step 12 Establish an SFTP session using WinSCP client. You must use the following details –

  • Host Name – Wifi IP Address (you can get this value from Settings by tapping the “i” next to your Wifi network)
  • Port – 22 or 2222
  • User Name – root
  • Password – alpine

Step 13 Press Login to access the root filesystem of your device.

Step 14 Navigate to Library and then perform the following actions –

  • Copy contents of MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries to /bootstrap/Library/SBInject/.
  • Copy contents of PreferenceBundles folder to /bootstrap/Library/PreferenceBundles.
  • Copy contents of PreferenceLoader/Preferences to /bootstrap/Library/PreferenceLoader/Preferences. Create the “Preferences” folder if it’s not already present in the aforementioned directory.
  • Copy tweak data such as Switches folder, Application Support, etc (if present) to the /Library folder in the root filesystem. Tweak data may or may not be present in a package.

3. Manually Restart Springboard

Step 15 Set Barrel animation to none from its Settings section on your device.

Step 16 Establish an SSH connection using iTerminal App Store application. The values of the connection will remain the same as above. If you don’t want to use an App Store app, you can also use any SSH client such as Putty.

Step 17 Run the following command in Terminal.

killall -9 SpringBoard

Step 18 Your device will now respring. This will apply all the changes just like you normally do after installing a jailbreak tweak.

Step 19 You can now select any Springboard animation from Barrel’s Settings section.

If you get Barrel or other jailbreak tweaks working with this tutorial, please leave a comment below. This will allow me to keep the compatibility list up to date.

How to install tweaks with Filza [No Computer]

If you don’t have a computer, here’s an easier method for installing tweaks on your Apple device. You can install Cylinder, Zeppelin, and all other supported tweaks with this method.

Step 1 Install Cydia Substrate using the method above. This will ensure your device can run Substrate-dependent tweaks properly.

Step 2 Install FilzaEscaped file explorer on your device. If you don’t have a computer, you can use Panda Helper VIP to install it.

FilzaJailed

Step 2 Download ZipApp Free application from the official App Store.

‎ZipApp Lite: The Unarchiver
‎ZipApp Lite: The Unarchiver

Step 3 Download the Debian package of any compatible tweak from here. Ensure you use Safari web browser only.

Step 4 Open the .deb package with ZipApp Free and extract the data.tar.Izma archive inside it. The extracted files will go to this ZipApp’s folder in this location on your root filesystem – /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application. You must sort this folder by Date and then check each of the folders present therein.

Step 5 Open Filza and go to the aforementioned location (ZipApp’s location). Now, copy the following files and folders to this location –

  • Copy <tweak name>.plist and <tweak name>.dylib to /bootstrap/Library/SBinject.
  • Copy contents of PreferenceBundles folder to /bootstrap/Library/PreferenceBundles.
  • Copy contents of PreferenceLoader to /bootstrap/Library/PreferenceLoader/Preferences.
  • Copy tweak data such as Switches folder, etc to the root /Library folder.

Step 6 Restart Springboard as shown above. Your tweak will now start working.

Important –

  • Generally, these files are present in this location – MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries. You can also find these files inside the SBInject folder in some tweaks.
  • If you are installing Cylinder, you need to transfer the Cylinder folder inside the archive to the root /Library folder, not in /bootstrap/Library. This holds true for all other similar tweaks like Zeppelin that contain an extra folder apart from the ones given above. This folder contains tweak data.
  • If there’s no such called MobileSubstrate, simply copy the files from the SBInject folder.

As always, feel free to ask any questions if you encounter an error anywhere in this tutorial.

For more Cydia guides and tutorials, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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