For no good reason I’ve decided to start messing with the Apple TV and see what other kinds of software can be installed on it. Seems like the first step is to gain ssh access. This is relatively easily done using ATV USB Creator which installs ssh tools and two programs that should prove interesting, XBMC and Boxee. I’ll write more about those programs later. In this post, I’ll just cover this ATV USB Creator thing and ssh access.

Basically you need a flash USB drive that you’ll create a “patchstick” from. I had a 2GB one lying around. You’ll also need an Intel Mac. You just plug it into a free USB port, launch ATV USB Creator, and follow the instructions on the main page. 

After the USB patchstick is created, you power down the Apple TV (basically pull the plug) and plug the USB drive into the back of the Apple TV, and plug the Apple TV back in again. The Apple TV reboots off of the drive and installs the programs. You’ll see a Linux penguin and some grey text fly by. You then power off the Apple TV, unplug the USB drive, and then plug the Apple TV again.

After these steps are completed, the Apple TV boots back into the familiar Apple TV GUI, but there is a new menu item: XBMC/Boxee. The first thing to do is update both software as they’re constantly being updated. This seems rather straight forward, but I will say that even during these first steps, it soon becomes quite clear that you’re leaving the nice, friendly, thought-out Apple UI and entering a world of overwhelming options and confusing choices. Be forewarned.

SSH Access

Anyhow, the ATV USB Creator adds ssh to the Apple TV so you can login to your Apple TV remotely from your Mac. Just fire up the Terminal (included on all Macs running OS X in Applications > Utilities) and type “ssh frontrow@appletv.local” – you’ll be prompted for the password, which is “frontrow”. Once in, you can use all the good-old UNIX commands to traverse the Apple TV’s directory.

But the really good stuff is the ability to manually copy files from your Mac to the Apple TV. You can use a standard FTP program like CyberDuck or Fugu. Launch either program, put “appletv.local” in the Connect to: field, username = “frontrow”, and set the password to “frontrow”. Make sure you’re connecting via SFTP.

So those are the basics on getting access to the AppleTV, more to come.

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Categories: Apple, General, Technology :: ::

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