Jailbreaking Apple TV2 with greenpois0n RC6, Easy as umm Apple pie…

I was very excited to notice that greenpois0n RC6 was released so that I could finally do an un-tethered jailbreak.  For those that don’t know the difference, a tethered jailbreak consists of having to attack the USB cable to your device on EVERY boot.  Which for the purpose of having a little Apple TV2 box under your tv, seemed well pointless.  I didn’t want to keep bringing my mac mini over to boot it.  So I waited for this RC6 release.

What you will need for this jailbreak:

1. Apple TV2 (of course) running 4.2.1 (as of this entry)
2. a micro USB cable (cheap from Monoprice.com)
3. a mac/pc
4. the greenpois0n jailbreak software
5. 4 minutes of your time.

Where to begin:

1. Plug in your AppleTV2 into your PC/mac using the micro USB cable that you purchased (and waited for).
2. Have greenpois0n running and ready, go through the DFU steps below
3. Have the ATV2 just plugged in with the micro USB, no power, after 7 seconds (the app will run a counter for you, try it a couple times you will get the hang of it), plug in the power, and click and hold both the menu + play/pause buttons.
4. If you did this correctly (and if you didn’t just retry) you will have the ‘Jailbreak’ button become active in the app.
5. Click the ‘Jailbreak’ button.
6. Wait patiently the short 2-3 min that it takes to flash / jailbreak / crack open your Apple TV2.
7. Once the app tells you it is all done, unplug the apple tv, and plug it under your TV.
8. Navigate to the greenpois0n menu setting, and complete the jailbreak by installing SSH via the cydia injection / install.

Congrats

After that very complex process (ha!) you are now done and jailbroken.  I ended up installing XBMC and testing some videos off my network.  It all worked great.  So enjoy more use out of your Apple TV2!  No more needing to convert your xvid/divx to MP4’s.

XBMC info:  http://xbmc.org/theuni/2011/01/20/you-asked-for-it-xbmc-for-appletv2-ipad-iphone4/