Developer Stooged, who specializes in PS4/PS5 scene releases with devices such as the Raspberry Pi or the ESP32, has released PI-Pwn, a “port” of the PPPwn exploit to the Raspberry Pi. But this one really feels like magic. Specifically, once everything’s installed, the Raspberry Pi will automatically attempt to hack the connected PS4, and run GoldHEN on it, when you boot the PS4. It makes running the exploit extremely convenient.
This is how Stooged describes it (and exactly how people imagined this could work at console startup):
The idea is you boot the console and the pi together and the pi will keep trying to pwn the console without any input from you, just wait on the home screen until the pppwn succeeds.
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If you were looking for an easy way to run the PS4 exploit at startup, and happen to have a Raspberry pi lying around, you’ll definitely want to try this.
What is PI-Pwn for the PS4
PI-Pwn is a tool to run the PPPwn exploit on a Raspberry Pi, which will automatically try to run the PPPwn exploit on the connected PS4 (it will loop the exploit until successful), and then will load GoldHEN on the PS4. See the video below for a demonstration.
PPPwn has been confirmed to run on the following devices:
Raspberry Pi 3B+
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
Raspberry Pi 5
Raspberry Pi 400
Personal note: IMO the best cost/performance device at the time of writing is the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
Other models such as the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with usb to ethernet adapter, or Raspberry Pi Zero W with usb to ethernet adapter, also work, but are not recommended as they are too slow for the exploit to work efficiently.
You’ll also need an SD Card (to install the system on the Raspberry Pi), and a usb key (you’ll load GoldHEN from there).
Download and use PI-Pwn
Download
The files can be downloaded from https://github.com/stooged/PI-Pwn
Setup
The steps below might seem daunting, but they just describe the initial setup of the whole thing. You only have to do this once. After that, running the exploit is just a matter of booting your Raspberry Pi at the same time as the console, and wait on the PS4’s home screen until the hack is done. Magical!
If you don’t want to read all of this, Modded Warfar has a tutorial video (below), as he always does
To restate, after you’ve done the setup once, the only thing you have to do in the future is turn the raspberry Pi on when you turn the PS4 on.
From the readme:
you need to install Raspberry Pi OS Lite onto a sd card.
place the sd card into your computer and copy the PPPwn folder to the sd card.if you are using a usb to ethernet adapter you need to edit run.sh and set
USBETHERNET=true
.
if your pi has an ethernet port and you are using a usb to ethernet adapter your interface for the usb adapter should beINTERFACE="eth1"
if you are using something like a pi zero 2 the interface will beINTERFACE="eth0"
place the sd card into the raspberry pi and run the following commands
sudo chmod 777 /boot/firmware/PPPwn/install.sh sudo bash /boot/firmware/PPPwn/install.shonce the pi reboots pppwn will run automatically.
On your PS4:
- Go to
Settings
and thenNetwork
- Select
Set Up Internet connection
and chooseUse a LAN Cable
- Choose
Custom
setup and choosePPPoE
forIP Address Settings
- Enter anything for
PPPoE User ID
andPPPoE Password
- Choose
Automatic
forDNS Settings
andMTU Settings
- Choose
Do Not Use
forProxy Server
for GoldHen you need to place the goldhen.bin file onto the root of a usb drive and plug it into the console
once everything is setup and the ethernet cable is plugged in between the pi and the console the pi should automatically try and pwn the console.
the exploit may fail many times but the pi will continue to purge the console to keep trying to pwn itself.
once pwned the process will stop and the pi will shut down.you will need to restart the pi if you wish to pwn the console again.
the idea is you boot the console and the pi together and the pi will keep trying to pwn the console without any input from you, just wait on the home screen until the pppwn succeedes.
you can edit the exploit scripts by putting the sd card in your computer and going to the PPPwn folder.