(screenshot from Modded Warfare)
PS5 scene developer John Tornblom has been quite active over the past few weeks, and in particular has released a PS5 Offline Account Activation tool, as well as an Update PKG Downloader for the PS5.
I’m personally catching up on some of the releases after a multiple week hiatus, so technically this is “old” news, but I feel it’s important to highlight these particular releases.
What is PS5 Offline Account Activation
Jailbroken PS5s are not running the latest firmware, and as such cannot access Sony’s online services. This includes PSN login, and account activation (tying your PSN account to the device). Not having an activated account limits some of the functionality of the PS5, in particular the possibility to share your save files from your Jailbroken console to another console running the same account.
This tool aims to help solving this, among other things.
Ultimately there are expectations that this will help with sharing save files with a USB stick, and enable remote play, features that are apparently coming soon (see showcase video below by TeRex777).
Download & use PS5 Offline Account Activation
- Download the Offline Activation homebrew binary (compiled version thanks to TeRex777 – alternatively source here) and extract it to your PS5’s data/homebrew (run an FTP server on your Jailbroken PS5 to access the drive)
- On your PS5, run the Jailbreak, followed by the Payload ELF Loader, and websrv
- Accessing http://127.0.0.1:8080/ on your PS5 will run the Homebrew Launcher, at which point you can launch the Offline Activator
- Once in the Homebrew, select the account you want to activate and press X to activate it. Enter either a fake ID or a real ID linked to another console you have. Using a legit activation ID will ultimately let you share e.g. save files between your Jailbroken PS5 and another console running the same account.
What is fetchpkg for the PS5
Fetchpkg is a simple tool to download PKG files, and merge them as needed. From the readme:
This is a simple cURL-based tool for downloading official Sony Playstation 4 & 5 game updates. It is available for GNU/Linux, Windows (64bit), and jailbroken PS5s. Game updates that are split across multiple files are merged automatically during download. If you are behind a firewall, you can download updates via a proxy server, which is convenient when running on a jailbroken PS5 that are shielded of from the internet.
While technically you’ll have an easier time running this directly on your computer, in some cases you might want to run it from the PS5. Because it takes command line arguments, you’ll need to run it from a payload loader that accepts those arguments. Conveniently, John Tornblom’s own shsrv does exactly that.
Download & use PS5 fetchpkg
Files are here: https://github.com/ps5-payload-dev/fetchpkg (you’ll need to compile the binary yourself, either for your computer’s OS, or for the PS5)
On PC:
./fetchpkg [-p PROXY] [-o PATH] URL where URL is the address to a JSON-formatted manifest, e.g., the PS4 title Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (v1.09).
To run fetchpkg on the PS5, you need to load it with an ELF loader that provides a command line interface, e.g., shsrv, and the means to transfer the ELF to the ps5, e.g., ftpsrv. The following commands will upload the ELF file to /data, connect to shsrv, and download a pkg file to /mnt/usb0 via a proxy server:
john@localhost:ps5-payload-dev/fetchpkg$ curl -T fetchpkg.elf ftp://ps5:2121/data/fetchpkg.elf john@localhost:ps5-payload-dev/fetchpkg$ telnet ps5 2323 Welcome to shsrv.elf running on... ... /$ /data/fetchpkg.elf -p http://proxy:8080 -o /mnt/usb0/temp.pkg URL