MTerminal Brings Mobile Terminal to iOS 8

As many jailbroken iPhone owners already know, the classic MobileTerminal app has not been updated to support iOS 8. Fortunately, developer lordscotland took the time to fork the original terminal emulator. This project has resulted in MTerminal, which provides command line access to iOS directly from the home screen.

MTerminal is packed with features, making it a robust solution that takes advantage of the iOS touch screen. The app is also optimized for larger displays, such as those found on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. A variety of gestures are supported, for example tapping on the edge of the terminal window emulates an arrow key in the appropriate direction.

Other gestures include:

- Control keys: tap and hold in the center of the terminal window, then press the corresponding key in the keyboard
- Page up/down: press Shift, then tap the top/bottom edge
- Home/End: press Shift, then tap the left/right edge
- Insert/Delete: tap the upper left/right corner
- Esc/Tab: tap the lower left/right corner
- Hide keyboard: tap and hold with two fingers
- Paste: double tap with two fingers

GNU screen can be used for multiplexing, session persistence, keyboard translation, and copying terminal output.

MTerminal is a great way to avoid the hassle of having to ssh into your iPhone for command line access. Now that terminal emulation is possible on iOS 8, the app also makes changing the iOS root password a breeze. This is highly recommended for anyone running a jailbroken device, to increase security.

MTerminal is available free from the BigBoss repo on Cydia. To start customizing iOS, click here for instructions on jailbreaking iOS 8.0-8.1.2. Those with older firmware can jailbreak with Pangu (iOS 7.1) or evasi0n 7 (iOS 7.0). Find out how to purchase and install Cydia tweaks with this guide.

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