iPod Touch firmware upgrade with VMWare

With the recent OS 3.1.1 release it was really only a matter of time before I got around to upgrading again.  My previous firmware upgrade was not very smooth.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I run iTunes on a VMWare image of Windows XP – hosted on my Ubuntu desktop.

During the firmware upgrade process the iPod changes the type of USB device it is – this causes problems for Linux/VMWare.  I had previously thought there was no way to get around these issues, making VMWare based firmware upgrades impossible.  I’m happy to report that I was wrong.

Motivated by the OS 3.1.1 upgrade being free of charge (to suckers users who had purchased 3.0, and only $5 otherwise), I figured I’d take another run at making this work under Ubuntu / VMWare.  I found a post that discussed upgrading the iPhone under VMWare, and it turns out that this was pretty much the magic sauce to make things work.  The steps are shamelessly reproduced here, I cannot take the credit:

Create a file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-usb containing:

blacklist snd_usb_audio
blacklist usbhid

Reload udev to refresh the configuration we just changed:

sudo /etc/init.d/udev reload

Forcefully remove the kernel modules:

sudo /sbin/modprobe -r snd_usb_audio
sudo /sbin/modprobe -r usbhid

Perform the upgrade under VMWare.

Reverse these steps after the upgrade to restore your Ubuntu machine to normal:
sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-usb
sudo /etc/init.d/udev reload

Read on for gory details on what I actually did..

Since the blog post that I based this on was targeted at the iPhone, I figured I didn’t need to use all of the steps. Based on poking around with lsmod, it seemed the only USB module that was active was usbhid.  So my 1st attempt I omitted snd_usb_audio from the blacklist.

This was a mistake, the process hung with the dialog above – failing to locate my iPod part way through the upgrade.  It turns out the iPod Touch is a much closer cousin to the iPhone than it seems.  In one of the reset/reboot modes – it apparently advertises itself as a USB audio device of some form (microphone?).  Thus it is necessary to blacklist the snd_usb_audio module to prevent Linux from trying to have a conversation with this device, interrupting the VMWare access.

Oh yeah, and usbhid – if you happen to have a USB mouse as I do – you’ll find that once you issue the sudo /sbin/modprobe -r usbhid your mouse will no longer work.  I ended up using a 2nd PC with VNCViewer to “remotely” control my desktop to get mouse events in.

Once I had the right set of steps as shown at the start of this post, I was in business.  Of course, due to my initial failure I was using the restore option vs. upgrade.  In the end its the same thing and I’ll get it right the first time with the next firmware upgrade.

I was a bit worried that I had messed up the backup again (as I did with the 3.0 upgrade).  A backup is created when you initiate the upgrade, but as that had failed – would I be able to restore the backup after the firmware restore finished?

Was I glad to see this come up on screen.  Next step, a multi-hour re-sync of all of my data.  After a long wait, all my apps were there – along with their data, including the eBook library in Stanza.

As a bonus – I did come across a related blog posting that outlines how to create a config file to prevent Linux from detecting your iPod Touch as a camera (if that bothers you).  This post also seems to imply that blacklisting the usbhid may not be required.  By removing snd_usb_audio and preventing Linux from trying to handle the iPod Touch as a camera (or anything else) you can keep usbhid – I’ll leave that as an excercise for the reader.