Pairing

Pairing gives the host permission to talk to protected services on a device.

Pairing paths

• Local USB pairing through lockdown.
• Host pairing through pair_host.
• Apple TV pairing through pair_apple_tv.
• Remote pairing through rppairing for newer RSD/CoreDevice flows.

Local pairing produces a pairing file used by lockdown-backed services. Remote pairing is used by newer RSD/CoreDevice flows and has its own pairing record format.

The main library pieces are:

• pair: local pairing support.
• remote_pairing: rppairing protocol support.
• pairing_file: stored pairing record handling.
• mdns: Bonjour/mDNS matching for remote pairing records.

The CLI entry points are:

idevice-tools pair
pair_host
pair_apple_tv

Related service reference

• Pairing
• Lockdown
• RSD