Introduction
The world of iOS jailbreaking has seen significant evolution, and among the latest and most stable jailbreaks is Dopamine — a semi-untethered jailbreak for iOS 15 and 16. In this blog post, we’ll walk through what it means to compile Dopamine from source, why you’d want to do it, and the insights it offers into iOS internals and exploit development.
This post will guide you through why, what you need, and how to compile Dopamine on your Mac.
Why Compile a Jailbreak?
- Set breakpoints
- Inspect memory during execution
- Trace exploit logic step-by-step
- Exploits
- Payloads
- Post-exploitation frameworks
- Third-party libraries
- Enable debug flags
- Modify behavior (e.g., inject custom tweaks)
- Add logging or instrumentation
Prerequisites
- Git, and basic command-line familiarity
- Theos: https://theos.dev/
- ldid from Procursus: https://github.com/ProcursusTeam/ldid
- Valid Apple Developer account
- Xcode installed (on a Mac)
- An iOS device (vulnerable to the jailbreak exploit being used), and enabled in Developer Mode
Step 1: Install Procursus
- Go to the official repo:
- https://github.com/ProcursusTeam/ldid
- Navigate to the Releases section
- Download the binary for your OS (e.g., ldid_macos_arm64 or ldid_macos_x86_64)
- Remove existing LDID if present, Move the downloaded binary to your path and make it executable
sudo rm -f $(which ldid)
sudo mv ~/Downloads/ldid_macos_x86_64 /usr/local/bin/ldid
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ldid
ldid -V
Step 2: Install Theos
Theos is a cross-platform suite of tools for building and deploying software for iOS, macOS, and other Apple platforms — especially for jailbroken devices. It is widely used in the iOS jailbreaking community for creating tweaks, apps, and daemons using Objective-C, Swift, or Logos (a DSL designed for making iOS tweaks).
Step 3: Clone the Dopamine Jailbreak Repository
To clone the Dopamine repository along with its submodules, you can use the following command.
gh repo clone opa334/Dopamine -- --recurse-submodules
Step 4: Head over to Dopamine Folder and run make
cd Dopamine
make
Theos might complain about xpc headers missing.
==> Preprocessing SpringBoard.x...
==> Compiling SpringBoard.x (arm64)...
==> Preprocessing cfprefsd.x...
==> Compiling cfprefsd.x (arm64)...
==> Preprocessing installd.x...
==> Compiling installd.x (arm64)...
==> Preprocessing lsd.x...
==> Compiling lsd.x (arm64)...
In file included from lsd.x:2:
In file included from ../include/libjailbreak/util.h:4:
../include/libjailbreak/info.h:8:10: fatal error: 'xpc/xpc.h' file not found
8 | #include <xpc/xpc.h>
| ^~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make[5]: *** [/Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/BaseBin/rootlesshooks/.theos/obj/arm64/lsd.x.36aa6cb0.o] Error 1
rm /Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/BaseBin/rootlesshooks/.theos/obj/arm64/lsd.x.m
make[4]: *** [/Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/BaseBin/rootlesshooks/.theos/obj/arm64/rootlesshooks.dylib] Error 2
make[3]: *** [internal-library-all_] Error 2
make[2]: *** [rootlesshooks.all.tweak.variables] Error 2
make[1]: *** [rootlesshooks] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2
In order to fix it, you can copy the xpc folder from your MacOS developer SDK.
$ cp -r /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/xpc $THEOS/include/
$ ls $THEOS/include/
xpc
$ ls $THEOS/include/xpc
XPC.apinotes base.h endpoint.h session.h xpc.h
activity.h connection.h listener.h
availability.h debug.h rich_error.h
$
And we get another error.
The following build commands failed:
CpResource /Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/Application/build/Build/Products/Debug-iphoneos/Dopamine.app/bootstrap_1900.tar.zst
/Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/Application/Dopamine/Resources/bootstrap_1900.tar.zst (in target 'Dopamine' from project 'Dopamine')
CpResource /Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/Application/build/Build/Products/Debug-iphoneos/Dopamine.app/bootstrap_1800.tar.zst
/Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/Application/Dopamine/Resources/bootstrap_1800.tar.zst (in target 'Dopamine' from project 'Dopamine')
Building project Dopamine with scheme Dopamine
(3 failures)
make[1]: *** [build/Build/Products/Debug-iphoneos/Dopamine.app] Error 65
make: *** [all] Error 2
$ ls /Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/Application/build/Build/Products/Debug-iphoneos/Dopamine.app
Assets.car basebin.tar sileo.deb
Frameworks basebin.tc zebra.deb
LICENSE_weightBufs.md libkrw-dopamine.deb libroot.deb
basebin-link.deb
$
This is due to missing BootStrap files, and actually they are not present by default and need to be downloaded seperately, in order to do it, run the download_bootstraps.sh script from inside the Dopamine/Resources folder.
$ cd Dopamine/Resources
$ ls
LICENSE.md LICENSE_kfd.md
LICENSE_Cha0ma.md LICENSE_libc.md
LICENSE_ElleKit.md LICENSE_libgrabkernel2.md
LICENSE_Fugu15.md LICENSE_opainject.md
LICENSE_Fugu15_Rootful.md LICENSE_plooshinit.md
LICENSE_Procursus.md LICENSE_weightBufs.md
LICENSE_Sileo.md download_bootstraps.sh
LICENSE_XPF.md sileo.deb
LICENSE_Zebra.md zebra.deb
LICENSE_dimentio.md
$ ./download_bootstraps.sh
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
5 19.8M 5 1020k 0 0 462k 0:00:43 0:00:02 0:00:41 462k
Running make should now result in Build Succeeded message.
/Users/8ksec/Documents/WORK/Code/iOS/Dopamine/Application/Dopamine.xcodeproj: warning: DEFINES_MODULE was set, but no umbrella header could be found to generate the module map (in target 'badRecovery' from project 'Dopamine')
note: Run script build phase 'Run Script' will be run during every build because the option to run the script phase "Based on dependency analysis" is unchecked. (in target 'badRecovery' from project 'Dopamine')
note: Run script build phase 'Run Script' will be run during every build because the option to run the script phase "Based on dependency analysis" is unchecked. (in target 'weightBufs' from project 'Dopamine')
note: Run script build phase 'Run Script' will be run during every build because the option to run the script phase "Based on dependency analysis" is unchecked. (in target 'multicast_bytecopy' from project 'Dopamine')
** BUILD SUCCEEDED **
Ad-Hoc signing Dopamine
xattr -rc build/Build/Products/Debug-iphoneos/Dopamine.app
Step 4: Run Dopamine in Xcode
To open and run the Dopamine project in Xcode, launch the .xcodeproj file located in the Application directory. In Xcode, select your Apple Developer certificate under Signing & Capabilities for the project. Then, ensure that the target is set to Dopamine from the top scheme selector. Finally, connect your device and click Run (▶) to build and launch the application on your iPhone.
There are many amazing techniques and exploits packed into this jailbreak — ranging from privilege escalation to sandbox escapes and kernel-level patches. But that’s a deep dive best saved for another blog post 😉
Final Thoughts
Compiling Dopamine gives you hands-on experience with one of the most stable and modern jailbreaks for iOS. It’s an opportunity to dive deep into iOS security, tweak exploit behavior, and understand the tooling behind real-world jailbreaks.
Whether you’re a security researcher, reverse engineer, or a curious iOS enthusiast — compiling your own jailbreak will significantly level up your skills.
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