BFpilot

BFpilot is a PS5 payload that serves a browser-based file manager at http://<PS5_IP>:5905/. It runs from the PS5 web browser (or any device on the same LAN) — no companion PC app is required after injection.

The project builds these payloads:

• bfpilot.elf — main file manager with integrated archive extraction (inject this first).
• bfpilot-launcher-installer.elf — optional home-screen tile installer (separate for firmware compatibility).
• bfpilot-archive-worker.elf — optional standalone archive-worker build kept for diagnostics; normal use does not require injecting it.

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Features

File Management

• Dual-panel layout — left panel browses; right Target panel is the copy/move/extract destination
• Sidebar places: Root (/), Data (/data), Homebrew (/data/homebrew), User (/user), Mounts (/mnt), connected USB/ext volumes, and custom shortcuts
• Other paths (for example under /system_data) are reachable by navigating from Root or via a custom shortcut; they are not all listed as dedicated sidebar places
• Upload files via drag-and-drop or a file picker (progress, speed, and ETA in the UI)
• Download files over HTTP (streamed with buffered read/write — not zero-copy sendfile in the current code)
• Copy and Move with background job tracking, progress bar, speed, and cancel support
• Conflict Overwrite & Merge Prompts — when a copy or move would overwrite an existing file or merge into an existing folder, the UI asks Overwrite / Merge / Skip
• Rename files and folders
• Create folders
• Delete (recursive, with cancel support)
• Click-to-calculate folder sizes

Selection

• Checkbox multi-selection — every row has a checkbox (PS5 controller friendly)
• Select All master checkbox in the column header
• Clicking the row body does single-select; clicking the checkbox toggles without deselecting others

Search & Indexing

• Index All rebuilds an in-memory path index (Everything-style: crawl once, query RAM) using a multi-threaded work-stealing crawler
• It does not walk every kernel mount. Default all mode collects priority + detected roots, then crawls each with same-device (XDEV) fencing:
  • first: /data (and useful subtrees like /data/homebrew), /user (app/meta/download/savedata/…), /mnt/usb0–7, /mnt/ext0–7
  • then: /system, /system_data, /system_ex, /preinst*, /hostapp, other distinct top-level mounts, and /
  • never as full roots: /mnt hub, /system_tmp, /update, /mnt/sandbox, /mnt/shadowmnt, /dev, /proc, /sys, /net, /run
  • mountpoint directory names may appear in the index, but crawlers do not cross st_dev
  • soft-fail: one bad root does not throw away the rest; status reports rootsOk / rootsFail
  • hard cap ~2,000,000 entries (truncated if hit)
• Queries use case-insensitive multi-term strcasestr over the in-memory index (usually very fast after rebuild; not a fixed 0ms guarantee)
• Results highlight matches; sizes/mtimes come from real lstat data
• Live status includes entry counts, timing, and root success/failure lists; cancel is supported
• Optional disk cache: /data/BFpilot/search.idx

Archive Extraction

• ZIP — Stored, Deflate, ZIP64, ZipCrypto password, multi-volume .zip.001 / .z01 splits
• RAR — RAR4 and RAR5, password-protected, multipart .partN.rar volume chains
• 7z — LZMA/LZMA2, password-protected, split .7z.001 sets
• Password prompt in the browser when the archive is encrypted
• Extract destination pre-fills from the active Target panel path
• Extraction progress bar with speed, bytes written, and ETA
• Partial output cleanup on error or cancel
• Integrated in bfpilot.elf — no second payload injection needed for normal extract

Image Viewer

• Built-in viewer for: .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .webp, .ico, .svg
• Click-and-drag panning
• Mouse-wheel zooming (about 0.1× – 10×)
• 90° rotation button
• Reset button to restore original zoom and position
• Double-click an image to open; Escape to close

Text Editor

• Inline edit for common text-like extensions (for example .txt, .ini, .cfg, .log, .json, .xml, .js, .py, .sh, .md, .conf, .html, .css, .h, .c, .cpp)
• Full-screen overlay editor; saves back to the PS5 filesystem (size limits apply in the UI)

Log Viewer

Log button opens a dropdown to pick which log to view:

Log	Path on PS5
BFpilot server log	/data/BFpilot/log.txt
Archive extractor log	/data/BFpilot/archive-integrated/archive-worker.log
Search crawler log	/data/BFpilot/search_crawl.log
Boot log	/data/BFpilot/boot.log
PS5 VSH log	/system_data/priv/vshlog/vshlog.0.txt
PS5 Error History	/system_data/priv/error/history/ (decoded in the UI)

The PS5 Error History option lists crash records under Sony’s history folder when readable, and formats fields such as error codes, Title IDs, and timestamps when present.

Logs auto-refresh every 2 seconds while the overlay is open.

Exit Button

The top-right toolbar has an Exit button that shuts down BFpilot cleanly:

• Calls /api/control/shutdown (token-protected)
• Unblocks the accept() loop and stops background archive/search work where possible
• Releases BFpilot’s web port 5905 so you can re-inject without a console reboot
• Does not stop the separate ELF loader service (typically still listening on 9021)

Navigation & Shortcuts

• Click-through path breadcrumbs to jump to any parent folder
• Persistent custom shortcuts — add, rename, and remove bookmarks saved to /data/BFpilot/shortcuts.txt
• Storage summary (usable free / total / reserved) shown for places that report volume stats
• USB/ext drives appear in the sidebar only when the mount path exists

Networking & Performance

• Buffered HTTP downloads (read from file, write to socket)
• Fast web upload path (zftpd/ftpsrv/perf8 style): 1 MiB single-buffer recv→write, no pre-upload posix_fallocate
• SO_RCVBUF 4 MiB on the listen socket (and requested again post-accept); no TCP_NODELAY on bulk accepts
• Virtual row recycling in the file list UI for large directories
• Case-insensitive search without storing a second lowercase copy of every path string

Permission Handling

BFpilot sets mode 0777 on files and directories it creates (copies, uploads, extracted files, created folders) via umask(0) plus chmod/fchmod. There is no manual chmod UI.

Diagnostics

• /api/status — version / build information
• /api/diag — runtime diagnostics (bind/listen state, notification probe results, last errno, first HTTP request, and related fields)
• Fatal signal handler logs to /data/BFpilot/crash.log on crashes such as SIGSEGV/SIGBUS

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Download

Get the latest release from the Releases page.

• bfpilot.elf — inject this first. File manager and integrated archive engine.
• bfpilot-launcher-installer.elf — only if you want the PS5 home-screen tile.

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Usage

Inject the payload to your loader (usually port 9021):

python3 payload_sender.py <PS5_IP> 9021 bfpilot.elf

Open the web UI:

http://<PS5_IP>:5905/

Health check endpoints:

http://<PS5_IP>:5905/api/status
http://<PS5_IP>:5905/api/diag
http://<PS5_IP>:5905/api/fs/places

Install or refresh the launcher tile:

python3 payload_sender.py <PS5_IP> 9021 bfpilot-launcher-installer.elf

The tile opens http://127.0.0.1:5905/.

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Build

Set PS5_PAYLOAD_SDK to your PS5 payload SDK path:

export PS5_PAYLOAD_SDK=/path/to/ps5-payload-sdk
make clean all
make inspect-imports

Expected outputs:

bfpilot.elf
bfpilot-launcher-installer.elf
bfpilot-archive-worker.elf

make inspect-imports verifies that bfpilot.elf contains no launcher/AppInstUtil imports and that the installer contains the required ones.

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Diagnostics & Testing

Read-only diagnostics:

PS5_IP=<PS5_IP> BF_WEB_PORT=5905 make ps5-diag

Storage audit (free-space mismatch investigation):

PS5_IP=<PS5_IP> BF_WEB_PORT=5905 make ps5-storage-audit

Smoke test (uses only files under /data/test):

PS5_IP=<PS5_IP> BF_WEB_PORT=5905 BF_ALLOW_PS5_WRITE=1 make ps5-smoke

Archive performance harness:

BF_ALLOW_PS5_WRITE=1 \
BF_ARCHIVE_LOCAL=/path/to/test.rar \
BF_ARCHIVE_PASSWORD='optional-password' \
BF_ARCHIVE_THREADS=0,1,2 \
PS5_IP=<PS5_IP> BF_WEB_PORT=5905 \
make ps5-archive-perf

Runtime logs on the PS5:

/data/BFpilot/log.txt
/data/BFpilot/boot.log
/data/BFpilot/crash.log
/data/BFpilot/search_crawl.log
/data/BFpilot/archive-integrated/archive-worker.log
/data/BFpilot/archive-integrated/status.json

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Compatibility

bfpilot.elf is launcher-free by design. It avoids AppInstUtil and related installer imports that can fail before main() on some firmware and loader combinations. Archive extraction is integrated via libc-safe archive code only.

bfpilot-launcher-installer.elf is separate and uses the full installer dependency set (including UserService / AppInstUtil). If it fails on a firmware, the file manager remains usable.

See docs/COMPATIBILITY_STRATEGY.md and docs/FIRMWARE_TESTING.md for details.

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Credits & Third-Party

• owendswang/ps5-web-file-manager — Image viewer and checkbox multi-selection UI were inspired by owendswang’s work.
• ps5-payload-dev — PS5 payload SDK, websrv, and related tooling.
• UnRAR source — RAR extraction via the freeware UnRAR library (© Alexander Roshal).
• miniz — ZIP decompression (public domain / Unlicense).
• LZMA SDK — 7z decompression (public domain, Igor Pavlov).