How to parse the Manifest.mbdb file in an iOS 4.0 iTunes Backup

You can find information and a little description of the MBDB/MBDX format here:

http://code.google.com/p/iphonebackupbrowser/

This is my application to browse the backup files. I have tried to document the format of the new files that come with iTunes 9.2.

I finished my work on this stuff - that is, iOS 4 + iTunes 9.2 update of my backup decoder library for Python - http://www.iki.fi/fingon/iphonebackupdb.py

It does what I need, little documentation, but feel free to copy ideas from there ;-)

(Seems to work fine with my backups at least.)

Thank you, user374559 and reneD -- that code and description is very helpful.

My stab at some Python to parse and print out the information in a Unix ls-l like format:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys

def getint(data, offset, intsize):
    """Retrieve an integer (big-endian) and new offset from the current offset"""
    value = 0
    while intsize > 0:
        value = (value<<8) + ord(data[offset])
        offset = offset + 1
        intsize = intsize - 1
    return value, offset

def getstring(data, offset):
    """Retrieve a string and new offset from the current offset into the data"""
    if data[offset] == chr(0xFF) and data[offset+1] == chr(0xFF):
        return '', offset+2 # Blank string
    length, offset = getint(data, offset, 2) # 2-byte length
    value = data[offset:offset+length]
    return value, (offset + length)

def process_mbdb_file(filename):
    mbdb = {} # Map offset of info in this file => file info
    data = open(filename).read()
    if data[0:4] != "mbdb": raise Exception("This does not look like an MBDB file")
    offset = 4
    offset = offset + 2 # value x05 x00, not sure what this is
    while offset < len(data):
        fileinfo = {}
        fileinfo['start_offset'] = offset
        fileinfo['domain'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['filename'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['linktarget'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['datahash'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['unknown1'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['mode'], offset = getint(data, offset, 2)
        fileinfo['unknown2'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['unknown3'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['userid'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['groupid'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['mtime'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['atime'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['ctime'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['filelen'], offset = getint(data, offset, 8)
        fileinfo['flag'], offset = getint(data, offset, 1)
        fileinfo['numprops'], offset = getint(data, offset, 1)
        fileinfo['properties'] = {}
        for ii in range(fileinfo['numprops']):
            propname, offset = getstring(data, offset)
            propval, offset = getstring(data, offset)
            fileinfo['properties'][propname] = propval
        mbdb[fileinfo['start_offset']] = fileinfo
    return mbdb

def process_mbdx_file(filename):
    mbdx = {} # Map offset of info in the MBDB file => fileID string
    data = open(filename).read()
    if data[0:4] != "mbdx": raise Exception("This does not look like an MBDX file")
    offset = 4
    offset = offset + 2 # value 0x02 0x00, not sure what this is
    filecount, offset = getint(data, offset, 4) # 4-byte count of records 
    while offset < len(data):
        # 26 byte record, made up of ...
        fileID = data[offset:offset+20] # 20 bytes of fileID
        fileID_string = ''.join(['%02x' % ord(b) for b in fileID])
        offset = offset + 20
        mbdb_offset, offset = getint(data, offset, 4) # 4-byte offset field
        mbdb_offset = mbdb_offset + 6 # Add 6 to get past prolog
        mode, offset = getint(data, offset, 2) # 2-byte mode field
        mbdx[mbdb_offset] = fileID_string
    return mbdx

def modestr(val):
    def mode(val):
        if (val & 0x4): r = 'r'
        else: r = '-'
        if (val & 0x2): w = 'w'
        else: w = '-'
        if (val & 0x1): x = 'x'
        else: x = '-'
        return r+w+x
    return mode(val>>6) + mode((val>>3)) + mode(val)

def fileinfo_str(f, verbose=False):
    if not verbose: return "(%s)%s::%s" % (f['fileID'], f['domain'], f['filename'])
    if (f['mode'] & 0xE000) == 0xA000: type = 'l' # symlink
    elif (f['mode'] & 0xE000) == 0x8000: type = '-' # file
    elif (f['mode'] & 0xE000) == 0x4000: type = 'd' # dir
    else: 
        print >> sys.stderr, "Unknown file type %04x for %s" % (f['mode'], fileinfo_str(f, False))
        type = '?' # unknown
    info = ("%s%s %08x %08x %7d %10d %10d %10d (%s)%s::%s" % 
            (type, modestr(f['mode']&0x0FFF) , f['userid'], f['groupid'], f['filelen'], 
             f['mtime'], f['atime'], f['ctime'], f['fileID'], f['domain'], f['filename']))
    if type == 'l': info = info + ' -> ' + f['linktarget'] # symlink destination
    for name, value in f['properties'].items(): # extra properties
        info = info + ' ' + name + '=' + repr(value)
    return info

verbose = True
if __name__ == '__main__':
    mbdb = process_mbdb_file("Manifest.mbdb")
    mbdx = process_mbdx_file("Manifest.mbdx")
    for offset, fileinfo in mbdb.items():
        if offset in mbdx:
            fileinfo['fileID'] = mbdx[offset]
        else:
            fileinfo['fileID'] = "<nofileID>"
            print >> sys.stderr, "No fileID found for %s" % fileinfo_str(fileinfo)
        print fileinfo_str(fileinfo, verbose)

In iOS 5, the Manifest.mbdx file was eliminated. For the purpose of this article, it was redundant anyway, because the domain and path are in Manifest.mbdb and the ID hash can be generated with SHA1.

Here is my update of galloglass's code so it works with backups of iOS 5 devices. The only changes are elimination of process_mbdx_file() and addition of a few lines in process_mbdb_file().

Tested with backups of an iPhone 4S and an iPad 1, both with plenty of apps and files.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import hashlib

mbdx = {}

def getint(data, offset, intsize):
    """Retrieve an integer (big-endian) and new offset from the current offset"""
    value = 0
    while intsize > 0:
        value = (value<<8) + ord(data[offset])
        offset = offset + 1
        intsize = intsize - 1
    return value, offset

def getstring(data, offset):
    """Retrieve a string and new offset from the current offset into the data"""
    if data[offset] == chr(0xFF) and data[offset+1] == chr(0xFF):
        return '', offset+2 # Blank string
    length, offset = getint(data, offset, 2) # 2-byte length
    value = data[offset:offset+length]
    return value, (offset + length)

def process_mbdb_file(filename):
    mbdb = {} # Map offset of info in this file => file info
    data = open(filename).read()
    if data[0:4] != "mbdb": raise Exception("This does not look like an MBDB file")
    offset = 4
    offset = offset + 2 # value x05 x00, not sure what this is
    while offset < len(data):
        fileinfo = {}
        fileinfo['start_offset'] = offset
        fileinfo['domain'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['filename'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['linktarget'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['datahash'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['unknown1'], offset = getstring(data, offset)
        fileinfo['mode'], offset = getint(data, offset, 2)
        fileinfo['unknown2'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['unknown3'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['userid'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['groupid'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['mtime'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['atime'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['ctime'], offset = getint(data, offset, 4)
        fileinfo['filelen'], offset = getint(data, offset, 8)
        fileinfo['flag'], offset = getint(data, offset, 1)
        fileinfo['numprops'], offset = getint(data, offset, 1)
        fileinfo['properties'] = {}
        for ii in range(fileinfo['numprops']):
            propname, offset = getstring(data, offset)
            propval, offset = getstring(data, offset)
            fileinfo['properties'][propname] = propval
        mbdb[fileinfo['start_offset']] = fileinfo
        fullpath = fileinfo['domain'] + '-' + fileinfo['filename']
        id = hashlib.sha1(fullpath)
        mbdx[fileinfo['start_offset']] = id.hexdigest()
    return mbdb

def modestr(val):
    def mode(val):
        if (val & 0x4): r = 'r'
        else: r = '-'
        if (val & 0x2): w = 'w'
        else: w = '-'
        if (val & 0x1): x = 'x'
        else: x = '-'
        return r+w+x
    return mode(val>>6) + mode((val>>3)) + mode(val)

def fileinfo_str(f, verbose=False):
    if not verbose: return "(%s)%s::%s" % (f['fileID'], f['domain'], f['filename'])
    if (f['mode'] & 0xE000) == 0xA000: type = 'l' # symlink
    elif (f['mode'] & 0xE000) == 0x8000: type = '-' # file
    elif (f['mode'] & 0xE000) == 0x4000: type = 'd' # dir
    else: 
        print >> sys.stderr, "Unknown file type %04x for %s" % (f['mode'], fileinfo_str(f, False))
        type = '?' # unknown
    info = ("%s%s %08x %08x %7d %10d %10d %10d (%s)%s::%s" % 
            (type, modestr(f['mode']&0x0FFF) , f['userid'], f['groupid'], f['filelen'], 
             f['mtime'], f['atime'], f['ctime'], f['fileID'], f['domain'], f['filename']))
    if type == 'l': info = info + ' -> ' + f['linktarget'] # symlink destination
    for name, value in f['properties'].items(): # extra properties
        info = info + ' ' + name + '=' + repr(value)
    return info

verbose = True
if __name__ == '__main__':
    mbdb = process_mbdb_file("Manifest.mbdb")
    for offset, fileinfo in mbdb.items():
        if offset in mbdx:
            fileinfo['fileID'] = mbdx[offset]
        else:
            fileinfo['fileID'] = "<nofileID>"
            print >> sys.stderr, "No fileID found for %s" % fileinfo_str(fileinfo)
        print fileinfo_str(fileinfo, verbose)