Wow things are moving fast since the keys were found and fail0verfl0w team’s tools have started to come out. Well this first custom firmware is just the beginning. Soon we wont be needing jailbreak USB devices at this rate. This CFW allows you to install PKG files without jailbreak usb drives! No backup support…yet. But I’m sure that can’t be too far off now. Its expected soon.

Quoting KaKaRoTo

Thanks to the tools made by the fail0verflow team (and thanks to sven in particular for his work on the pkg/unpkg tools), the first “Custom Firmware” is now available for the PS3!

I see a lot of questions coming up really fast on my Twitter account, so here are the basic things you need to know :

Because of legal/copyright issues, I will not provide the custom firmware to anyone, however, I’ve made available all the tools necessary to transform an Official firmware update, into a custom one, just grab my ps3utils repository from github, compile, then run :

./create_cfw.sh PS3UPDATE.PUP CFW.PUP

This will take the official firmware, unpack it, modify it, then repack it correctly (requires you to install ps3tools).

This should work on Linux and Mac for now, but I’m sure others will do it for the masses and illegally release those files somewhere.

The advantage here is that you can do it for any firmware, if you want to keep version 3.41, then give it the 3.41 update, if you are on 3.55 already and can’t downgrade, then run the script on the official 3.55 firmware and it will create a modified 3.55 firmware.

You can put the file in a USB drive under the filename “PS3/UPDATE/PS3UPDAT.PUP” and then go to system update in the XMB, and it will allow you to install the update (even if you’re already on 3.55).

People are asking what are the features of this firmware, it’s simple, all it does is to add those “Install Package Files” options to the Game section of the XMB. It doesn’t do anything else!

This firmware will not allow you to run the currently available homebrew application. Once the homebrew developers re-package their files in a ‘retail’ .pkg format with signed executable, then it will work (this should be coming soon thanks to the work of the fail0verflow team).

Since the kernel is left unmodified, this means that this custom firmware is really meant for future homebrew installation, and it will not allow piracy. I plan on keeping it that way.

This is just the first attempt at custom firmware, and it only contains a minor modification to allow you to install pkg files directly, eventually we’ll get some more options added to it in the future. This is just starting to get interesting!

p.s: Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible!

What to do:

First CFW working. Grab http://bit.ly/hszcH3, then “./create_cfw.sh PS3UPDAT.355.PUP CFW.PUP”. Permanently adds “install pkg files” menu.

I’m playing with it now… I’ll report back later. In the meantime:

1. Download ps3 utilities and ps3 tools from github / team fail0verflow:

   • git clone https://github.com/kakaroto/ps3utils.git

   • cd ps3utils

   • make

   • cd ..

   • git clone git://git.fail0verflow.com/ps3tools.git

   • cd ps3tools

   • make

   • cp pkg unpkg ../ps3utils

2. Grab the PS3 encryption/decryption/signing keys from github:

   • git clone https://github.com/kakaroto/ps3keys.git ~/.ps3

3. Download PS3 3.55 (or whatever official firmware PUP) from here
4. Extract and copy “PS3UPDAT.PUP” to the “ps3utils” directory
5. Create the PS3 Custom Firmware (CFW) from the original/official update (OFW):

   • cd ps3utils

   • ./create_cfw.sh PS3UPDAT.PUP CFW.PUP

6. Copy and rename CFW.PUP to a USB storage device keeping this directory structure in mind: /PS3/UPDATE/PS3UPDAT.PUP
7. Connect that USB device to your PS3 and install from Settings -> System Update

Sources: KaKaRoTo’s Blog & PS3-Hacks for the guide