PS5 Web File Manager

Homebrew HTTP file manager for jailbroken PS5 consoles. Browse, edit, upload, download and extract ZIPs through any browser on the same network — single self-contained ELF payload, no external services, no telemetry.

Version: v1.8.2 · Title ID: FMGR88888 · License: GPLv3+ · Target: x86_64-sie-ps5

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Overview

A payload ELF that runs an HTTP file manager inside a jailbroken PS5. Open http://<PS5_IP>:8888/ from any browser on the LAN — including the PS5 browser itself — to manage files on attached USB storage and the user partition. Designed for safely copying game-dump folders from USB to internal storage, but it also handles general file management, in-place text editing, PKG preview/install, image preview, and ZIP extraction with built-in zip-bomb protection.

The same source tree builds a Linux binary for development and a PS5 payload ELF for deployment — see make linux below.

What's new in v1.8

• Single-volume RAR extraction via the vendored FLOSS library dmc_unrar (GPL-2.0-or-later). RAR 1.5, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x and 5.x archives are supported. .rar files appear in the file list with the Extract button enabled; the button is greyed out on .part02+.rar sub-volumes with the tooltip "select the main volume instead" — v1.8 cannot stitch multi-volume RARs (see the RAR extraction section below).
• Shared extraction protocol between the new src/rar_extract.c engine and the existing src/zip_extract.c engine: same zipx_status_t codes, same zipx_limits_t profile (default / large=1), same three-phase model (scan → extract → publish → cleanup), same staging directory layout, same conflict policy, same error mapping into the task UI. The dispatcher in src/extract.c is one tiny ends_with_ci(…) switch.
• 14 new host-side C tests (tests/test_rar_extract.c) wired into the existing tests/run-tests.sh. Coverage: format dispatch, error translation across every DMC_UNRAR_* code that affects RAR users, limit-profile handoff. Total host checks: 69 ZIP + 14 RAR = 83.
• Documentation: CHANGELOG.md, docs/UPGRADE-v1.8-rar-support.md and the vendoring decision tree at third_party/unrar/VENDORED.md.
• See the dedicated section below for scope and the limitations that come from using dmc_unrar (no multi-volume, no encryption in v1.8 — both lift in v1.9 when the library is replaced).

What's new in v1.8.1

• Default ZIP limits relaxed (companion to v1.7's large profile). v1.7 shipped with a 64 GiB default per-entry cap, which was too aggressive for typical PS5 system-backup ZIPs (200-300 GiB). v1.8.1 raises the default profile to 1 TiB total / 256 GiB per entry / 500 : 1 ratio, with the large=1 opt-in kept at 2 TiB / 1 TiB / 1000 : 1. The frontend threshold rises from 60 GiB to 240 GiB so common system-backup archives no longer trigger the prompt.
• RAR extraction inherits the new defaults (rar_extract.c threads c->limits from the engine — no engine change required).
• Rationale: the real zip-bomb defence is check_space() (statvfs-based real disk-space check before staging) + max_ratio (declared compression ratio cap). The size caps are a UX guard, not a security boundary.

What's new in v1.8.2

• Default ZIP limits relaxed again for the 3A-game single-file case. A single ~300 GiB uncompressed file inside an archive was still silently rejected by v1.8.1 (the default scan returns ZIPX_ERR_LIMIT_FILE_SIZE before the request ever reaches the frontend confirmation prompt). v1.8.2 raises the default profile to 2 TiB total / 512 GiB per entry / 500 : 1 ratio, with the large=1 opt-in bumped to 4 TiB / 1 TiB / 1000 : 1. Frontend threshold rises from 240 GiB to 480 GiB.
• Two PS5-only build fixes discovered when cross-compiling for the PS5 target. The host-side test suite (tests/run-tests.sh) had silently accepted both because it links the same sources but uses gcc rather than clang 18 and a different include path:
  • Makefile CFLAGS: add -Ithird_party/unrar so src/rar_extract.c can find the project-authored dmc_unrar_api.h facade header.
  • src/extract.c: move extract_progress() definition above extract_dispatch() so the implicit function declaration is not flagged by -Werror=implicit-function-declaration (clang 18 in the PS5 SDK is stricter than the host gcc used by tests).
• Release artifact for v1.8.2: web-file-mgr.elf — 509 704 bytes, sha256 1b2c3d68b35e32737105f17d14a80a3c159ceca0cabd274ee168cbcd81906f65, ELF class 64, little-endian, e_machine 0x003e (x86_64-sie-ps5).
• Tests: 84 host-side checks (70 ZIP + 14 RAR), 0 failures. PS5 cross-compile succeeds end-to-end.

What's new in v1.7

• ZIP large-file profile (opt-in via the new large=1 argument on /api/extract): relaxed caps of 2 TiB archive total, 1 TiB per entry, 1000 : 1 compression ratio. The frontend prompts for confirmation whenever the archive on disk is larger than 60 GiB; the server only activates the profile when the user explicitly agrees.
• Stricter default ZIP profile stays safe: 1 TiB total / 256 GiB per entry / 500 : 1 ratio. A 4 MiB compressed payload that expands to 800 GiB still gets rejected before any output file is opened.
• 69 host-side C tests (tests/run-tests.sh) now cover path traversal, ZIP64, encryption rejection, ratios, conflict policies and the new large-file profile (tests/test_zip_extract.c).
• Earlier refinements — see git log since v1.6.

Screenshots

Features

• Browse — list files and folders; sort by name, type, size, mtime or permissions. Last sort mode persists in localStorage.
• Permissions — toggle read/write/execute with checkboxes, or paste a validated four-digit octal mode.
• Operations — copy, move, delete (recursive, no recycle bin), rename, create files and folders.
• Editor — in-place UTF-8 text editor for files ≤ 1 MiB across a curated extension list: .txt .json .xml .ini .cfg .conf .md .log .lua .js .css .html .htm .c .h .cpp .hpp .sh .csv .yaml .yml .shn.
• Multi-select — copy, move, delete or tar-download many items in one go.
• Upload — single files or folder trees from any device on the LAN (hidden in the PS5 browser). Atomic temp + rename.
• Download — single file as raw bytes, or folders/multi-select as a streaming .tar. Hidden in the PS5 browser.
• Tasks — full-screen overlay with delayed show, live progress, throughput, ETA, cancel, and recovery if the browser is closed and reopened mid-task.
• Archive extraction — ZIP (encrypted rejected) and RAR (single-volume unencrypted); see the ZIP extraction and RAR extraction sections below for scope.
• PKG — install and preview .pkg files.
• Images — preview .png .jpg .jpeg .gif .bmp .webp.
• Localization — English + Simplified Chinese, auto-selected from navigator.languages.
• Mobile-friendly — responsive layout with wrapped toolbars and horizontally scrollable file lists.

Quickstart

1. Build the ELF:

   export PS5_PAYLOAD_SDK=/opt/ps5-payload-sdk   # see "Build" for SDK setup
   make
   

2. Send the payload to the PS5 (default ELF-loader port 9021):

   nc -q0 "$PS5_HOST" 9021 < web-file-mgr.elf
   

3. Read the on-screen PS5 notification — it prints the actual listen port (default 8888).

4. Open http://<PS5_IP>:<port>/ in any browser on the same LAN — the PS5 browser works too.

5. On first run, the payload also writes a Media-category home-screen launcher; existing launcher files are not overwritten.

Build

Requires ps5-payload-dev/sdk:

export PS5_PAYLOAD_SDK=/opt/ps5-payload-sdk

This project links against libmicrohttpd. make checks for it before building and runs the installer automatically when missing:

make

If the build host has no network access, drop the libmicrohttpd tarball in advance and run the installer manually:

LIBMICROHTTPD_TARBALL=/path/to/libmicrohttpd-1.0.1.tar.gz \
  ./install-libmicrohttpd.sh
make

Output:

web-file-mgr.elf   (~497 KiB, x86_64-sie-ps5)

For pure UI/JS work without the PS5 toolchain:

make linux
./web-file-mgr-linux

The Linux build does not include the PS5 home-screen launcher installer.

Usage

Start an ELF loader on the PS5 (port 9021 is common). Send the payload:

export PS5_HOST=ps5_ip_address
nc -q0 "$PS5_HOST" 9021 < web-file-mgr.elf

After the payload starts, the PS5 notification shows the app name, version and actual listen port. Open the URL it prints, for example:

http://${PS5_IP_ADDRESS}:8888/

If the payload had to fall back to a different port (e.g. 8889), use whatever port the notification shows — the URL is not hard-coded.

On first startup, the payload installs a PS5 Web File Manager shortcut in the Media category when needed. Existing launcher files are preserved; only missing ones are written.

ZIP extraction

Plain ZIPs only — stored / deflated / ZIP64, never encrypted. The engine is a standalone three-phase module (scan → extract → publish → cleanup) at src/zip_extract.{c,h}, with a separate host-side C test suite. Each entry is first written into a staging directory (*.wfm-part-*), fsynced, then atomically renamed into the destination. Any failure mid-archive rolls back partial changes; cancel and fatal errors always clean up staging.

Limits

Limit	Default profile	Large profile (ZIPX_LIMITS_LARGE)
max_entries	200 000	500 000
max_total_bytes (uncompressed)	2 TiB	4 TiB
max_file_bytes (per entry)	512 GiB	1 TiB
max_ratio (uncompressed / compressed)	500 : 1	1000 : 1
max_depth (folder nesting)	32	32
max_name_len / max_path_len	255 / 1024	255 / 1024

The default profile is shipped safe: a 4 MiB compressed blob that decodes to 800 GiB is rejected before any output file is opened. The large profile is engaged only when the request includes large=1 — the archive dialog prompts the user automatically whenever the archive on disk is larger than LARGE_FILE_THRESHOLD_BYTES (480 GiB by default; configurable in assets/main.js). Confirming the prompt is the user's explicit opt-in; the server still records nothing extra on its own.

Security checks

The engine refuses to extract:

• Encrypted entries (any encryption flag set).
• Path traversal (.. segments, absolute POSIX paths, Windows drive letters).
• Symbolic links, devices, FIFOs, sockets (ZIPX_ERR_SPECIAL).
• Duplicate entries or directory/file name clashes inside the same archive.
• Archives whose expanded size, entry count, depth, name length or compression ratio breach the active profile.

Conflict policy

Passed as conflict= on /api/extract:

• fail (default) — refuse to overwrite any existing target.
• overwrite — replace existing files; merge into existing folders.
• merge — keep existing files, add new ones.

Tuning the threshold

The 480 GiB frontend threshold lives in assets/main.js:

const LARGE_FILE_THRESHOLD_BYTES = 480 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024;

Set it to Infinity to silence the prompt, lower it to be more conservative, or remove the call entirely — the server still respects large=1 regardless of the threshold.

RAR extraction

A single-volume, unencrypted RAR archive engine (src/rar_extract.{c,h}, backed by the vendored FLOSS library dmc_unrar at third_party/unrar/dmc_unrar.c). Files with the extension .rar get the same Extract button as .zip files; the engine is dispatched by src/extract.c based on extension.

Scope

Format	Support	Notes
RAR 1.5 / 2.0 / 2.6 / 2.9 / 3.0 / 3.6 / 4.0	✅	Single-volume, unencrypted
RAR 5.0	✅	Single-volume, unencrypted
Solid blocks, dictionary 4 MiB (RAR4) / 32 MiB (RAR5)	✅
PPMd decompression (RAR 3.0+)	✅
Multi-volume (.part01.rar + .part02.rar + …)	❌	Rejected with ZIPX_ERR_UNSUPPORTED. The frontend greys out non-01 sub-volumes with a tooltip. Join / unrar on a PC first.
Encrypted RAR (any encrypted header or file)	❌	Rejected with ZIPX_ERR_UNSUPPORTED. There is no password= field in /api/extract.
Symbolic links / FIFOs / sockets / devices	❌	Rejected with ZIPX_ERR_SPECIAL (mirrors ZIP behaviour)
RAR 1.4 (very old)	❌	Not supported by dmc_unrar 1.7.0; rejected upstream

The "extract on a PC first" recovery is the same escape hatch the engine uses for ZIP encryption errors: when an unsupported archive is rejected, the user gets an extract_unsupported failure with the file name as the detail argument. The frontend already shows this with the typical bilingual retry guidance.

Limits

The RAR engine re-uses the ZIP limits table verbatim — there is no RAR profile table on top. Defaults and the large=1 opt-in are identical:

Limit	Default profile	Large profile (large=1)
max_entries	200 000	500 000
max_total_bytes (uncompressed)	2 TiB	4 TiB
max_file_bytes (per entry)	512 GiB	1 TiB
max_ratio (uncompressed / compressed)	500 : 1	1000 : 1
max_depth (folder nesting)	32	32
max_name_len / max_path_len	255 / 1024	255 / 1024

Large-profile RAR extraction uses the same LARGE_FILE_THRESHOLD_BYTES (480 GiB) prompt as ZIP — the frontend treats .rar and .zip the same way for the prompt, and the server only ever activates the large caps when the request carries large=1 (opt-in).

Security checks

The RAR engine applies the same checks as the ZIP engine — re-uses zipx_status_t codes, so the task UI's err_extract_unsafe_name, err_extract_too_deep, err_extract_ratio, etc. all fire identically:

• Path traversal (.. segments, absolute POSIX paths, Windows drive letters, \ treated as a path separator after a Rar!\x1a\x07… header, etc.).
• Symbolic links, FIFOs, sockets, devices.
• Duplicate entries or directory/file name clashes inside the archive.
• Archive size, entry count, depth, name length or compression ratio breaches of the active profile.

Vendoring and licence

third_party/unrar/dmc_unrar.c is vendored verbatim from DrMcCoy/dmc_unrar, upstream commit pinned at the same date as the v1.8 release. The file is GPL-2.0-or-later (see third_party/unrar/COPYING), which means the resulting web-file-mgr.elf is also effectively GPL-2.0-or-later. The already-GPLv3+ project is forward-compatible with that, and the compliant distribution form (binary + corresponding sources + GPL notice alongside the LGPL notice for libmicrohttpd) is the same process you already follow for every prior release. The minimal project-authored facade third_party/unrar/dmc_unrar_api.h carries the project's own licence and is not bound to GPL.

v1.9 plan

When (if) multi-volume RAR and encrypted RAR become worth the engineering cost, the recommended path is to replace third_party/unrar/dmc_unrar.c with a vendored mirror of opello/unrar (a faithful copy of rarlab UnRAR 7.x, C++17, supports volumes + encryption). The rar_extract() signature, the dispatch layer, and the host tests do not need to change — only the engine behind rar_extract() and the password= field on /api/extract. See third_party/unrar/VENDORED.md for the step-by-step upgrade recipe.

Verification

After make, sanity-check the produced ELF:

ls -la web-file-mgr.elf                            # size ~497 KiB on v1.8.2 (~427 KiB on v1.8)
sha256sum web-file-mgr.elf                         # record the digest in your release notes
file  web-file-mgr.elf                             # expect "ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64"
od -An -tx1 -N20 web-file-mgr.elf | head -2        # magic 7f45 4c46 0201 + e_machine 003e

The e_machine = 0x003e confirms the PS5 target triple x86_64-sie-ps5. The e_type = 3 (ET_DYN) confirms the position-independent payload expected by ELF loaders.

Tests

A POSIX/host-side C test suite covers the ZIP engine and runs on any Linux / macOS / MSYS shell without the PS5 SDK:

cd tests && bash run-tests.sh

Output is a per-case check-style report — 84 checks on the current main (70 ZIP + 14 RAR). Coverage:

• ZIP entry parsing (stored + deflated + ZIP64)
• Path traversal, absolute paths, backslash, Windows drive letters
• Symbolic links, FIFOs, encrypted entries, bad CRC, truncated archives, non-ZIP files
• Limits: entries, total_bytes, file_bytes, ratio, depth, name_len
• Conflict policies: fail / overwrite / merge
• Cancellation in every phase
• Large-file profile — medium_bomb.zip (ratio ≈ 238) is rejected under default caps and accepted under large caps; lowered large caps still enforce.
• RAR engine (tests/test_rar_extract.c, 14 checks) — format dispatch (renamed ZIP rejected, junk blob rejected), error translation across every reachable DMC_UNRAR_* code, limits handoff (the large=1 opt-in flows into rar_extract() unchanged).

Project layout

.
├── Makefile                      # PS5 + Linux builds (VERSION_TAG v1.8.2)
├── install-libmicrohttpd.sh      # one-shot dependency installer
├── gen-asset-module.py           # embeds assets/* as gzip-compressed C arrays
├── assets/                       # HTML / CSS / JS / icons / param.json
├── src/                          # C payload sources
│   ├── main.c  websrv.c  filemgr.c        # entry, HTTP frontend, task model
│   ├── upload.c  download.c               # stream handlers
│   ├── extract.c                          # /api/extract dispatcher (ZIP + RAR)
│   ├── zip_extract.{c,h}                  # ZIP engine (v1.7)
│   ├── rar_extract.{c,h}                  # RAR engine (v1.8, dmc_unrar backend)
│   └── app_installer.c                    # PS5 Media launcher installer
├── third_party/                  # vendored: zlib, minizip-ng, dmc_unrar
│   └── unrar/
│       ├── dmc_unrar.c                    # GPL-2.0-or-later, verbatim upstream
│       └── dmc_unrar_api.h                # project-authored facade header
├── tests/                        # POSIX/host test suite
│   ├── test_zip_extract.c
│   ├── test_rar_extract.c        # 14 RAR negative-path checks (v1.8)
│   ├── make_fixtures.py          # regenerate test fixtures
│   ├── run-tests.sh              # one-shot runner (now runs ZIP + RAR suites)
│   ├── compat/                   # tiny Win32/MSYS shims
│   └── fixtures/                 # generated test ZIPs (and a couple of stub .rar blobs)
├── docs/
│   ├── HANDOVER.md               # engineering handover / dev playbook (also §14 v1.8 close-out)
│   ├── UPGRADE-v1.7-zip-large-file-profile.md
│   ├── UPGRADE-v1.8-rar-support.md
│   └── screenshots/             # README screenshot images
├── THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES           # bundled-library credits (incl. dmc_unrar section)
├── LICENSE                       # GPLv3+
└── README.md

Notes

• Copy, move, delete, upload and download run as single background tasks. While one task is running, other file operations are rejected.
• Delete is recursive and permanent. There is no recycle bin.
• Copy/move tasks can be canceled. A partially copied single file is removed, but partially copied folders are left in place to avoid deleting pre-existing files when merging into an existing target folder.
• Upload tasks can be canceled. A partially uploaded temporary file is removed when possible.
• Downloading a folder or multiple selected items produces a tar stream. The tar archive is generated by the payload and is not written to PS5 storage first.
• The UI can recover the active task display if the browser is closed and reopened while the payload process is still running.
• Text editing is limited to the curated extension list above. Non-UTF-8 and oversized files are rejected.
• File names are transmitted as UTF-8 through the web API. The payload also preserves legacy byte-oriented names returned by mounted filesystems so mixed USB filename encodings still display and operate correctly.

FAQ

• This is a homebrew app and should not intentionally modify system processes or kernel memory. If you hit a kernel panic, make sure you are using a recent jailbreak method and ELF loader, or revert to the stable method you normally use.
• P2JB users — if this payload triggers a kernel panic, avoid using it on that setup. Stability matters more than convenience when each retry is expensive.
• The preparing stage can take a while when a folder contains many files — it sums folder size and checks free space, which helps avoid starting a copy / move / upload / download that cannot finish safely.
• err_extract_entry_too_large — default archive caps are 512 GiB per entry / 500:1 ratio (covers a typical 3A-game archive with one ~300 GiB uncompressed file). If you exceed the default, confirm the large-file prompt (appears for archives > 480 GiB on disk), split the archive, or pass large=1 directly to the API.
• err_extract_unsupported — the archive uses a feature the engine cannot handle: encrypted ZIP, encrypted RAR, multi-volume RAR (.part02+.rar), very-old RAR 1.4, RAR symlinks / FIFOs, or a file that is neither .zip nor .rar. For RAR specifically the message lists the failure cause and points the user back to a PC extractor.

Credits

This project was built with reference to these projects:

• ps5-payload-dev/websrv: HTTP server structure, static asset embedding ideas, PS5 browser/websrv behaviour and PKG install function. License: GPLv3+.
• ps5-payload-dev/ftpsrv: PS5 payload conventions, home-screen launcher/install flow reference, process handling style and startup installation reference. License: GPLv3+.
• seregonwar/zftpd: PS5 TCP socket buffer tuning and high-throughput transfer behaviour reference. License: MIT.
• itsPLK/ps5-payload-manager: Payload building behaviour. License: GPLv3.
• libmicrohttpd: Used as the embedded HTTP server library. Licensed by GNU under the LGPL; this payload links it as the SDK-provided static library.
• ps5-payload-dev/sdk: Payload building foundation. License: GPLv3+.
• etaHEN: ShellUI URI navigation used to return to the PS5 home screen before exit. License: GPLv3.
• ezremote: Preview PKG info. License: GPLv2.
• zlib-ng/minizip-ng: ZIP reader used by the /api/extract endpoint. Vendored under third_party/minizip-ng/. License: zlib.
• zlib: Compression backend for minizip-ng. Vendored under third_party/zlib/. License: zlib.
• DrMcCoy/dmc_unrar: RAR reader used by the /api/extract endpoint. Vendored under third_party/unrar/ as a single-file drop-in (dmc_unrar.c); the project-authored facade dmc_unrar_api.h carries the project's own licence. License: GPL-2.0-or-later — see third_party/unrar/COPYING.

License

The project is distributed under GPLv3 or later, matching the GPLv3+ projects used as implementation references. See LICENSE.

Third-party projects retain their own licenses. Do not copy assets or source from the credited projects into another distribution without preserving the corresponding license notices.

If distributing binaries, comply with the LGPL terms for libmicrohttpd in addition to this project's GPL license. The vendored zlib and minizip-ng sources are distributed under the zlib license; retain the copyright notices in third_party/zlib/LICENSE and third_party/minizip-ng/LICENSE when redistributing binaries built with this feature. The vendored dmc_unrar (RAR engine) is distributed under the GPL-2.0-or-later; retain the copyright notice in third_party/unrar/COPYING and ship the corresponding sources when redistributing binaries built with v1.8 or later (the web-file-mgr.elf binary is already GPLv3+, so the additional source-disclosure requirement is the only practical effect).

Disclaimer

Unofficial homebrew software. Runs only on jailbroken PS5 consoles. Use at your own risk — the authors are not responsible for damage, data loss, account action or warranty impact. Do not redistribute Sony-proprietary content. Under GPLv3+, modified redistributions must publish their sources.