Kindle 3.1 Jailbreak

[FF2]

Originally Posted by bluesplayer

FF2

I went through all the posts here and saw where you asked about a situation (previous to one I quoted here), it is the same situation I have on two Kindles both 3G’s (mine which I can hook to a PC and hack/de-hack all I want and my mother’s which I CANNOT get to to unhack so I will ask if you every got that question answered – I didn’t see the answer explicitly if it was here’s the situation and questions

Each K3 has Amazon 3.0.3 OS with Jailbreak for 3.0.3 which is 0.4.N and screensavers 0.15.N – nothing else installed.

Before I get a panic call form dear old “mum” if 3.1 gets pushed to her Kindle over top of that Jailbreak and SS the two questions are:

1. Will her SS hack mentioned still be working (will the pics I installed still be there? Or will she have a blank screen or the original dead authors?), and

2. When I DO visit her and I can hook up to my laptop can I install this new jailbreak and use it to uninstall the older JB (0.4.N) and SS's and possibly (by then) update to newer JB and SS's??

Or in very simple terms will the Amazon 3.1 on top of the old JB and SS work and at some point I can undo the older JB and SS’s?

Thanks Much
Larry

Yikes!

From what I have read.... if the hacks are installed and 3.1 comes along, the hacks for screensaver (I don't know fonts) appear to continue to work. She will not wind up with a blank screen.

And it appears that the new jailbreak will allow you to UNinstall the screensaver hack (remove 1st) and then the old jailbreak (remove 2nd). Then you can reinstall the screensaver hack (old jailbreak NOT necessary).

But don't hold me to it.

_I_ removed the hack and jailbreak prior to 3.1 I never did remove the folders that were created and left my photos and those folders alone. When I installed the new jailbreak and ss hack, my photos showed up again without any additional effort on my part.

[bluesplayer]

well I guess it's acedemic - while I was typing MY KINDLE started auto updating so I guess I will find out the hard way

I'll report back with outcome

[bluesplayer]

Well firmware 3.1 was pushed and installed OVER Jailbreak 0.4.N and SS 0.15.N took ~5 minutes to install and do the boot/re-boot thing

MY screensavers are still there (NOT Amazons) but before NEXT Amazon push I guess I better figure out what, if anything, I can "undo" and what I can do to slow this down next time (so I can keep my mothers "remote" kindle out of harms way until I can get to that location to un-hack or whatever is needed)

Larry

[NiLuJe]

Eeep! First things first, congrats to yifanlu! I was away for the past week, so that's a great news to come back to, especially after hearing that FW 3.1 was starting to get pushed OTA .

I'll try to answer a few of the questions people have been asking about what to do when you're running a previously hacked Kindle .

If your Kindle automatically updated to 3.1, don't worry, both my fonts & ss hack will continue to work. The only thing that 'broke' was my previous jailbreak. You do *not* need to uninstall any of it before applying yifanlu's latest jailbreak (yes, even my previous jailbreak. It's pretty much useless now, and it only added a single file to the filesystem, so you can safely remove it if you want, but it wont hurt a bit if you don't).

If you're still on 3.0.x and plan to upgrade to 3.1, you don't need to remove any of my hacks. Just update your kindle, and use yifanlu's jailbreak once that's done. (Again, for thorougness' sake, you *can* remove my old jailbreak after that, but it won't hurt if you don't).

I hope that clears up most of the questions that were coming up .

I'll be updating my thread & the wiki pages to avoid further confusion.

On a sidenote, @yifanlu/@dsmid: I was thinking of working around the 'no *.pem glob anymore' issue with a bind mount of our hacked key based on a whitelist of hacks checked @rc3, and unmounted @rc5. Do I need to bother with it, or are you satisfied with your current method?

[yifanlu]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Eeep! First things first, congrats to yifanlu! I was away for the past week, so that's a great news to come back to, especially after hearing that FW 3.1 was starting to get pushed OTA .

I'll try to answer a few of the questions people have been asking about what to do when you're running a previously hacked Kindle .

If your Kindle automatically updated to 3.1, don't worry, both my fonts & ss hack will continue to work. The only thing that 'broke' was my previous jailbreak. You do *not* need to uninstall any of it before applying yifanlu's latest jailbreak (yes, even my previous jailbreak. It's pretty much useless now, and it only added a single file to the filesystem, so you can safely remove it if you want, but it wont hurt a bit if you don't).

If you're still on 3.0.x and plan to upgrade to 3.1, you don't need to remove any of my hacks. Just update your kindle, and use yifanlu's jailbreak once that's done. (Again, for thorougness' sake, you *can* remove my old jailbreak after that, but it won't hurt if you don't).

I hope that clears up most of the questions that were coming up .

I'll be updating my thread & the wiki pages to avoid further confusion.

On a sidenote, @yifanlu/@dsmid: I was thinking of working around the 'no *.pem glob anymore' issue with a bind mount of our hacked key based on a whitelist of hacks checked @rc3, and unmounted @rc5. Do I need to bother with it, or are you satisfied with your current method?

Welcome back! I am busy the last couple of days with another kindle "hack" that I'm playing around with. But it would be great if we can rid the pesky "HACK_UPDATES" stuff. Can you explain your idea farther?

[Snakey]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

The only thing that 'broke' was my previous jailbreak. You do *not* need to uninstall any of it before applying yifanlu's latest jailbreak (yes, even my previous jailbreak. It's pretty much useless now, and it only added a single file to the filesystem, so you can safely remove it if you want, but it wont hurt a bit if you don't).

(Again, for thorougness' sake, you *can* remove my old jailbreak after that, but it won't hurt if you don't).

This answers a question several of us have been asking, thanks!

[naypalm]

Awesome, thanks for clearing that up for us!

[RGSG99]

Soooo happy about this! Thank you!

[SunLight]

Just to clarify, can one install jailbreak/hacks before one has activated one's Kindle?

[dsmid]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

On a sidenote, @yifanlu/@dsmid: I was thinking of working around the 'no *.pem glob anymore' issue with a bind mount of our hacked key based on a whitelist of hacks checked @rc3, and unmounted @rc5. Do I need to bother with it, or are you satisfied with your current method?

Good idea - the original contents of /etc/uks would be unmodified and the hack key(s) wouldn't be so spottable at first glance.
If you have enough time to play with it then go for it. I'm afraid this work on cleaner way to jailbreak Kindle won't appreciated by most of the users though.

[bartveld]

Originally Posted by dsmid

If you have enough time to play with it then go for it. I'm afraid this work on cleaner way to jailbreak Kindle won't appreciated by most of the users though.

Whoa, give us some credit! Even though I wouldn't be able to produce a hack myself, I can appreciate elegance in a hack .

[loximuthal]

Originally Posted by dsmid

I'm afraid this work on cleaner way to jailbreak Kindle won't appreciated by most of the users though.

As a non-hacker, but moderately competent linuxer(?), I would greatly appreciate a cleaner jailbreak. Some may not care, but others of us do.

[NiLuJe]

(FYI, it's out as 0.5.N in the fonts/ss thread).

[yifanlu]

UPDATE

Thanks to NiLuJe for teaching me kindle runlevels and showing me how updates run on a different runlevel then the framework. I have implemented his bind method, but different.

0.4 of my jailbreak now removes the need for a "ENABLE_HACK_UPDATES" files. (There is no need for a whitelist either). If you want a cleaner filesystem or a easier method (no need to change update provider and restart), you can safely install 0.4 over 0.3 (it will uninstall 0.3 automatically). If you are using NiLuJe's jailbreak and would like to switch (no advantages), uninstall his first.

If you want to compare my jailbreak with NiLuJe's:
-In my script, installing an update or hack will take up to 30 second longer (since my script reads the signature, and Amazon's update reads it again)
-In his script, you need to put the hack into a whitelist. If you are installing a new hack, it will take a few seconds to copy the hack name into the whitelist.

Technical details
No need to read this if you don't care about how it works or if you just want to read the source. Basically, whenever the Kindle updates, it changes from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3. In this window, my script does the following:
1) Look for the first "update.bin" file on /mnt/us (if you have multiple, Amazon updater only reads the first one, so it works out)
2) For copyright reasons, I cannot include Amazon's updater. However, I used sed to read out the signature check function from amazon's updater and imports it.
3) I check the signature, and if it fails, I will bind mount (thanks NiLuJe) the hack keys. If it passes, nothing happens.
4) The update runs and restarts the framework or system. On startup, the script removes the bind mount, restoring Amazon's keys.

[FF2]

yifanlu:

If we have your prior jailbreak installed and then have a hack or two (screensaver and/or font), does one have to UNinstall those hacks and then run your NEW jailbreak? Or leave the hacks installed and just run the new jailbreak.

If 3.1 is already installed does your new jailbreak still prevent an official amazon upgrade from occurring (3.1111.0000 or 3.2)?