Restore original kindle software (to write a cool HOWTO)

[aleritty]

Hi!
I followed a lot of guides here around and I finally turned my kindle 3 WiFi only (broken screen) in a really good webserver with some other functions.

Now I really want to write a guide to permit others to get root and turn their kindle in a webserver, with eventually FTP, port-knocking and all security possible.
I will write a guide especially for people with a broken screen, so they can reuse their kindle!

But to do this I really need to restore the original linux that my kindle had, because in this way I can write step by step everything I did without my trial and error phases.

So, I think that the best way will be download the original firmware and kernel and dd them in the correct places? But for my kindle there is only the / partition image and not /var/local (thus I'm not sure I modificed something inside that).

What is the better and safer way to regain a clean environment to write my guide? Thank you for your help!

[knc1]

Start in the K3Flasher thread.
Or wait a few days - Hawhill has some changes in the works.
Also check the large collection of software twobob has recently compiled for the K3.

[aleritty]

Thanks, I'll use k3flasher to return to the origins!

Actually I hope that I remember everything correctly because it was an hard work to get everything function correctly! :-D

[aleritty]

I can't access gitbrew to download the images, there is anyone here around that can give me images for K3 (fw v.3.3)

I have another identical k3, how can I extract the image from that? I searched but k3flasher want memory addresses to dump...

[knc1]

Try the first listed (pastebin) in this (top sticky) post:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=170929

[aleritty]

Originally Posted by knc1

Try the first listed (pastebin) in this (top sticky) post:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=170929

This pastebin is the on that I'm following, but the images are hosted on gitbrew that is down from 2 days now... So I can't download the images, but I can extract them from my other kindle maybe?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by aleritty

This pastebin is the on that I'm following, but the images are hosted on gitbrew that is down from 2 days now... So I can't download the images, but I can extract them from my other kindle maybe?

That list includes images and kernels for the K3 on mediafire.
Try your page down key when viewing the pastebin page.

For what you are proposing to do, using the 3.0.2 image and kernel should be fine.
Otherwise, you will have to update the 3.0.2 install to the desired starting version.

[aleritty]

Originally Posted by knc1

That list includes images and kernels for the K3 on mediafire.
Try your page down key when viewing the pastebin page.

No, it doesn't, for k3 there is kernel 3.3 on mediafire but no system image other than gitbrew.

For what you are proposing to do, using the 3.0.2 image and kernel should be fine.
Otherwise, you will have to update the 3.0.2 install to the desired starting version.

I'll try with the old image and kernel

[knc1]

Or wait for the version 3.4 images to be posted.

[aleritty]

Actually I decided to experiment a little bit further and I'm extracting the whole memory from my unhacked-original kindle 3, and I'll write that memory on the broken-screen one (except devid of course).

After that I'll start again modifying it.

Thank you for your help till now!

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by aleritty

Actually I decided to experiment a little bit further and I'm extracting the whole memory from my unhacked-original kindle 3, and I'll write that memory on the broken-screen one (except devid of course).

After that I'll start again modifying it.

Thank you for your help till now!

That could be a problem if you overwrite the portion of /dev/mmcblk0 that contains the idme vars (serial number, mac address, and such). Better to only write the parts you need, using k3flasher or ATK.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

That could be a problem if you overwrite the portion of /dev/mmcblk0 that contains the idme vars (serial number, mac address, and such). Better to only write the parts you need, using k3flasher or ATK.

There is (or was) a script in the k3flasher project that would pull the logical parts of the mmc out as different files.

[aleritty]

Yep, in fact I'm using k3flasher, I dumped everything from my "good" kindle and wrote everything back on my "bad" kindle EXCEPT the devid part, fortunatelly the author of k3flasher used a backup script that export in separate files every part of the memory, putting everything together is really simple!

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by aleritty

Yep, in fact I'm using k3flasher, I dumped everything from my "good" kindle and wrote everything back on my "bad" kindle EXCEPT the devid part, fortunatelly the author of k3flasher used a backup script that export in separate files every part of the memory, putting everything together is really simple!

Is the bad kindle working again?

[aleritty]

Yep, It finished to write an hour ago and it's fully functional! (except the broken screeen of course, that is phisically broken)

Now I have another problem but is unrelated: I don't have the wireless connection sat up in that kindle and without the screen I'm unable to make another connection... I'm trying with wpa_supplicant from ssh now but is a little bit difficult!