Quick Kindle 3 root shell via USB

[Rinzwind]

ah! cool edited my post! In case someone starts sueing me over it >

NiLuJe thanks! See elsewhere on this subforum for me praising you even more

mntroot rw
passwd
new password; need to type it 2 times.
mntroot ro

OH question: do I need to "mntroot ro" everytime I quit ssh? Or is it "safe" to leave it rewitable? (safe as in it not botching things up when I use my kindle and/or safe as in others being able to access it)

[NiLuJe]

I'd advise against leaving the rootfs in a rw state, yeah, you never know what might happen .

But you should almost never ever need to switch it to a rw state in the first place, anyway...

[Stonecold]

Could someone explain how to remove a certain folder from the root of my Kindle 3 using USB Networking? Instructions need to be relatively simple - programing is not my area of expertise!

[Rinzwind]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

I'd advise against leaving the rootfs in a rw state, yeah, you never know what might happen .

But you should almost never ever need to switch it to a rw state in the first place, anyway...

safety 1st. I agree. But my mind sometimes tends to forget the important instructions and to keep focussing on anything else

Originally Posted by Stonecold

Could someone explain how to remove a certain folder from the root of my Kindle 3 using USB Networking? Instructions need to be relatively simple - programing is not my area of expertise!

1. set the system to write:
mntroot rw

2. go to the directory that has the file.
cd {directory}
(change {directory} to what you need).

3a. remove the file you need with
rm {filename}
change {filename} to what you need.

OR

3b. if you want to be a bit more safe make a backup with:
mv {filename} {filename}.backup

4. set systeem to read only:
mntroot ro

5. and exit with:
exit

Just a friendly warning though...

Just make sure you think before you press enter when using mv and rm commands.
That includes to wait for someone to confirm that what I typed is correct (ie. never trust someone on his blue eyes when telling you to rm something and always wait for a confirmation).
Because... NO ONE takes any responsibility for any of the commands and if something gets broken it is on you

[NiLuJe]

You don't need to switch to rwfs to access /mnt/us (the userstore) or /var/local

(ie. in your case, Stonecold, just
mv /mnt/us/usbnet/auto /mnt/us/usbnet/DISABLED_auto
)

[disi]

Originally Posted by Rinzwind

Linux/Ubuntu:

I took steps up to 7 and when disi! spoke about windows I started to investigate myself. I did the following (maybe someone could tell me if I did some unnecesary steps!!):

sudo ifconfig usb0 192.168.2.2

You can check the result with:

lsusb | grep RNDIS

This should show something like:
Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0525:a4a2 Netchip Technology, Inc. Linux-USB Ethernet/RNDIS Gadget

Now you should be able to ping your kindle with:

ping 192.168.2.2


and ...
telnet 192.168.2.2 now gives me...


Trying 192.168.2.2...
Connected to 192.168.2.2.
Escape character is '^]'.



Welcome to Kindle!

#################################################
# N O T I C E * N O T I C E * N O T I C E #
#################################################
Rootfs is mounted read-only. Invoke mntroot rw to
switch back to a writable rootfs.
#################################################
[root@kindle root]# uname -a
Linux kindle 2.6.26-rt-lab126 #5 Wed Sep 15 19:25:13 PDT 2010 armv6l unknown
[root@kindle root]#


disi! Your steps and my knowledge on Ubuntu got me into my kindle *O*

Sounds really good. I have dualboot and tried to connect the kindle on my Gentoo installation, but gave up after a while :/
Seems Ubuntu has some quirks to automatically configure the usb port

(I do not use hald, I guess that's the main problem with Gentoo)

[NiLuJe]

cat /etc/gentoo-release
Gentoo Base System release 2.0.1

You're obviously missing something.

[Hydron]

just a quick question (and also my first post here, though i have been doing a bit of lurking), is there any disadvantage to changing the root password? i.e. is it set to whatever it is for a good reason, like for updates?
I have ssh going via public/private keys, which i normally use between machines anyway, but I'd like to know the password, and running the shadow file through a cracker did not find anything (its obviously too long for brute force cracking).

[NiLuJe]

Can't think of anything relying on the password being untouched, AFAIK, but given that I use shared keys, I really can't think of a good reason to change it either .

[ecostin]

After the upgrade to fw 3.0.3 the fabled factory test files have disappeared. Of course the files can be put back - and everything works again, the Java components are compatible - but maybe some of you wanted to know this.

[kosend]

Hm...
copied /test folder to my kindle
reboot it
;debugOn
~exec is not working,
~usbNetwork do nothing...

whats wrong?

[ecostin]

Originally Posted by kosend

Hm...
copied /test folder to my kindle
reboot it
;debugOn
~exec is not working,
~usbNetwork do nothing...

whats wrong?

Check if you have the file /test/ebook/lib/testtools.jar
Check the file /opt/amazon/ebook/bin/start.sh for the line: testlibdir=/test/ebook/lib

If both are fine then it should work.

[kosend]

Originally Posted by ecostin

Check the file /opt/amazon/ebook/bin/start.sh for the line: testlibdir=/test/ebook/lib
If both are fine then it should work.

How can I put it there? I rely on I only neet to put /test while connecting device via usb

[ecostin]

Originally Posted by kosend

How can I put it there? I rely on I only neet to put /test while connecting device via usb

If you plant the files on the exported USB drive, then it won't work; you need to place them in the root directory. First you need to jailbreak, get a shell, mount the root read-write, copy the files, mount read-only, reboot. You could ask someone here for step-by-step instructions, but nevertheless you should start by jailbreaking the device (plenty of help available on this topic).

[mockingbird]

Originally Posted by porkupan

Great find (about the ~exec command). Obviously a stupid bug, left-over from firmware debugging. Crrrrrazy stuff! A simple jailbreak script (jb_install.sh) will be something like:

#!/bin/sh
export PATH=/usr/sbin:${PATH}

_FUNCTIONS=/etc/rc.d/functions
[ -f ${_FUNCTIONS} ] && . ${_FUNCTIONS}

mntroot rw

#install key
cat <<EOF > /etc/uks/pubhackkey01.pem
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDJn1jWU+xxVv/eRKfCPR9e47lP
WN2rH33z9QbfnqmCxBRLP6mMjGy6APyycQXg3nPi5fcb75alZo+Oh012HpMe9Lnp
eEgloIdm1E4LOsyrz4kttQtGRlzCErmBGt6+cAVEV86y2phOJ3mLk0Ek9UQXbIUf
rvyJnS2MKLG2cczjlQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
EOF

mntroot ro

And that's all of it!

The instructions:
1) Copy jb_install.sh into kindle's main storage
2) ;debugOn
3) ~exec /mnt/us/jb_install.sh
4) No reboot needed

is it possible to make a script that could reset kindle 3 to factory settings? i can't access my settings page where resetting to factory settings could easily be done. my ~exec command works so maybe you could help me reset my kindle using a script?