Instruction to get root on 60x/90x + remote telnet & FTP

[mamaich]

Here: http://www.the-ebook.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19171 I've published an instruction on getting root on 60x/90x.

Partial translation:
1. Connect your device to PC
2. Extract http://www.multiupload.com/A49K088F4J to the root of internal memory on device (so files would get to /mnt/ext1/applications and /mnt/ext1/system/bin)
3. Run get_root.app

get_root.app would connect to WiFi and launch FTP and Telnet daemons. So you can connect to your device from your PC via "telnet <device ip address over WiFi>" or "ftp://<device ip address over WiFi>". No password would be asked.

If you don't have Wifi - you can get a root shell in pocket term. Just launch poterm, type there: /mnt/ext1/applications/get_root.app and after several seconds you'll get a root shell (type "whoami" to check that you are root).

Note:
Be very careful while playing with root rights on your device! You can remount system partitions as read-write and you can easily destroy them by mistake.

Uninstallation:
Just delete the files or format internal memory.

[PocketGoods]

Thanks!

[OphReader]

Originally Posted by mamaich

Here: http://www.the-ebook.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19171 I've published an instruction on getting root on 60x/90x.

Partial translation:
1. Connect your device to PC
2. Extract http://www.multiupload.com/A49K088F4J to the root of internal memory on device (so files would get to /mnt/ext1/applications and /mnt/ext1/system/bin)
3. Run get_root.app

get_root.app would connect to WiFi and launch FTP and Telnet daemons. So you can connect to your device from your PC via "telnet <device ip address over WiFi>" or "ftp://<device ip address over WiFi>". No password would be asked.

If you don't have Wifi - you can get a root shell in pocket term. Just launch poterm, type there: /mnt/ext1/applications/get_root.app and after several seconds you'll get a root shell (type "whoami" to check that you are root).

Note:
Be very careful while playing with root rights on your device! You can remount system partitions as read-write and you can easily destroy them by mistake.

Uninstallation:
Just delete the files or format internal memory.

Is it possible to compile and install apps with this shell?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by OphReader

Is it possible to compile and install apps with this shell?

Not without a _lot_ of work. As far as I can tell, there aren't any compilers or even header files on the device, so you can't build any C/C++-based packages on it as is. You would first have to install compilers and a development environment, which would be a fair bit of work. It's much easier to build packages using one of the unofficial SDK's on a PC and then copy them over to the device.

As far as installing goes, you can already install things on the public internal SD card partition (/mnt/ext1) and on the external SD card (/mnt/ext2), and the device is set up reasonably well to look in those areas for software and configuration files (thanks PB ). There are some partitions that are mounted read-only, and those could be remounted with write privileges with root access. However, as the original poster says, changing the contents of those partitions could result in their being unusable (if some sort of checksum lockout is being used). So, it will take someone who is not afraid of bricking their device to play around with that.

Having root access will allow one to look at files that are currently unreadable by the reader login account, run daemons (services) that require root privileges, play with the networking... So I think it will be more useful for opening up existing capabilities of the device as opposed to adding software to it (which you could do pretty well before).

[rkomar]

(sorry, duplicate post)

[Tulapi]

I wanted to use this tip to change the default "styles.xml" of FBreader in order to customize a bit the fonts/the font size/... (on the original FBReader, not the FBReader180)

I am able to connect by telnet to the device. Apparently, I am logged as root. There is two "styles.xml" files, (located in /ebrmain/share/FBReader/default/ and /usr/share/FBReader/default/ )

But I can't copy or rename anything, because it says :

"Read-only file system"


Is there anything I can do to solve this problem ?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Tulapi

But I can't copy or rename anything, because it says :

"Read-only file system"


Is there anything I can do to solve this problem ?

You need to remount the partition read-writeable:

mount -o remount,rw /ebrmain

Running 'mount' by itself shows you what is mounted and what options were used in each case. You can use "-o remount,ro" to put it back to read-only afterwards.

Good luck.

[Tulapi]

Thank you rkomar, it worked.

But unfortunately, replacing styles.xml doesn't seem to do anything.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Tulapi

Thank you rkomar, it worked.

But unfortunately, replacing styles.xml doesn't seem to do anything.

I'm not sure what those files are for. I looked inside the fbreader.app executable, and it seems to know about /mnt/ext1/system/config/styles.xml. Maybe you can modify that file as needed (without even needing to root the device).

[Tulapi]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I'm not sure what those files are for. I looked inside the fbreader.app executable, and it seems to know about /mnt/ext1/system/config/styles.xml. Maybe you can modify that file as needed (without even needing to root the device).

Yes, it worked before. Since firmware update 2.0.? (I don't remember which one), it is broken. Modifying /mnt/ext1/system/config/styles.xml has only an effect on FBReader180. That's why I wanted to modify the default styles.xml.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Tulapi

Yes, it worked before. Since firmware update 2.0.? (I don't remember which one), it is broken. Modifying /mnt/ext1/system/config/styles.xml has only an effect on FBReader180. That's why I wanted to modify the default styles.xml.

I see. I hope we're not seeing a trend in recent PB systems away from user customization.

Anyway, have you searched your fbreader.app file for strings that might reveal the new location of the config file?

[Tulapi]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Anyway, have you searched your fbreader.app file for strings that might reveal the new location of the config file?

I didn't find any.
The string "styles.xml" is present, but not the path.

[jekvb]

I love this tool: It works so much faster then PoTerm.
Thanks for this!

One remark: during an active connection (telnet OR ftp), the connection bails out after appr. 10 minutes. This is very annoying.
Is there another solution to terminate the app (or the network connection)?

Regs, Kuba

[MartinZ]

Hi mamaich,

great tool this "get_root".

Now finally i am able to open my reader's directories even in (Windows-)Explorer.
It's very easy now to put groups of files to or from the 903 - without even connecting USB -cable. And I can continue reading a book while files are transferred.
For programming with the SDK it is really usefull, that i do not need to plug in and plug out USB-cable for each try out of a modifikation.


And the telnet-connection with a better busybox is as well a great thing.

Thanks so much!

MartinZ

Edit:

After updating firmware to 2.1.1 "get_root.app" does not work any more! Seems PB have closed the "hole", so exploit is no longer possible.

What a pity!

I do not need root access. But accessing File-System by ftp and accessing command line by telnet was really great.

[MartinZ]

Hi mamaich,

1) is there any progress in making a "get_root" for the latest firmware 2.1.1?
I tried to understand the discussions in the russian forums, but google translator makes a lot of nonsense and there for i can not really follow.

2) Is there a possibility of realizing a samba server or a ftp server or a telnet server on the pocketbook without root access? I do not really need root access, but i would like to get wireless file access to the PB from my PC as i had it with get root on firmware 2.0.6.