BackDoorLock hack - prevents silent updates

[dsmid]

Thanks eureka, my intention was to make sure the changes are brought into effect even on a device I don't posses. Reboot was a safe bet.

Version 8

• No need to reboot KT and KPW after locking/unlocking

[twobob]

Index updated. Many thanks

[GoSharks]

[eureka]

Originally Posted by dsmid

Thanks eureka, my intention was to make sure the changes are brought into effect even on a device I don't posses. Reboot was a safe bet.

Version 8

• No need to reboot KT and KPW after locking/unlocking

Thanks. It's also worth to note that BackDoorLock for KT/PW does stop Kindle from downloading the update file (by ignoring of new update notices pushed by Amazon in current official form).

[xtine]

Thank you for this update, dsmid & eureka!

To update (KUAL), do I only need to replace the backdoorlock folder under extensions with the new version, or do I need to unlock, delete the previous backdoorlock folder, and restart before copying the new version?

[twobob]

I also asked for some "Best-practice Update" instructions.

Let's see what falls out of 'Camp Dsmid'.

[Yolina]

I went with unlock, replace folder and then obviously lock again...

[dsmid]

Originally Posted by xtine

To update (KUAL), do I only need to replace the backdoorlock folder under extensions with the new version, or do I need to unlock, delete the previous backdoorlock folder, and restart before copying the new version?

Just replace the backdoorlock folder with the new version, then lock.

Updating the bundle install involves just installing the newest version, no need to uninstall the previous one first.

[xtine]

Originally Posted by dsmid

Just replace the backdoorlock folder with the new version, then lock.

Updating the bundle install involves just installing the newest version, no need to uninstall the previous one first.

Thank you

Yolina, looks like you did it right

[eureka]

Originally Posted by dsmid

Silent update detection does not work on Kindle Touch and Kindle Paperwhite as the hack uses a different method to stop silent updates on these devices.

ToDo will set handleToDoItem property of LIPC service defined in handler_registry.conf with content of ToDo document (XML, in fact) pushed by Amazon.

So, if com.lab126.ota in /etc/todo/handler_registry.conf will be replaced with name of our own LIPC service providing handleToDoItem property, silent update attempt could be detected.

The easiest way to write LIPC service in 5.x is to use Lua:

require("liblipclua")

local lipc_handle, error_message, error_number = lipc.init("com.example.fakeota")
if not lipc_handle then
    -- handle initialization error
else
    lipc.set_error_handler(function(error) --[[handle work error]] end)
end 

local handleToDoItem = lipc_handle:register_string_property("handleToDoItem", "w")
handleToDoItem.listener = function (name, value)
  -- handle string value
end

-- run event loop with timeout of Infinity seconds
while true do lipc.run_event_loop(math.huge) end

I understand that you doesn't have K5 to check it and develop further. Let this information just be here for the reference.

[veezh]

Thank you for this great tool, dsmid!

[stepk]

Please update the KUAL package in the first post for KUAL 2.0 compatibility, thank you. Ref https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=778

Also, after I start backdoorlock from KUAL 2.0 I find this error line in the KUAL log file:

bin/lock.sh: line 12: */sbin/restart: not found

Is this error intentional? If so, can you please modify lock.sh to redirect the error message to /dev/null ? Thank you.

[dsmid]

Hi stepk, thanks for the report.
I assume you've got Kindle Touch. The line in lock.sh you are referring to looks like this:

[ -f /etc/todo/handler_registry.conf ] && /sbin/restart todo

It's there to restart the todo service on Kindle Touch and Kindle Paperwhite (there's no such service on K3 and K4).
Symlink /sbin/restart is present in KPW firmware and I'm quite surprised to read it is missing in Kindle Touch. Can you check if it is present in /usr/sbin/ or elsewhere ?

Concerning KUAL, do I understand it right that the only problem is the extra comma in menu.json ? Or are there any other issues/suggestions ?

[stepk]

[root@kindle tmp]# vi /mnt/us/extensions/backdoorlock/bin/lock.sh

[ -f /etc/todo/handler_registry.conf ] &&../sbin/restart todo

Can you see the ../ in your copy? Vi on the kindle not on your dev PC.

The extra comma is the only issue in menu.json.

edit: OK, I checked the two dots in vim: they stand for a hard space character, 0xA0. It looks like a regular space character but it isn't and it becomes part of the file name. So "\0xA0/sbin/restart" isn't obviously found.

unlock.sh has the same problem

# grep -R "*" extensions/backdoorlock/* 
extensions/backdoorlock/bin/unlock.sh:[ -f /etc/todo/handler_registry.conf ] &&*/sbin/restart todo
extensions/backdoorlock/bin/lock.sh:[ -f /etc/todo/handler_registry.conf ] &&*/sbin/restart todo

P.S. Notice how the forum software renders 0xA0 as a * character - which was included in my post #87 but maybe looked as a typo.

[dsmid]

Thanks for hunting that down, a new version 9 is available with both issues fixed.
The U+00A0 character was probably some leftover from copy&paste.