Friday, July 15, 2016

Guide to rooting Android IA user debug builds for MinnowBoard MAX

By Eric Adams.

Normal Android distributions only give you “guest” access to software and files so that phone carriers can more easily manage your device. With “superuser” or “root” rights and permissions, you get access to all the files and programs on your device, gaining the ability to install custom software and otherwise poke around on the device, learning more about it and having rights to add or unlock potentially useful features. This guide shows how you take an Android user debug image from 01.org and root it on your MinnowBoard MAX device (already running a non-rooted Android Lollipop release), so apps like ES File Explorer File Manager* can read and write to the entire Android file system. Rooting will not wipe your existing /data partition, and it gives developers and end users more flexibility when using an Android* IA image from 01.org.

Files Needed for Rooting :-

  • Android Lollipop System image from 01.org https://01.org/android-ia/downloads
  • SuperSU archive from http://su.chainfire.eu/SuperSU-Embed.zip
  1.  libsupol.so
  2. su
  3. supolicy
  • SuperSU apk from http://www.androidapksfree.com/apk/supersu-apk-latest-version-download-chainfire/
  • Android debug bridge (adb) from the Android SDK http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
Alternatively, adb is included as a part of the Phone Flash Tool Lite installation available at https://01.org/android-ia/downloads

Rooting Instructions

  • On your host computer, extract the SuperSU-Embed.zip to a local directory. Navigate to the “supersu” folder and extract the supersu.zip file. (In this example c:SuperSU is where the apk and extracted zip file is located.)
  • Navigate to the “x86” folder and locate the following three files used later (for both 32-bit and 64-bit user space builds):
  1.  libsupol.so
  2.  su
  3.  supolicy
  • Your MinnowBoard MAX system should already be running an Android (non-rooted) distribution. On your MinnowBoard MAX system, enable “Android Debugging” in Settings ? Developer Options.
  1. Go to Settings ? About Tablet.
  2. Click on the Build Number seven times to enable the Developer Options in Settings.
  3. Go to Settings ? Developer Options and enable the “Android debugging”.
  4. From your host computer, connect to the MinnowBoard MAX with adb over Ethernet to remount the /system folder and make it read/write; you need to disable the dm-verity security to allow this. For the following steps, obtain the IP address of your MinnowBoard MAX from Settings ? About Tablet ? Status ? IP Address, then use these adb commands from your host computer:
adb connect <ip address>
adb root
adb connect <ip address>
adb disable-verity
adb reboot

This last comment reboots Android on your MinnowBoard MAX so you’ll need to reconnect adb:
?adb connect <ip address>
adb root
adb connect <ip address>
adb remount

Here’s what your terminal window would look like while executing these commands, in this case, from a Windows host computer:


Push the following files from the “x86” folder of the extracted SuperSU-Embed.zip on your host computer to your /system directory on the MinnowBoard MAX, and start the su daemon:
adb push su /system/xbin
adb push supolicy /system/xbin
adb push libsupol.so /system/lib
adb shell
su –-daemon&

Here’s what your terminal window would look like while executing these commands.
  • From the host computer, Install the SuperSU apk onto the MinnowBoard MAX:
adb install eu.chainfire.supersu-2.46-246-Android-2.1.apk
  • On the MinnowBoard MAX, launch the SuperSU app and follow the setup procedure. Reboot your Android device when done.




  • Confirm that root is working by installing a third-party app that works with rooted devices. For example, see 30 Best Apps for Rooted Android Phones. Note: some of the listed apps are phone-based and would not apply to Android on the MinnowBoard MAX. In the example below, ES File explorer (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.estrongs.android.pop) is used to verify SuperSU is working. On the left side bar of ES File explorer “Root Explorer” is checked.  If root is working you’ll get a notification prompt from SuperSU asking if you want to grant root privileges to the program.
Congratulations!

You have now successfully rooted your Minnowboard MAX. Now that you are rooted, you can replace system binaries directly using your Android device itself. You can also use a terminal app to run commands with system level privileges. Rooting also opens up the full power of apps like Servers Ultimate Pro*, which can turn your Minnowboard MAX into any kind of 60+ servers supporting 70+ protocols. All of this can be done without having to set up a build machine and compile a custom build.

Get

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