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[Q] Conceptual Rooting question

Hi all,
First post here, be gentle.
I am a linux user (pretty noob but learning) and I'm a bit confused about what I've been reading on rooting android. I'm looking at getting a Droid X and I'm just trying to understand things before I dive in (already running 1.6 as a VM to play with it).
As far as I can tell--my bash skills not being quite good enough to completely understand everything in the rooting wikis--the methods employed to gain root access to a phone (from: wiki link) use an external OS to push image files onto the phone, then remove the native rights management files (mid.txt?) and replace them with something else in the pushed files. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, cause I probably am)
When completed, this presumably allows you to run su and changes the root password or removes it (though I have no idea how that would work). If this is the case, and I root my phone does this mean that my default login to new sessions will be as root, or will I have to run su to gain privileges? And if I have to run su, what's the password?
One of the first things I learned when getting into linux was that root can be dangerous--you can kill your computer etc.--so, what does this mean for my phone? Can I just login as an admin and then sudo for the apps that need it? (Yes, I realize that I would have to install sudo and edit the list of sudoers etc.) Is it not dangerous to run as root or it it dangerous but easily ignored?
I'm just curious about this because it seems funny to me that a lot of joe shmos who have no idea what they're unleashing by running as root might suddenly hear that it's a great idea to go into a terminal and run
Code:
#rm -rf /
and I have this desperate hope that it's not as simple as that and there is some kind of rights management still in effect once a phone is "rooted." If not, and rooting a phone really does log you in as root for every session then it's much more dangerous than I had thought.
Thanks,
Bob

Is there really no one here who can answer this?
My phone is coming on Wednesday and I'd love some help with this and I can't believe that one of the brilliant people here can't answer this.

Sorry nobody replied yet. When you root there is usually a one click root app that does everything for you. After you are rooted you can install superuser from the market and it lets you choose what apps are allowed to have root access. You can search the droid forums for more info since I have an epic. If this helped please hit the thanks button below
Sent from my Epic that craves frozen yogurt

[Completed] Should have root, but don't...?

Hi all,
This one is confusing me, feels like I am missing something really stupid...
I am trying to get my brother's phone rooted for him, and he already used some online tools to get halfway there (Unfortunately I don't know what these tools did or how they did it).
So right now if I run "adb root && adb remount && adb shell" I get a full root shell wirh RW access to the /system dir. From here I can copy the su binary into /system/bin and set:
chown 0:0 /system/bin/su
chmod 6755 /system/bin/su
After this I can run su from the adb shell (so the binary does work), but if I try to use terminal on the device itself su claims to have insufficient permissions, and the SuperSU/ BusyBox installers won't play nice for obvious reasons.
What have I missed out on?
Thanks in advance

Hi there,
What device is it?

Unfortunately it's a newish South African phone (basically manufactured and programmed in SA, but it uses components from the usual places.
http://zestmobile.net/product/zest-t1/ if it's of any help.

hexd said:
Unfortunately it's a newish South African phone (basically manufactured and programmed in SA, but it uses components from the usual places.
http://zestmobile.net/product/zest-t1/ if it's of any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, it's unfortunate you can't remember the method he tried!
I'd reccommend asking your question in the Android Development and Hacking > Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting
You could also try some other root methods to see if they work, for example TowelRoot is reported to work on most Android devices.

matt4321 said:
Ok, it's unfortunate you can't remember the method he tried!
I'd reccommend asking your question in the Android Development and Hacking > Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting
You could also try some other root methods to see if they work, for example TowelRoot is reported to work on most Android devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately that conversation had the phrase "some of the applications were in Chinese" in it. The developers are apparently going to release a full toolkit for the phone, which will hopefully contain a clean system image.
I do have root access though via adb, it's just normal terminal access that won't work, even though the binary is there and the permissions are correct.

hexd said:
Unfortunately that conversation had the phrase "some of the applications were in Chinese" in it. The developers are apparently going to release a full toolkit for the phone, which will hopefully contain a clean system image.
I do have root access though via adb, it's just normal terminal access that won't work, even though the binary is there and the permissions are correct.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd recommend waiting out for this full release of the toolkit then.
Or ask in the Android Questions section I linked, others may be able to help you there and you may have more luck finding people who know what to do.
This is as far as I can help you since XDA Assist is just pointing you in the direction you need to go rather than helping you with the issue itself.

matt4321 said:
I'd recommend waiting out for this full release of the toolkit then.
Or ask in the Android Questions section I linked, others may be able to help you there and you may have more luck finding people who know what to do.
This is as far as I can help you since XDA Assist is just pointing you in the direction you need to go rather than helping you with the issue itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will cross-post there, many thanks for trying to help though!

[Q] How to root Acer Iconia A1-713 manually?

Has anyone created a method to root Acer a1-713 manually?
Those one click methods are really crude also I don't even know what's happening in there.
If anyone knows it please help me.

Dreadful man said:
Has anyone created a method to root Acer a1-713 manually?
Those one click methods are really crude also I don't even know what's happening in there.
If anyone knows it please help me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some said that Kingroot worked for them in this Q&A thread -> http://forum.xda-developers.com/chef-central/android/root-recovery-acer-iconia-tab-7-a1-713-t2851573

JnFrks said:
Some said that Kingroot worked for them in this Q&A thread -> http://forum.xda-developers.com/chef-central/android/root-recovery-acer-iconia-tab-7-a1-713-t2851573
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it didn't for me. Also I want to know what I am doing with my tab and not just know that tapping this button will root my tab.

Have you ever tried to look at this site -> http://www.oneclickroot.com/device/acer-iconia-a1-713/. They featured this one-click rooting and it seems they can be trusted. I've downloaded and installed their software so no worries. Well, I'm also using a one-click root utility and it's always working. (just sayin')
The process of rooting a device is too complicated for those who don't have knowledge in Linux (like me), so your question about manually is out.
http://www.oneclickroot.com/device/acer-iconia-a1-713/

Well this one click root website was also a waste of time and didn't work either .
I may have to wait a little bit more before dumping this thread.

Rooting an android device basically means (for me) granting You (as the user) to do whatever you want to your device's system, hardware, etc. But what does root will actually do to your device that will cause you to obtain that superuser access? It's because of the "su" (Switch User) file used by Android and other UNIX-based systems that allows a process of switching of a user to be the superuser (or root user) that has access to the commands and file system, meaning those processes that requires root permission (root access or superuser access) need to invoke su. So basically the process of rooting will just push this su, a binary executable file, to the file system so that you can switch to the root user to give root permissions... And the Superuser application is just optional, but really required for some reasons, it serves as the "gatekeeper" of the su binary so when a certain command or application that invokes su will prompt the user by the Superuser app first before granting the root permission since becoming the root user can do whatever to the system which means it can cause the device to malfunction, etc... So what do you mean by manually?
Sorry for what I'd just suggest you that OneClickRoot waste your time...
Oh, there's a bad news after spending time searching how to root your device, read the news here -> [GUIDE] Firmwares, ROMs, CWM, Root - Acer Iconia (MTK) Tablets [ⒶⒸⒺⓇ ⒹⒺⓋⒾⓁⓈ]
Can't find a best way to root your Acer.

Well thanks for enlightening me on the topic, I hadn't really understood what really is su..
By manually I meant by using computer and tinkering with the files hands on.
Oh, and you needn't to be sorry since everything I tried didn't work. Sometimes I had root till the app was open while sometimes it existed until the next reboot.
Also looked at the link you gave and well, what can I say, it really is bad news and there sure is the risk of bricking my device.
Well thanks for taking your time.

[Completed] Understanding the basics: Root Process

I am not sure if it has been asked before, but I want to understand the root process, not a specific phone root. I want to understand how it works. Can someone point me to a primer or any sites that at least discuss the generalities of root? Thanks in advance

hongning said:
I am not sure if it has been asked before, but I want to understand the root process, not a specific phone root. I want to understand how it works. Can someone point me to a primer or any sites that at least discuss the generalities of root? Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe this post will help
The general approach is taking advantage of bugs in the android OS
The process works something like this
User crafts some special data that contains a "payload" (the script/executable that we want to run)
User runs a system process that has root privileges and gets it to open the special data
The bug causes the system process to get confused by the data, and ends up running the embedded script
The embedded script runs with the same privileges as the system process, and thus can stuff that normal users aren't allowed to do (e.g. installs the SU app)
I can't post any outside links in this forum area but if you google for how root works you'll get heaps of good results.

[Completed] Need some help regarding manual rooting using ADB to place the files. ReRooting phone

Okay so I've had this phone for little over 10 months now and within that time I've managed to achieve root (unreliable but it works at the very least) in that time as well as learned a fair amount about Linux and android alike (Not a whole lot but I know some stuff) though I've now come to the point of I actually want to give my phone a proper root instead of this faulty solution I have currently. I (barely) managed to get my phone rooted using Kingoroot and I've played plenty with my phones' innards in that time, removed system apps, added my own selection to the system but some apps in my phone that use root don't work even with root permission granted which is why I'm wanting to replace Kingoroot with ChainFires' SuperSU binaries, could anybody help me with simple instructions for someone who doesn't actually know very much regarding how root and SU bins work inside of android? My phone's using 4.4.2 kitkat.
Just a few disclaimers first to get misconceptions out the way:
1. I do not have a custom recovery nor is one available for my phone (Samsung galaxy young 2 (SM-S130H) for those who want to know)
2. I'm currently unable to use the internet on my phone as I lack Wi-Fi to do so (router is dead) so I'm manually installing app packages through ADB, so if something needs an internet connection on my phone it's not going to work for me, for now..PC still has net access.
3. I have access to ADB shells' SU but not ADB root so I hope you don't need that from me.
4. This phone does not have a fastboot mode. (That I can find anyway..) Only a download mode from what I've found.
Can anybody help me out with telling me what I'll need to be doing in regards to getting this done?

Hi Mc Fow1er
Thank you for using XDA Assist
As we do not have an specific forum dedicated for your device yet, our experts at the below forum should be able to help you. Please be welcome to post over in there.
Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting
Nice regards and good luck.
.
Mc Fow1er said:
Okay so I've had this phone for little over 10 months now and within that time I've managed to achieve root (unreliable but it works at the very least) in that time as well as learned a fair amount about Linux and android alike (Not a whole lot but I know some stuff) though I've now come to the point of I actually want to give my phone a proper root instead of this faulty solution I have currently. I (barely) managed to get my phone rooted using Kingoroot and I've played plenty with my phones' innards in that time, removed system apps, added my own selection to the system but some apps in my phone that use root don't work even with root permission granted which is why I'm wanting to replace Kingoroot with ChainFires' SuperSU binaries, could anybody help me with simple instructions for someone who doesn't actually know very much regarding how root and SU bins work inside of android? My phone's using 4.4.2 kitkat.
Just a few disclaimers first to get misconceptions out the way:
1. I do not have a custom recovery nor is one available for my phone (Samsung galaxy young 2 (SM-S130H) for those who want to know)
2. I'm currently unable to use the internet on my phone as I lack Wi-Fi to do so (router is dead) so I'm manually installing app packages through ADB, so if something needs an internet connection on my phone it's not going to work for me, for now..PC still has net access.
3. I have access to ADB shells' SU but not ADB root so I hope you don't need that from me.
4. This phone does not have a fastboot mode. (That I can find anyway..) Only a download mode from what I've found.
Can anybody help me out with telling me what I'll need to be doing in regards to getting this done?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse