Does anyone have the steps needed to root the Android file system on the

Electronics
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1

Does anyone have the steps needed to root the Android file system on the Beagleboard XM or Beaglebone black? I want to run a VNC server, but the “superuser” app and the VNC server both say that the device isn’t rooted.

TIA,
Mike

2

just copy the su binary in place and make sure it’s suid root?

3

An adb shell should give you a root prompt. Which android image are you using?

4

I do get a root prompt from adb. However, applications do not see the devices as “rooted”. E.g., Root Checker sees the superuser apk, busybox and su, but the device isn’t showing as rooted. The problem is that applications like ssh server and vnc server will not run because they aren’t getting the appropriate root permissions for the sockets.

5

OK, I’ve finally managed to beat this thing into submission for the most part. There is a zip file from http://download.chainfire.eu/452/SuperSU/UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.02.zip. I’ve unzipped this and dissected the installation script file from the .zip to install certain binaries into /system/bin and /system/xbin (su, chattr). Then I copied the SuperSU apk into the apk directory, updated the init.d, created the /system/bin/.ext directory and populated that. Having done all of this, I can now install busybox and root checker. Finally, root checker claims the device is rooted! Yikes! What a hassle.

From there, I installed the droid vnc server (the reason I went to all of the trouble in the first place) and the server will now start. Unfortunately, this VNC server can’t create a virtual input device on the 4.1.2 release of JB on the Beagleboard-XM. So, I can get the screen output, but the input side doesn’t work :-(. One step forward and two steps back, I guess.

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@Mike_Anderson You could try this binary of the server: http://2net.co.uk/downloads/androidvncserver. It works for me on a BeagleBone.

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Thanks, Chris. I’ll give this a whirl. Do you know where this code came from?

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@Mike_Anderson it’s from my KitKat 4.4.4 port to BeagelBone
http://2net.co.uk/tutorial/android-4.4-beaglebone

which in turn is from TI Rowboat:
https://gitorious.org/rowboat/droid-vnc-server

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Thanks, Chris! I’ll take a look.