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Why another Superuser?

  • Superuser should be open source. It's the gateway to root on your device. It must be open for independent security analysis. Obscurity (closed source) is not security.
  • Superuser should be NDK buildable. No internal Android references.
  • Superuser should also be AOSP buildable for those that want to embed it in their ROM.
  • Superuser should also be AOSP embeddable, meaning a ROM can easily embed it into their Settings app.
  • Maintenance and updates on both the market and source repositories should be timely.
  • I want to be able to point users of my app to a Superuser solution that I wrote, that I know works, and that I can fix if something is wrong.
  • Handle multiuser (4.2+) properly
  • Handle concurrent su requests properly

Why NOT use this Superuser?

  • If you have any doubt about how to go recover from a critical failure, DON'T TRY THIS
  • Don't use it if you're afraid of a brick

Checking out the source

You'll need the "Widgets" dependency.

  • $ mkdir /path/to/src
  • $ cd /path/to/src
  • $ git clone git://github.com/phhusson/Superuser
  • $ cd Superuser
  • $ git clone git://github.com/phhusson/Widgets

These repositories do not keep the actual projects in the top level directory. This is because they contain tests, libs, and samples.

Make sure the SDK Platform for API 19 is installed, through the Android SDK Manager. Install NDK Revision 9b from here.

Building the su and placeholder binaries

Make sure you have the android-ndk downloaded with the tool "ndk-build" in your path.

  • $ cd /path/to/src/
  • $ cd Superuser/Superuser
  • $ ndk-build

The su binary will built into Superuser/Superuser/libs/armeabi/su, and the placeholder will be built into Superuser/Superuser/libs/armeabi/placeholder

Building the application

  • $ ./gradlew assembleDebug

(Yes I use debug builds for the moment.)

Configuring the Package Name

//The Superuser distributed on Google Play is in the package name com.koushikdutta.superuser. (To be changed) To prevent conflicts with the Play store version, the build process changes the package name to com.thirdparty.superuser. You can configure this value by setting the following in your build.gradle

applicationId "com.thirdparty.superuser"

How to install?

You can install su in various different ways. All are not listed here.

Editing /system partition, and using placeholder binary

One way is through placeholder binary. It doesn't require to modify boot.img, only system partition. This doesn't work on Android M, and is considered obsolete. (SELinux policies aren't keeping up)

To install it this way, here are the needed steps:

  • Rename /system/bin/app_process32 to /system/bin/app_process32.old
  • Copy placeholder to system/bin/app_process32
  • Ensure permissions of app_process32 are the same as of app_process32.old, including SELinux attributes (should be 0755 u:object_r:zygote_exec:s0)
  • Put su file in system/xbin/
  • Add /system/xbin/su --daemon in install-recovery.sh

From sources

Please refer to https://github.com/seSuperuser/AOSP-SU-PATCH/

Editing boot partition

Please refer to https://github.com/phhusson/super-bootimg/

TODO List

Here is a list of what's left to do, to be compatible with Chainfire's SuperSU (as documented at https://su.chainfire.eu):

  • --mount-master

Here is an additional TODO list:

  • Create restricted domains, which should match of basic needs. So that we can tell users "this app is not as bad as it might"
  • Safer su --bind/su --init (should be package-name based, not uid-based)

Contact me

Communication

This project is in REALLY early state, though some points have to be mentioned:

  • For development purposes, I prefer IRC
  • Any issue discussed MUST have an entry in github bugtracker
  • There will be security flaws. If you find one, please first discuss it with me privately (by mail or IRC).
  • If you feel you need to be aware of security flaws before disclosure, please contact me, I might create a dedicated mailing list.

Organisation

https://trello.com/b/adDbOmV0/superuser

Prebuilt images

I setup a robot to build root-ed boot.img. The result is available on [[http://superuser.phh.me/]] All boot.img are signed with the keystore available at [[http://superuser.phh.me/keystore.img]] And they always contain the latest su, and latest SELinux policy.

  • orig-boot.img is the boot.img extracted from the ROM (for reference only)
  • boot-su-eng.img is the boot.img generated by calling su with "eng" option
  • boot-su-user.img is the boot.img generated by calling su without argument

The matching APK is [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.phh.superuser]]

If you want to add some ROMs or boot.img configurations into the auto-builder, open a pull-request or an issue to [[https://github.com/phhusson/super-bootimg/tree/master/known-imgs]]