How-To: Root your Droid

[parkjam]

First a brief explanation of what root is and what it accomplishes. Root is the superuser account in a linux based OS, much like an administrator account on a Windows PC. It allows you to accomplish system tasks and modify system files that cannot be touched with a normal user account. Without root access you cannot accomplish that on a linux based OS. Rooting an android phone is allowing yourself access to that superuser account, allowing you to accomplish any other mods you may wish. One caveat though, root in linux is very powerful. Be careful anytime you type su into a terminal shell in android, as with that command you become God to that phone. Linux is not a "dumb downed" OS like Windows, it will not ask for confirmation. It assumes that because you are the root user, you know what the heck you are doing.

Next a breakdown of the various commands issued in the following tutorial so you can understand what it going on.

1) su - This command allows you to become the root user, allowing filesystem access.
2) cp - This is the linux copy command, it copies files from one place to another
3) mv - This is the linux move command, it moves files. It is also used in instances where you want to rename a file. With renames, you are just moving the file to a file with a new name.
4) mount - This command mounts a device (ie, the storage card), allowing the phone to see and access the file system on the device. It is most often used in this sense: mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system What that command accomplishes is simply remounting the system partition with read/write access. By default the system partition is mounted as read only, meaning you can't write anything to it. By remounting it as read/write, you are allowing changes to it. On the opposite end, once you are done modifying, you remount it again as read only by typing mount - o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
5) cd - This command simply changes the working directory in your command shell to the directory you specify. It essentially moves you from folder to folder.
6) sync - Syncs changes on the device.
7) reboot - Fairly obvious what this one does!

Also, it is nice to be able to use ADB (Android Developer Bridge) to be able to access your phone via a terminal on your PC. You may need to change the repository from https:// to http:// to get the updates. Once it is fully installed on your PC and you connect your phone with USB Debugging enabled, it should install the driver for your phone. At that point you can go to a command prompt in the tools directory of the android SDK and type adb shell. By doing that you are running a shell on your phone from the PC (with a real keyboard!)
1) setup the Android SDK on your system: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html
2) get familiar with using ADB: http://developer.android.com/guide/deve ... s/adb.html





EDIT: As it seems to have come up a few times across the forum and in this thread, I am going to try and explain what the recovery image/nandroid are in terms that make it easy to understand. For WinMo users, you can think of the recovery image (which is nandroid) as an unlocked SPL for your WinMo phone. Much like with the touch pro, diamond, mogul, vogue, etc., you had to flash the unlocked SPL to be able to flash unsigned ROMs, the same thing applies to the Droid. You must install a new recovery image that allows the installation of unsigned programs. The difference is that nandroid is far more than just an SPL analog. It is a truly useful utility that allows you to do many things, create backups, restore them, modify the file system, and install roms and updates. It is NOT necessary to install the hacked recovery image if you don't plan on messing with custom ROMs and the phone itself. But the truth is, if you don't plan one doing those things, you should ask yourself why you are rooting your phone and taking any risk whatsoever. That being said, if you plan on rooting your phone, installing the recovery image and creating a backup is just good common sense. It allows you to have a way to get your phone back shoud you do something that screws it up. The other nice thing about said backups, is they allow you to completely return to where you were when you backed the phone up. EVERYTHING is restored! No more reinstalling and reconfiguring all of your programs every time you want to try a new ROM. Simply create a backup before you install the new ROM, and install the new one. If you don't like how the new one works, simply restore the backup and your right back to where you were at!

HOW TO Create a backup: To create a nandroid backup, reboot your phone into recovery by holding 'x' while powering on the phone, or typing reboot recovery into a terminal with root access. Once you have booted into the recovery mode, select backup/restore, push the camera button, select simple nandroid backup, and push the camera button. After a minute or two, the process will complete and you can use the power button to go back and select reboot phone. The backup is stored in the nandroid folder on your SD card.