Android 13 and my journey to root access

Martin Jud

23.5.2023

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

My smartphone is officially only available with Android 11. So I manually installed Android 13. Now rooting becomes the icing on the cake. Because some very special apps can only be used with administrator rights.

Since I really wanted a small and inexpensive smartphone, I’ve used a Cubot KingKong Mini 2 Pro for a few months now. It cost me under 100 francs/euros – and initially some nerves too. I had to get used to the small keyboard resulting from the four-inch display. And the outdated Android 11 was a thorn in my side. Since the manufacturer didn’t promise an update to a newer version, I installed Android 13 myself.

And now comes the icing on the cake. I’m rooting my phone. This is equivalent to administrator rights in Windows. With a rooted smartphone, you can use apps that require full read and write access to the file system. This opens up a new world for you, denied to other smartphone users.

If you want to know how I’ve been doing with my microscopic phone so far, check out the following articles. And no, I don’t just address whether four inches is enough. You’ll also learn how I removed the device’s warranty in one swift motion, all to install a custom ROM called LeaOS.

The pros and cons of rooting

If you use apps with root access or parts of the root manager Magisk, you can benefit from several additional features. One of the most practical is automated recording of all phone calls without compromising on quality. An illegal act in this country (!) if your conversation partner isn’t aware that they’re being recorded. Better stay away from that then. ;D

Besides illegal peculiarities, there are numerous apps that offer legal automation, setting and backup options that work with read-only and write-only access. If you want to back up your data independently from the PC and Google Cloud, rooting is the solution. If you want to delete preinstalled apps, this is only possible with root access. Ad blockers that work throughout the system? Rooting!

But there are also disadvantages:

Requirements for rooting

Although the developer has stopped working on SuperSU since 2018, there are still custom ROMs that have the root tool preinstalled. This is quite useful, as it eliminates the need for manual installation. The disadvantage of SuperSU is that not all root apps work with it. Therefore, I rely on Magisk, which I have to install myself.

Preparing to root

After starting Magisk, I see that a boot Ramdisk is indeed present. This means that I can root using patched boot.img. If there were no Ramdisk, I’d have to proceed with another patched file called recovery.img.

I get to the boot.img file by downloading the official Android firmware for my smartphone from the manufacturer and extracting the file with a packing program (WinRAR).

Now I need to know if my smartphone has a Vbmeta partition. Yep, there it is. I can tell because there’s a vbmeta.img in the KingKong Android image. I also unzip this file for later use. If you don’t see a corresponding file right away, the ADB command «adb shell ls -l /dev/block/by-name» can help. If «vbmeta», «vbmetaa» or «vbmetab» is listed in the resulting output lines, a corresponding partition exists.

Now I have everything I need to start rooting. There’s a boot Ramdisk as well as a vbmeta partition and I have the necessary .img files at hand.

Rooting the smartphone

My path to rooting, with the manual at hand, continues as follows, summarised for convenience:

1. I copy the boot.img file to the smartphone.
2. In Magisk, I press the Install button.
3. If I didn’t have a vbmeta partition, I’d now have to check «Patch vbmeta in boot image». As this isn’t necessary for me, I’ll move right on to the next step.

1. I flash the patched boot.img from the PC to the smartphone (command: fastboot flash boot magisk_patched.img).
2. Since I have a separate vbmeta partition, the last thing I do is patch it with the command «fastboot flash vbmeta --disable-verity --disable-verification vbmeta.img» as well.
3. I restart my smartphone.

It worked

After rebooting, I go into the Magisk app and see that everything has been successfully installed.

To test if I actually have root access, I install the Root Checker app. Lo and behold; while letting the app check the root status, Magisk immediately asks me if I want to give the root checker administrator rights.

And the Root Checker celebrates a successful installation.

I’m happy, and immediately install my first new feature, a must-have moving forward. It’s a Magisk module called BlockADs. I’ll let you know soon how well it keeps ads off my display and what other root apps and modules I use with my smartphone.

Martin Jud

Senior Editor

martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.ch

I find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.

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