Rooting FZ-X1 (and Toughpads in general)?

Hi! Haven't been here in quite a while...

I'm considering getting a used FZ-X1 Toughpad, to use as a phone/GPS for long tours (big battery!). From my experiences with other Android devices I can say that I will have little use for it if I cannot get it rooted, i.e. obtain admin rights.

Does anyone have any actual experience in whether this is possible? The reasons I am asking like this are:
1. There are a lot of pages supposedly on how to root the FZ-X1, but they seem to be autogenerated pages which simply insert the phone model name into a list of standard methods (including a known shady Chinese rooting app). I do not trust this information.
2. Panasonic has occasionally advertised some of its Toughpads (specifically the FZ-A1) to have a hardware-level protection against rooting, So there might be some pretty serious obstacles here. Then again, I have not read any explicit claim about such protection the FZ-X1, so you never know.

Has anyone played around with one of these and rooted it?

 

I have not read anything here about rooting.
I am curious if you can. As well as Panasonic has protected other things such as BIOS password, I bet it will be difficult to root it.

 

how's this ?

 

Edit: Researching Panasonic's use of ARM TrustZone and finding no explanation of how it is implemented I'd be inclined to walk away, except as a punt and with the knowledge that it may well not work. There are limited reports of being able to flash a custom ROM on other models which suggests some hope... But stil...

Probably not telling you anything new below...

The first method is to flash a new recovery such as 'CWM' or 'TWRM'. This will allow you to boot into and then copy the superuser root app (comes in a zip folder that should be copied to an SDcard) to the 'sbin' folder at the root of your phone. Your phone is then rooted and can do all the fanciness that you need. It's actually fairly easy but you need to make sure that you get the right recovery. Unfortunately, I can't find a custom recovery for that device but if you can find one, the process is relatively simple and better than the PC-connected installs, since the custome recovery allows you to do a complete disk image clone to backup and reinstall the superuser root app easily. Examples of superuser apps that work well are 'SuperSU' and 'Clockwork Mod Superuser' - easily found from the Android XDA forum.

I've used KingoRoot to root a number of devices that I simply couldn't find a custom recovery for and had very good success with Android 4.4.4 and older but little success with 5.1 and newer. It does bundle one or two apps onto your phone/tablet but they're easy to remove. The '1clickroot' app should be avoided IMHO. Unfortunately, I can't find any confirmation as to whether someone has done this to confirm but for Android 4.4 and older it has worked every time for me. It's not ideal and a recovery-installed superuser root app is better... but if you really need root access then it might well work. Even if Panasonic have locked the bootloader, it exploits other means to root Android, which means it ususally works.

 

Shawn: Yeah, that is a thing that has me worried. If Panasonic does not want it to be rootable, and in particular if this is based on government/military security requirements, then I suspect they have put some serious effort into ensuring it will not work - more so than say Samsung would do on a consumer device where they are just worried about warranty issues.

CWB32: Those pigs sure look like they know what they are doing.

bennni: True, trying and selling it on if rooting fails might be the way to go. KingoRoot is the shady app I was referring to. I have used it once on a Motorola TC55 - and it did the job - and then I used another app (SuperSU Me Pro) to remove it again. KingoRoot is a powerful tool, but it sure does some questionable things, like sending data home (wherever that is) a lot.

 

Please keep us posted.

How about a FZ-E1 and run Linux on it? Just an idea that popped into my head.

 

"KingoRoot is a powerful tool, but it sure does some questionable things, like sending data home (wherever that is) a lot."

and i believe you have a right to be very concerned ...
suppose you were going to write a program (i am 60 and from the west side of the big pond) that did enable one to *root* (aka : make ya god) and then suppose that you have "less than honorable motivations" (aka : shady) ...
imagine the data you could glean from a vast number of sources with widely varied databases ... information is valuable .
a good way to sell the program (and effect the ulterior motive) to the masses is to make it "up front suspect" ... the old magicians "slight of hand" .
misdirection and distraction ... as in :
"heh ... can't fool me , considering the source and the use ... yeah , it's shady and look what i found right here ... it's calling home !" .
yep ... that's on the surface ...
think of it like the guy who has a festered sliver in his index finger ... i draws attention away from a more serious but silent infection .
dig deeper ... you might just find a "secondary infection" .

there are a few good places to get *real* software that is not crapware .
sourceforge is one of them ... that is until they cut a deal with *whoever* to bundle in god-knows-what .
there are a couple of others out there ... but the best one can really do is always be aware of what is possible and that there are very few *sources" that are honestly altruistic .

 

Uh, can you really do that? That would be great!

 

I don't know if it can be done. I am just the idea man.
It's something different to check into.
The FZ-E1 runs windows embedded. That may be easier to "work with" than Android.

 

i can't see a reason why one could not ...
as i recall and to the best of my knowledge , andriod and a few others are modified versions of "nix (which is actually a form of an IBM OS called "unix") .
there may be a need for tweaking (usually with lots of hair-pulling and aspirin) .
i suppose one could defeat any attemps at "end running" by software ...
however , dropping in a "different" OS may be thwarted in firmware and hardware .
i would imagine that a CPU could be "masked" during fabrication to include a "hardwired/etched" (think prom) instruction set that looks for a "bogus os" and prevents it from running .

 

I'm trying to work out how to upgrade from the factory-supplied Android 4.0.3 on my FZ-A1B toughpad.

It's very difficult to find legitmate information on rooting the FZ-A1 and locating apps in the play store such as a Rom manager, etc. that actually support it.

I can cope with the OS fritzing itself often requiring cold-booting if I use a lot of apps and flick around between them but 4.0.3 prevents a lot of apps from being installed because they require at least 4.1 or 4.4.

Interested in working on this more... I'd like to get 4.4 or 5.x installed to replace 4.0.3. The new FZ-B2 runs 4.4 by default so I'm surprised Panasonic have not released a 4.4 major update for the FZ-A1 model.

The 4.0.3 OS for the FZ-A1 also seems to be configured via it's 'core' settings to deliberately prevent use of a micro-SD card for storage of things like photos, etc. even though I've got a 32 gb SD card installed and the OS knows it's there. So far none of my downloaded apps can use the SD card and they can't even be moved to the SD card if so configured.

 

http://android-root-guides.net/tutorial/panasonic-toughpad-fz-a1.html


Curious to know if this works.

 

Every Android phone I have used, will only mount /storage/sdcard(Sometimes sdcard0) (Or /storage/emulated/legacy on some models) when you connect it to a PC via USB. I'd be surprised if you can just copy things to the root directory by USB... I don't doubt you could do it if you already have root access but that doesn't help if you want to gain SU permissions in the first place. EDIT: Ah, I see - it's an Adroid app which tries out exploits to gain root access - doesn't really have much advantage to Kingoroot , since you're using a potentially shady app to gain SU permission... That's not to say it won't work.

I suppose you could use adb shell to push the supersu.zip app to /system/bin and/or /system/xbin directories and do it that way... But adb shell wasn't particularly user friendly the last time I used it. I don't doubt there are guides which make this easier to understand.

If memory serves it'd be something like:

Unzip the superuser 'su' to the sdk platform tools folder in Windows
Mount the android file system
Push the 'su' file to /system/bin and /system/xbin
Take ownership and allow r/w of those directories with CHMOD
Copy superuser '. apk' file to your device or download it from the Google Play store and install it.

I wouldn't be surprised if this has been prevented on more recent Android releases and although the Toughpads run older versions, Panasonic could well have prevented this from working. My memory is pretty rusty so definitely see if there's a shiny guide out there to check those steps.

Towelroot could be worth a try - it doesn't work on some phones but it's easy to use and fast. Had most success using it on Android 4.4 but it claims to work for older versions. Interestingly it didn't have a way to un-root the last time I used it but this may have changed since.

 

Android devices all run Linux - Android is a pseudo-OS over the top of a Linux kernel.

But I haven't heard of 'native' linux on any Android device (instead of the Android package).

 

Yes I was aware that Android was Linux based.

 

[APP] Linux-on-Android project (Complete Linux Installer)

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1585009

This thread has been going on for more than 3 years, I didn't read all 2890 posts to see if they actually got it working.

Bob

 

Android is a pseudo operating system running over the top of a Linux core. Linux is an open-source version of AT&T 'Sys-V' Unix. It has nothing at all to do with IBM.

I have a Toughpad FZ-A1B.

There are a lot of guides to upgrade Android (and to gain 'root' access) but nothing is specific to the Toughpad models. It's all generic websites. The apps all these sites and guides point to that I've tried from the google play store do not recognise/support the FZ-A1B. They install fine, but when run say 'unknown' or 'unsupported device'.

There are no guaranteed 'trusted' firmware packages for upgrading Android on the Toughpads. Again lots of generic sites but if you type in a different android device to the search in good you get the exact same sites, with a different device name pasted into the text.

The cyanogenmod website has nothing for the Tougpads. There is one posting from someone in 2013 about ROM's but nothing else.

If I can get myself a second FZ-A1B I'm prepared to go deeper into this but I won't do it with my only toughpad while there's a chance I'll brick it! Safety first.