After several weeks of intermittent failed attempts I finally managed to get root on my crapass phone.

“Getting root” has a different meanings here in Australia but in this case it refers to gaining full control of my telephone operating system. A bizarre idea when I stop and think about it. Just in case there is another sad geek in need of emotional support or instructions, here is how I did it:

I pulled up the phone specifications (Settings>About phone) and searched the net.

The Phone: Kogan Agora HD+

Build: KoganAgora_build. V2.0

Kernel version: 3.4.5 KoganAgora_Kernel.V2.0 3/12/2013

Custom build version: KAQC05

Some of the things I tried were:

• Configuring my Debian Wheezy laptop to use backported ADB tools and ensuring it connects properly via udev rules. Thanks Nicolas Bernaerts.
• Marc Lane’s has a great little guide on his blog, but it did not work for me.
• The ‘quick and easy steps’ over at Gleescape led me nowhere.
• I even booted the Mini-Mac into Windows just to try SRSRoot and a few other shonky executables.

That last one, SRSRoot, is an executable which runs through a database of popular exploits to crack the phone security. This led me to search for a specific exploit that may work on my phone. I found a few posts in which eventually led me to Dan Rosenbergs motochopper exploit, (via Sourceforge Japan).

Motochopper appears to have given me root access. Without seeing what the exploit code did it is possible Dan Rosenberg has supplanted Google as my phones keeper. I can live with that, security is just an illusion anyway. Thanks Dan.