SSHelper - SSH to a FAW or how to open a CLI on your FAW

What is SSH: SSH is an encrypted across the wire method of opening a console on a remote host over a network. Actually that’s one of many things that SSH can do. Basically if you ssh to a host, you have a CLI console for that host.

SSHelper is one “ssh server” that you can run on your FAW. It may have challenges on Android 10+ but is working on my Android 10.

Interested:
Somehow find and install SSHelper. (Play, it’s main website SSHelper)
Connect your FAW to your common network (wifi) that your PC/Mac is connected to.
Use advanced settings on FAW to find the FAW’s IP address.
From your Linux host run “ssh -p 2222 ”. When prompted, the default password is “admin”. Mac’s have their own ssh client (connecting from), and a common Windows ssh client is “putty”.
(All TCP servers including ssh listen on a port. SSHelper listens on a non-standard port 2222 hence the -p bit.)

Great, you’re connected…now what can you do?
1st - open several different connections to the same FAW…handy.
Here’s a stream of a connection of mine that I thought would show some powerful things:
b???r@cerberus:~$ ssh -p 2222 192.168.11.195
SSHelper Version 13.2 Copyright 2018, P. Lutus
Default password is “admin” (recommend: change it)
b???r@192.168.11.195’s password:
APPLLP_9:4.9.188+
$ uname -a
Linux localhost 4.9.188+ #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 8 19:54:25 CST 2022 armv7l Android

$ free -g
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 1 0 0 0 0 0
Swap: 0 0 0

$ pm list packages
package:com.mediatek.gba
package:com.mediatek.ims

package:com.wapi.wapicertmanager
package:com.wiite.dbf.wiitedesktopsettings

$ getprop ro.build.version.release
10

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l)
model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l)
BogoMIPS : 40.62
Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xd03
CPU revision : 4
processor : 1
Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l)
model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l)
BogoMIPS : 26.08
Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xd03
CPU revision : 4
Hardware : MT6737
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

Odd, the above looks like DUAL CORE having just cpu 0 and 1

#odd way to find how many “disks” this device has
$ ls /dev/block/|grep mmc|cut -c -7|sort -u
mmcblk0

#lets see if we can write anywhere
$ cd SDCard/Download/
$ touch hello
$ ls -l
total 31564
-rw-rw---- 1 root everybod 8881348 Jan 14 18:17
F-Droid.apk
-rw-rw---- 1 root everybod 23400514 Jan 15 14:49
SSHelper.apk
-rw-rw---- 1 root everybod 0 Jan 15 15:39
hello
#Android locks down different directories.
#I am not sure what ones are open.
#I can see the browser and I wrote to the above and I installed those APKs.
#So I think this is one way to sideload APKs.
#here’s some more…I have tested writing to Music, more below.
0_a85@localhost:~$ ls
SDCard
u0_a85@localhost:~$ cd SDCard
u0_a85@localhost:SDCard$ ls
Alarms Download Notifications Ringtones
Android Movies Pictures clockskin
DCIM Music Podcasts

#note !/SDcard and /sdcard lead to the same place where perhaps its all
#writeable?
$ cd /sdcard
u0_a85@localhost:sdcard$ ls
Alarms Download Notifications Ringtones
Android Movies Pictures clockskin
DCIM Music Podcasts

#exit the ssh session
$ exit

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Ok, just trying to dump the things that are useful so all can have power!
rsync
rsync over ssh
What is it? rsync is a tool to move files between two different servers “synchronizing” them. I put sync in quotes because rsync is not aware of what you want to do. Yes it will check to see what needs to be moved, but if you use it incorrectly, you could move an older file on the first system onto and overwriting the newer file on the second system.
Take care!

Let’s say, on my Linux PC, I have a directory called Jimmy_Buffett. I know, I’m old, sue me lady, sue me (to quote one of his songs).
Using the command below, I can send that whole directory to my FAW “Music” folder.
I’m in the process of copying now…oddly wifi is only hitting 2MB/s…oh well…Once done I will test this with the Music player. The other ssh session “ls SDCard/Music/Jimmy_Buffett/” shows the files.
rsync -avhi -e ‘ssh -p 2222’ Jimmy_Buffett 192.168.11.195:SDCard/Music/

See how the above is local directory to remote (FAW) directory…It could be reversed to go FAW to PC.

So much power…so much danger.

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