Database Users

Not a Developer - want a deeper understanding of the OS.

I am computer savvy, began building PCs in the late 70's - early 80's, beginning with DOS 1.0. I know a little basic, a little UNIX, etc., but am not a programmer.
I am as psyched about my HTC Hero Android as I am about Windows 7. I love it! Like all users, I download and delete apps on a fairly regular basis. I also rooted my phone to OS 2.1. Here's my (minor) dilemma; the deleted apps (I think) leave artifacts, files and folders. When I rooted the phone, photos and other files are now in different folders. I also see twice the number of photos and wallpaper as the system seems to be creating logo sized duplicates.
I've been searching, without success, for something that will tell me what the file/folder hierarchy is. What's the structure? How to determine which apps use which folders. Which folders are used by the OS and the mobile OS? I want to be able to keep the memory and SD clean just as I do with my PCs, as well as copy files to the appropriate folders so that they will appear correctly in whatever app should be
calling them up.
I hope all this makes sense. And I hope you know of some source of information, be it a book, blog, or other, that will provide some insight in this domain.

Thanks for the help!
I rooted to Damageless' FRESH 2.1.
I have the sdk but have not opened it yet. I'll check out Android Commander.
I have sone some UNIX and did quite a bit in MTOS on large Telecom voice switches, so I can probably eek my way through.
Thanks for the direction BWBL.
Brian

basically Android is a dalvik virtual machine(stripped down java for embedded devices essentially) that is sitting on top of a Linux kernel. My understanding is that unless a program has root, it cannot access internal storage, especially write access. All prefs are saved to a database and applications are completely sandboxed, therefore no artifacts will remain on internal memory. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for your SD card. If you grant a program access to your SD card it can **** all over it and the OS doesn't. protect you. I have found that HTCs stuff is guilty of copying pictures all over.

bnbaldwin53 said:
I am computer savvy, began building PCs in the late 70's - early 80's, beginning with DOS 1.0. I know a little basic, a little UNIX, etc., but am not a programmer.
I am as psyched about my HTC Hero Android as I am about Windows 7. I love it! Like all users, I download and delete apps on a fairly regular basis. I also rooted my phone to OS 2.1. Here's my (minor) dilemma; the deleted apps (I think) leave artifacts, files and folders. When I rooted the phone, photos and other files are now in different folders. I also see twice the number of photos and wallpaper as the system seems to be creating logo sized duplicates.
I've been searching, without success, for something that will tell me what the file/folder hierarchy is. What's the structure? How to determine which apps use which folders. Which folders are used by the OS and the mobile OS? I want to be able to keep the memory and SD clean just as I do with my PCs, as well as copy files to the appropriate folders so that they will appear correctly in whatever app should be
calling them up.
I hope all this makes sense. And I hope you know of some source of information, be it a book, blog, or other, that will provide some insight in this domain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1)Backup apps with androzip.
2)Backup the entire sd to pc(you may need to format but should not).
3)Wipe(data,delvic,uid mismatches). This will get rid of those apk leftovers/uta fc's....
4)Install a fresh copy of damage
5)Now right after initial boot, back up your sd card file structure
6)Drop your pc backup folders in their corresponding freshly set-up counterparts
7)Do yourself a favor and get a good file browser and you can check out the system heirarchy for yourself. These are MY personal faves,
a)androzip-explore sd/free market
b)root explorer-explore system/paid xda
c)astro-both free/market
d)android commander-for pc free/google
e)android sdk is another invaluable tool free/google
If you need further assistance, feel free to pm. Good Luck

Awesome! Thanks Magnus.

[CAUTION] Windows VIRUS in sdcard

I really want to share my experience with other users here and warn everybody for this, because I wouldnt be able to locate any information after several searches in ggle. This may be a big security hole in the Android OS. Be patient and read till the end.
Yesterday I purchased my brand new SGT-P1000 (fmw:XXJK5, FROYO.XWJJ7). After playing around with the browser to check its Flash capabilities, I decided to play a little with the backround wallpapers as I wanted to design a custom one.
The way to upload images to SGT to test 'em, was through a USB mass storage connection, after having set the appropriate option in SGT's settings. After having done this 1 or 2 times, all of a sudden I saw IE windows starting to pop up in my WinXP desktop. This was strange cause I never use IE as my main browser. A quick view in task manager revealed 2 or 3 running processes with strange names and some files (executables) in file expl. windows dissappeared. I quickly understood that Im under a virus attack and under panic I shutted down windows and started thinking ways to overcome the situation.
I planned to turn on the PC once again to better understand the behaviour of the virus. So I did ... The strange processes had now different names and as I was able to issue a regedit command and navigate to CurrentVersion\Run keys (there are two of them, one in HKCM and one in HKCU key), I noticed a strange autorun entry pointing to some file in TEMP directory. Then I tried to open the services tab by issuing a 'services.msc' command. The result was an IE warning that the page could not be displayed due to ActX restrictions. So there was no way to figure out the registered processes in my machine. The fear to loose my data multiplied, so I decided to switch off, take the drive out and move it to an another machine in the office. So I did and after carefull examination of the folders and with little help of an antivirus program, I figured out the location of the malware files and got rid of them. Their location was in the TEMP folders of the machine, in my personal folder under 'Documents and Settings' and in the Windows folder (not system32). I dont remember what their names were, but as I told before, they were able to change 'em between reboots. My main observation was that the icon of two of the executables was the famous red Adobe Flash icon.
I took the disk out and put in the original machine, rebooted and the strange processes had gone, but I still couldnt see all my files in explorer windows, whereas in the other machine I was able to see em (and that was a great relief, cause I understood that nothing was deleted). Then I realized that the virus had changed security permissions for the local machine by inserting a key under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones, which after deletion and rebooting brought the system back to normal again.Then with the help of the SYSINTERNALS utilities, I was able to locate the spots where the virus tried to regenerate himself. These were in 'Sheduled Tasks' (2-3 jobs there), in processes (1 registered process) and in autorun (as I told before).
So, my thought was, that browsing around through many sites trying to find a custom wallpaper for my SGT caused the attack. But I didnt want to believe that, cause I use FF for browsing loaded with many add ons for safety and security.
Anyway ... I was happy that I could overcome the situation, I turned off the office pc and I arrived home to continue playing with my SGT. Playing around with SGT's and AndExplorer file manager, I browsed to the sdcard folder, where to my surprise, I saw that it contained 2 exe files with strange names (I remember one of them: koubuu.exe) and the same Adobe Flash red icon I noticed in my infected disk. There were also up to 10 .lnk files (shortcuts in windows systems) and a autorun.inf file and a x.mpg file.
If you were able to read with caution up to here, you may begin understand what the cause of evil was. No browsing to strange sites in the PC, nothing to do with the PC at all ... The cause was the browsing in the SGT (to realize that flash was performing well). During that playing some f***ing script run and placed these files in the sdcard mount. Of course this could not harm the functioning of the SGT at all, but when plugging to a windows machine (under mass storage) the autorun.inf activated and run the exe files, which in turn place themselfs under different names of course to several places in my machine.
Im not a security expert, and Im not saying that the virus came up to my sdcard folder due to flash's capability of the SGT, but as an experienced user and a software engineer from 1996, Im writing this to warn users and developers here, to be VERY VERY carefull with SGT's browser cause it's for sure that it lacks security. Another thing to mention is that as an iPhone user (which I was), I would've never faced a situation like this.
Anyway ... it just screwed my first 'hand on' to SGT and waste almost a night without sleep ...
Beware of Android ... it was developed very very fast as a cheap Apple/iOS competitor.
So you can imagine what the last means !!! It still needs much more work and effort.
jpapg

Will run a full sophos scan on my tab. Which av do u use
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using XDA App

brilldoctor said:
Will run a full sophos scan on my tab. Which av do u use
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None !!!
I just have a server machine in my office with runs Norton Av.
I didn't know that there are antivirus programs for Android, if that's what you mean !

There are av for andeoid (i use lookout) what i meant was i was going to plug my tab into my mac and do a sophos scan on the internal sd but i have had mac issues (it wont boot)
You should really get some av (avast free works for me)
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App

brilldoctor said:
There are av for andeoid (i use lookout) what i meant was i was going to plug my tab into my mac and do a sophos scan on the internal sd but i have had mac issues (it wont boot)
You should really get some av (avast free works for me)
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice !

jpapg said:
autorun.inf
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a reason if only Windows has autorun, and if Microsoft is disabling it.........
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk

What happened to you my friend is that a script got installed from browsing unsafe site. I am no engineer but i bet its one of those remote access scripts that microsoft patches on a daily basis which is prolly why your windows permissions got screwed (virus lesson number 1 deny user access). Anyway stock browser sux I never used it, and I think google and samsung are aware of browser issues. Hopefully we will see updates or next os.

DarkPal said:
What happened to you my friend is that a script got installed from browsing unsafe site. I am no engineer but i bet its one of those remote access scripts that microsoft patches on a daily basis which is prolly why your windows permissions got screwed (virus lesson number 1 deny user access). Anyway stock browser sux I never used it, and I think google and samsung are aware of browser issues. Hopefully we will see updates or next os.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right !
Which browser do U propose for the SGT ?

I personally use skyfire which is an amazing browser. Dolphin HD comes highly recomended as well.

First of all: I am not an IT-Pro but the issue seems to be different. My idea is that the files havw not been initially on the sdcard but came indeed from browsing unsafe websites with your computer. Often Viruses protect and spread themselfs in the way that they copy themselfes to any mass-storage and/or nas attached to the infected computer. Maybe that way the virus went onto the sdcard. So I guess that it was not the SGT's fault. Sorry for bad english...
send from my SGT with Overcome...

spike1985 said:
First of all: I am not an IT-Pro but the issue seems to be different. My idea is that the files havw not been initially on the sdcard but came indeed from browsing unsafe websites with your computer. Often Viruses protect and spread themselfs in the way that they copy themselfes to any mass-storage and/or nas attached to the infected computer. Maybe that way the virus went onto the sdcard. So I guess that it was not the SGT's fault. Sorry for bad english...
send from my SGT with Overcome...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely not ...
I had another USB hard drive attached to the machine at the same time. After the incident I checked it and was totally clear !

jpapg said:
Definitely not ...
I had another USB hard drive attached to the machine at the same time. After the incident I checked it and was totally clear !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe because Anti-Virus killed it properly?
send from my SGT with Overcome...

spike1985 said:
Maybe because Anti-Virus killed it properly?
send from my SGT with Overcome...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope ...
I never plugged that disk to the machine with the AV !

My experience setting up Atrix file and folder security

I was considering storing financial and personal information on my phone in the form of files and realized that though the fingerprint scanner is ok to prevent the casual browser from logging into the phone when it is left unaccompanied, a real hacker could easily see whats on there with very little effort.
The Atrix on the face of it looks like a secure phone with the fingerprint reader; however XDA users would know that nothing prevents a thief from entering fastboot and mounting the files and folders to see whats on there. No security app can prevent that.
Using the android built-in option and encrypting the entire sdcard is NOT an option for me at this time. I think its going to slow down the phone operation if the OS files are encrypted and each time it needs to decrypt each and every file and folder. Also it may present issues when testing new ROMs. (And I am dual booting - so my extSD also has a ROM which I would not want to slow down anymore than it already is)
So I searched for methods and apps to encrypt individual files or folders on the Atrix. There are quiet a few in the market and a few are free as well with good reviews. However most -even the ones with the best reviews seem to be just changing the file name and location and not doing real encryption. Also most of these use proprietary algorithms or methods to hide information. A really good app would be one that uses an open source algorithm to encrypt the files and folders - so that the algorithm would be tested and verified as being strong by the world.
Also another requirement was for the ability to frequently sync and update the files on the phone with the PC. The app should have a PC equivalent - that is the file can change on my PC and then I should be able to sync the changed file with the phone in some automated way.
Yet another requirement would be the ability to quickly encrypt and decrypt huge audio or video files. A few good apps could encrypt small audio and video files but not files of size 1GB or more. The apps would either freeze after some time or not encrypt them at all.
Finally I was looking for an option by which the files if I unencrypt them to be available across all apps for the duration of that session - not just in the app that encrypts and decrypts them. So in other words, once I enter the password, the folder should be mounted and available in any app that can browse the phone - until I decide to end or unmount the encrypted store.
I found only Cryptonite doing all of this. Unfortunately Cryptonite does not support Truecrypt containers on Motorola phones. There is some info here on the truecrypt port to android here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=872297&page=7
However I could not get it working with the Atrix. Has anyone had success getting Kryptonite and Truecrypt to work on the Atrix?
Cryptonite also supports Dropbox, but I am not a big fan of storing sensitive info in the cloud - however well known the company is.
Cryptonite does support encFS and I was able to successfully create encFS encrypted folder on my Atrix. I would have liked to have TrueCrypt than encFS, just because I have been reading that Truecrypt has better overall support.
The method I use now for storing and synching encrypted information is:
for the first time only: create the encfs folder on the PC, then mount Atrix as a USB drive and copy the encrypted folder to Atrix.
To sync the encrypted files with the PC, I have to connect the Atrix as USB drive, open EncFS on the PC and select the folder on the Atrix to mount as a drive volume. Also mount the PC encFS folder as another drive. Now sync with the PC using any sync tool like MS SyncToy.
I went through a lot of searching and came to this which I think is good enough at the moment. I would like to hear if anyone else has a better app or method to secure and sync secured files on the Atrix - especially if you have got Truecrypt to somehow work on the Atrix. And I post this so that is anyone else needs this information, it is here.

shenoyh said:
Yet another requirement would be the ability to quickly encrypt and decrypt huge audio or video files. A few good apps could encrypt small audio and video files but not files of size 1GB or more. The apps would either freeze after some time or not encrypt them at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about the rest of it, I never used any strong security on my phone nor do I intend to, but I think you shouldn't ever expect to be able to "quickly encrypt and decrypt huge files". You're pretty much asking for impossible here. It's like asking to build a full-featured house, furnished and all, in 30 minutes or less. A lot of data will always require a lot of time to process. Heck, even, say, straight plain copying such a file to a computer would take quite a while.

No.
Your not going to get business class security on your atrix, or any current phone most likely.
LUKS manager is the closest thing to legitimate encryption (not gimicky BS) i have seen, but it has some fatal flaws.
Passwords and such are safe and easy to store with KeePass, which is also on windows/linux for syncing and has years of reputation (also free/open source). It isnt for files though.
-------------------------------------------------
Atrix 4G
Rom: Cyanogenmod 7.2 [20120805]
Recov: Romracer 5.0.2.7-atrix5
Radio: N_01.97.00R
Kernel: Faux 1.00ghz-026b1
UV: -0/-25/-50/-100/-150/-225/-300

How do you transfer files and what are your speeds?

This is my first android thingy that doesnt have an SD card slot or use UMS. So I'm exploring my options for transferring files back and forth from my computer to my nexus7. All my computers are using kubuntu 12.04. So far, I have tried a few things and it seems like there would be an easier way and faster speeds than what I'm getting. Hopefully some of you that have had this tablet longer than myself have come up with something better than what I found. Ideally, it would be a plug-n-play solution, without needing root access on the computer to setup. Here's what I tried so far -
adding the kio-mtd slave for kde
This was the easiest one to setup. I found a .deb for this already built, and installed it. Right out of the box, it works. The nexus appears as a mtp device and i can access it via dolphin (the stock kde browser). What I didn't like about this is that it seemed slow and unresponsive. Copying a file to or even creating a folder on the phone took a while - much longer than it should. This needs root access to install the .deb.
using NFS
Nfs worked, but it is a whole lot of stuff to setup compared to just plugging in a USB cable. I wouldn't be able to use this if I took my nexus to somebody's house and wanted to grab a file from their computer. It would take anywhere from 20 minutes to hours to setup the nfs server, depending on who was setting it up. The speeds I got were about 1/2 as fast as using adb to transfer the files; it took 6 minutes to copy a 650MiB file to the tablet. However, nfs does allow random access, so if I needed to open a file, seek to the middle of it, and read a small bit, I could do that without having to copy the whole thing.
using adb
ADB so far has been the fastest method I've used to transfer files. The same 650MiB file that took 6 minutes on nfs took 3 minutes with "adb push". I found several fuse and gui wrappers around adb. All of those wrappers expected busybox to be in $PATH on the tablet, so it would need to be rooteted. I didn't find any "just plug it in and it will work" solutions. The big con with adb is that you have to setup the udev rules or else run adb as root. It seems like you should be able to transfer files without needing root access on the computer.
ftp
This wasnt much different than nfs. You need to have a client/server running on the tablet, and one running on the computer. The speeds were about the same as with nfs; 4 minutes for my same 650MiB file. Ftp still isnt as plug-n-play as I'd like.
So what have you guys tried and how well did it work out?

I'm also using KDE, but I'm on Arch Linux.
I've tried the MTP KIO slave, but that didn't work for me.
I've also tried MTPFS, JMTPFS and a other MTP solutions. They work, but are sometimes not responding immediately and are slower than I would wish. But I haven't done a speed test.
Of course I've tried ADB. It works, but is also too slow for my taste. Especially when used over wifi.
FTP server was the easiest method to set up on my N7 with ES File Explorer. But it also isn't really fast.
Next I will try SAMBA since I haven't found an easy solution for a NFS server on Android.
But on my i9100 with CM10 even UMS (emulation of a USB drive) is slower than putting in the SD directly into my laptop.
So I'm still searching for a fast and easy way to share files between my Android devices, my Laptop and my Raspberry Pi.
My dream would be a fast and easy way to keep a directory on my laptop synchronized with my Android devices like dropbox does it on desktop devices (minus the slow cloud).

Previous Versions/Shadow Copies

I searched and checked the FAQs, nothing appeared on this.
Micro. said some blabber about no one used this in Win 7 and that it slowed down the system. I used it, and loved it, along with a lot of other power users if you Google it.
Apparently, there are still shadow copies in Win 8, so I copied the folder to the window pane on the left in explorer. In the address bar, type:
\\computername\c$\Users\computerusername
e.g. \\mylaptop\c$\Spongebobsquarepants
Has anyone else been using this? Apparently on the network, previous versions, including the tab is still there. Anyone have any tips on this? If I could get the previous version tab in the properties section I would run around naked singing.

Shadow Copies are still present, but they're (in theory) used only for the "System Restore" feature that's been around in one form or another since Windows ME. You may recall that on Vista and Win7 you had to manually enable Previous Versions for any drive but the system one, and stuff like that? My guess is that that's why the feature didn't get enough usage; people didn't have it turned on to use it much.
Anyhow, like you, I made very heavy use of Previous Versions and was pissed to see it get cut (the new Windows Backup is almost good enough to be a substitute, but they serve different purposes, dammit!). I'd love to see a way to get it brought back for data files (as opposed to system files and programs only).

There is also "File History" which works much the same way but from a seperate GUI.
The backup files have to be stored on an external drive, but you can get around this by creating a network share that points at one of your local drives.
And it only does Libraries, but since you can create libraries, and put any folders you like in them, it means you can back up pretty much anything.

marcd2k12 said:
There is also "File History" which works much the same way but from a seperate GUI.
The backup files have to be stored on an external drive, but you can get around this by creating a network share that points at one of your local drives.
And it only does Libraries, but since you can create libraries, and put any folders you like in them, it means you can back up pretty much anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I never knew this. I tried selecting the same drive as Windows 8 but it refuses, I selected my other partition with Windows 7 and it accepted that location. I'll see how that goes. Thanks a lot.