Backing up everything on my kindle fire with ubuntu before installing firefirefire, can't get past Hellions with blue flames when rooting

Question

I'm trying to follow this post in order to install firefirefire on my kindle fire:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1369405&page=1

I'm at the part at the beginning of the guide that has me back up everything:

This will back up all partitions and the hidden NVRAM data. If you ever have to restore from scratch, you can get fastboot to write a new partition table and then fastboot in these backups Need >8GB local free, and adb installed and able to get a shell. Root not required so you can do this on a fresh out-of-the-box KF. Make a new directory to store the dump files and cd into it. Get and copy zergRush into the directory. You must use zergRush even if you're rooted!!! We need adb running as root for this to work. Then run in a terminal

adb push zergRush /data/local/tmp
adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/zergRush
#(if you've already rooted, or the next command says "permission denied", you may have to do:)
adb shell rm /data/local/tmp/boomsh /data/local/tmp/sh
adb shell /data/local/tmp/zergRush
for F in `seq 1 12`; do adb pull /dev/block/mmcblk0p$F; done
adb shell idme ? > nvram.txt

So I go into root mode in ubuntu with

sudo -i

My kindle fire is plugged in to my computer via USB, and the kindle fire's display shows the "You can now transfer files from your computer to Kindle" screen with the Disconnect button.

I execute the first command:

adb push zergRush /data/local/tmp

This returns:

565 KB/s (23060 bytes in 0.039s)

I execute the second command without error:

adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/zergRush

I execute the third command without error:

adb shell rm /data/local/tmp/boomsh /data/local/tmp/sh

Then I execute the next command:

adb shell /data/local/tmp/zergRush

And this returns:

[**] Zerg rush - Android 2.2/2.3 local root
[**] (C) 2011 Revolutionary. All rights reserved.

[**] Parts of code from Gingerbreak, (C) 2010-2011 The Android Exploid Crew.

[+] Found a GingerBread ! 0x00000118
[*] Scooting ...
[*] Sending 149 zerglings ...
[*] Sending 189 zerglings ...
[-] Hellions with BLUE flames !

Which indicates that the rooting has failed, so the next commands also fail. I'd appreciate any help.

Answer 1

According to a post of by ch4lky in XDA:

[-] Hellions with BLUE flames !

This output means that the exploit didn't crash vold, or didn't know it did. The reasons can be :

• vuln[erability] has been patched
• no debug info in the logs
• no access to the logs
• the buffer size is different on your device than on the others (<- can be fixed)

I did a quick read of zergrush's code; the log he's referring is located "/data/local/tmp/crashlog", you may want to look at that file to see if there is any useful info.

Since according to the thread you linked to, the exploit has been reported to work for Kindle Fire, the most likely possibility is either the vulnerability has been fixed in the latest update (the vulnerability already had a patch in upstream since November) or you had a weird version that have different buffer size than other Kindle Fires.

Answer 2

The ZergRush root was fixed in v6.2.1 of the Fire's firmware (strictly speaking, it was fixed in Android 2.3.7, I believe). Use BurritoRoot to get root access instead, then follow the rest of the guide to backup your data like normal.