My current state:
Fairphone 3 with /e/OS installed is stuck in recovery mode, (I think) because there is not enough free memory space left. I need to erase some files from my Ubuntu 20.04 and I thought about using adb.
Problem:
I used disk encryption and now I don’t know how to access my data and where it is located. I can activate adb on my phone and access it from Ubuntu with adb shell command. For example if I run
adb shell
and then
FP3:/ # ls
acct d etc mnt plat_property_contexts prop.default sideload system_ext_property_contexts
apex data first_stage_ramdisk odm postinstall res storage tmp
bin data_mirror init odm_file_contexts proc root sys vendor
bugreports debug_ramdisk init.recovery.qcom.rc odm_property_contexts product sbin system vendor_file_contexts
cache default.prop linkerconfig oem product_file_contexts sdcard system_ext vendor_property_contexts
config dev metadata plat_file_contexts product_property_contexts sepolicy system_ext_file_contexts
When I then try to list the content of data/, storage or sdcard it shows an empty directory. How can I access my internal storage data?
the e-recovery doesn’t package twrps openrecoveryscript - there you could issue twrp decrypt <pin> within adb… but can’t see the adb enable option in the twrp ui. The ui allows you to mount the userdata via UI though, right when you start it or later in its advanced menu.
Update: Sorry, here some more information. When I started fastboot mode on my phone I ran some comands:
anonymous@anonymous:~$ fastboot devices
no permissions (missing udev rules? user is in the plugdev group); see [http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html] fastboot
anonymous@anonymous:~$ sudo fastboot
sudo: fastboot: command not found
Yes, exactly, that’s the problem. And when your device is locked you unfortunately can’t use the Fastboot command to install or not an image (and by unlocking it, it’d indeed remove all data).
Dammit! Is there any way to access my encrypted data via adb? I just need to erase some files and then it would probably start normally… It would probably even be enough to erase some cache or apps or so…
One more question: Does it make sense to keep the bootloader unlocked next time I install /e/OS?
I’m very sorry, I’m not aware of any way… Maybe others are…
Edit: cache might be deletable in recovery No, at least not in /e/ recovery.
Well, it’s more secure to leave the bootloader locked, but you have much more options if you keep it unlocked… (So everyone must decide for themselves…)
Thank you very much for your time! Is it possible to remove some system files, like old OS versions or so? Not sure what parts are encrypted and what not. This is how the filesystem looks like:
If you feel desperate and you’re sure it’s a diskspace issue and you do have backups - you can delete directories via fbe when unencrypted too, you just don’t know what you’re deleting.
mount userdata via
mkdir -p /mnt/userdata
mount /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /mnt/userdata/
du -cs /mnt/userdata/* | sort -n | tail -n10
and go rummaging?
an aside: mounting + chrooting /system and /lib partition (for shared lib dependencies) one can use vold for volume management - and maybe it has cli options to do the decryption for the ext4crypt scheme interactively. You can also push binaries (openrecoveryscript) via adb to the device… but really do that exploring only if you can stomach losing the userdata
the commands are meant for the phone context, in the adb shell - not your host machine. You can only mount if the mountpoint exists (what’s the prior mkdir is for).
Here you find only the size of thefiles in root directory. Most data will be within the directories.
You can check in cache and tmp directories if you find data there. This could be delete without grater risk.
yep, as ff2u notes, you have to kind of know where it is safe do delete. It’s dangerous advice I’m giving if you dont know linux/android filesystem layouts
FP3:/ # ls -l mnt/userdata/ total 468
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 adb
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 adbroot
drwxrwxr-x 2 system system 4096 2022-11-11 15:41 anr
drwxr-xr-x 6 root system 4096 1970-04-28 05:40 apex
drwxrwx--x 56 system system 12288 2022-11-11 16:13 app
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 app-asec
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 app-ephemeral
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 app-lib
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 app-private
drwxr-x--- 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 app-staging
drwx------ 5 system system 4096 2022-11-13 13:22 backup
drwxr-xr-x 2 shell shell 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 bootchart
drwxrwx--- 5 system cache 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 cache
drwxrwx--x 4 root root 4096 1970-03-22 04:41 dalvik-cache
drwxrwx--x 297 system system 20480 2022-11-11 16:06 data
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 1970-04-28 05:41 dpm
drwxrwx--- 3 drm drm 4096 2020-12-15 00:47 drm
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 fota
drwx------ 5 root root 4096 1970-04-28 05:41 gsi
drwxrwx--- 2 system wifi 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 hostapd
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 1970-04-28 05:40 incremental
drwxrwx--- 2 system cache 4096 2022-11-05 16:04 lineageos_updates
drwxr-x--x 4 root root 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 local
drwxrwx--- 2 root root 16384 1970-01-02 14:24 lost+found
drwxrwx--- 3 media_rw media_rw 4096 2022-11-13 13:22 media
drwxrwx--- 2 mediadrm mediadrm 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 mediadrm
drwxrwx--t 55 system misc 4096 2022-11-07 12:22 misc
drwxrwx--t 3 system misc 4096 2020-12-15 00:47 misc_ce
drwxrwx--t 3 system misc 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 misc_de
drwxrwx--- 3 nfc nfc 4096 2020-12-15 00:47 nfc
drwxrwx--x 2 root root 4096 1970-03-22 04:41 ota
drwxrwx--- 2 system cache 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 ota_package
drwx------ 2 system system 4096 2022-11-13 13:22 per_boot
drwxrwxr-x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 preloads
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 2022-11-13 13:22 property
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 20480 2022-11-07 12:22 resource-cache
drwx------ 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 rollback
drwx------ 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 rollback-observer
drwxrwxr-x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 server_configurable_flags
drwxr-xr-x 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 shared
drwx------ 2 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 ss
drwxr-x--- 3 root shell 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 ssh
drwxrwxr-x 26 system system 4096 2022-11-13 13:22 system
drwxrwx--- 3 system system 4096 2020-12-15 00:47 system_ce
drwxrwx--- 3 system system 4096 2022-11-13 13:22 system_de
drwxrwx--x 2 system system 4096 2022-10-23 13:09 tombstones
drwx------ 3 root root 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 unencrypted
drwx--x--x 3 system system 4096 1970-04-28 05:40 user
drwx--x--x 3 system system 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 user_de
drwxrwx--x 40 root root 4096 1970-04-28 05:41 vendor
drwxrwx--x 3 root root 4096 2020-12-15 00:47 vendor_ce
drwxrwx--x 3 root root 4096 1970-01-02 14:24 vendor_de
and the question is now: Is there anything that I can remove more or less safely? I hoped to be able to remove data from certain apps. But I cannot find where the data belongs to.
you go inside media/ and drill yourself down the dirextories until you find some juicy big files, videos presumably (you wont be able to tell from outside though). It’s russian roulette and I wont take responsibility
Is it possible to remove some system files, like old OS versions or so? Not sure what parts are encrypted and what not. This is how the filesystem looks like: