|\ __________                          __   __                         __
         | |   __     |          _____ __    __\__/_|  |_ __ ___   _____   ___ |  |\_____     
         | |  /  \    |         /  _  \  \  /  /  |_    _|  /   \ /  _  \ /  _ \  |/  _  \    
         | |  \  /___ |        /  /_\  \  \/  /|  | |  |\|   /\  \  / \  \  / \   |  /_\  \   
         | |__/    _ \|        |  _____||    |\|  | |  | |  |\|  |  |\|  |  |\|   |  _____|\  
         | |___/\  \\_\        \  \____/  /\  \|  | |  | |  | |  |  \_/  /  \_/   |  \___ \|  
         | |    /   \_|         \_____/__/ /\__\__| |__| |__| |__|\_____/ \____/__|\_____/\   
         | |   / / \___|         \____\__\/  \__\__\|\__\|\__\|\__\\____\/ \___\\__\\____\/   
         | |__/_/_____|     
         |/

Last changed: 30.01.2017

Install community ssu on the Nokia N900

The Nokia N900 comes with the maemo Linux operation system and is an excellent portable device for mobile or covert pentesting activities. The maemo Linux is a derivate of Debian and got a lot of precompiled hacking tools (eg. aircrack-ng suite, kismet, metasploit, gcc, python) in its repositories. Aside from that it is the only mobile phone I heard of with drivers for the internal wireless device supporting monitoring and injection.

nokia n900

As I just flashed my device into an unbootable state again I wrote down the steps needed for reflashing so I won't have to look them up every time.

flashing the device

Arch Linux users can find the flasher tool in the AUR. The needed images can be found in this post on talk.maemo.org. Hold the "u" key on the keyboard while connecting the usb cable to the PC to enter the flash mode. The following command flashes the firmware but leaves the data on eMMC untouched.

flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_21.2011.38-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f

If you get the error "Error claiming USB interface: Device or resource busy" unload the module cdc_phonet.

modprobe -r cdc_phonet

install Community SSU

As the device and its operation system got abandoned by Nokia the next step should be to activate the Community Seamless Software Updates by visiting the site with the N900 and using the one-click-install link. After the intallation run the CSSU application from the menu to setup and update the phone.

get root

To gain root access on the device again install rootsh in the Hildon Application Manager. Afterwards you will be able to become root in the terminal of the device. I recommend setting passwords.

sudo gainroot
passwd
passwd user

setup repositories and install kernel for power user

Don't remove the Nokia repositories even if you get the KEYEXPIRED error. They still contain important things like the wireless-tools. Furthermore you should add the extras-testing and extras-devel repositories of maemo.org and activate the Community SSU repository.

Be aware to only use apt-get upgrade and never use apt-get dist-upgrade! This will destroy the installation and you will have to start again.

Now you can install the newest kernel for power users. And activate the bleeding edge wifi driver for packet injection. The shell script can be found here

apt-get install kernel-power-flasher
./packet-injection.sh

sources

  1. N900 cc by Erik Hörnfeldt
  2. http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_firmware
  3. http://wiki.maemo.org/CSSU
  4. http://wiki.maemo.org/Kernel_Power