Root access and apps saved data location - Android

[jsmoke]

I have messed around with Linux on the PC before, I think you typed su in the konsole and it made you a super user or something, I think there was a lower level access as well, maybe root?

So on Android OS, I was looking for the location of save game files, initially I tried sdcard/Android/Data/com.gameNamehere/etc but nothing there. The game saves high scores somewhere but not in sdcard so it seems.

So after some research it seems the saves/databases may be saved to the root filesystem, something like /data/data/com.gameNamehere/data or so. But using ES file explorer on my phone theres nothing in the /Data directory.

I think it shows nothing as I don't have root access on my phone. So my questions are.

1. Is having root access on a phone, like su in konsole, different from a rooted phone?
2. What is rooting a phone and is it illegal?
3. Does your phone need to be rooted for an app to have root access, i.e save data to the root filesystem?
3. How are apps able to have root access, I assume they have to as they seem to save a games/apps data in there?
4. How do I legally get root access?

 

[xbenjiiman]

Depending on your phone model and Android version, there's various ways to gain root access. It usually means unlocking the bootloader and flashing an app to control the superuser permissions.

As for the rest of your questions, here's a great article on it:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-root-android/

Also you'll probably gain more attention and help from the mobiles subforum.

 

[Pho]

1. Not sure I understand the question, but root access lets you use apps that require elevated permissions (e.g., some backup apps) or lets you install an SSH server and access the /data partitions (like you want to) or browse them via a file explorer.
   
2. In essence it puts the su binary on your phone letting you or other apps use it to elevate their permissions. Generally the first time an app tries to get root permissions the su app will prompt you via a pop-up on the phone to ask if you want to allow it. I'm pretty sure it's legal, if it's not I couldn't care less - it's my phone and I'll root it .
   
3. Yes, unless for some reason your phone came with odd permissions allowing access to those folders as a standard user.
   
4. Android automatically allows apps to write to their own namespaced folder in the /data partition. E.g., an app with namespace com.example.jsmoke gets a /data/data/com.example.jsmoke folder created when it's installed which it has full permission to. The only people who can access this folder are the Android system, rooted people, the app its-self, or any other app which happened to be signed with the same private key as this app when it was uploaded to Google play.
   
   For example, for pure lazyness the company I work for uses the same private key for all our Google Play apps, so I could, if I wanted to, access the /data/ partition for another one of my companies apps. Any app signed with a different private key (e.g., every other one on your phone) would not be allowed to access it.
   
5. What phone make/model do you have?

Speaking of root, I'm very very interested by the Asus Zenphone 2 at the moment but I won't touch it until it gets root .