7.2 KiB
Internal Details
File Structure
Paths in "Magisk tmpfs directory"
Magisk will mount a tmpfs
directory to store some temporary data. For devices with the /sbin
folder, it will be chosen as it will also act as an overlay to inject binaries into PATH
. From Android 11 onwards, the /sbin
folder might not exist, so Magisk will randomly create a folder under /dev
and use it as the base folder.
# In order to get the current base folder Magisk is using,
# use the command `magisk --path`.
# Binaries like magisk, magiskinit, and all symlinks to
# applets are directly stored in this path. This means when
# this is /sbin, these binaries will be directly in PATH.
MAGISKPATH=$(magisk --path)
# Magisk internal stuffs
MAGISKTMP=$MAGISKBASE/.magisk
# Magisk's BusyBox directory. Within this folder stores
# the busybox binary and symlinks to all of its applets.
# Any usage of this directory is deprecated, please
# directly call /data/adb/magisk/busybox and use
# BusyBox's ASH Standalone mode.
# The creation of this path will be removed in the future.
$MAGISKTMP/busybox
# /data/adb/modules will be bind mounted here.
# The original folder is not used due to nosuid mount flag.
$MAGISKTMP/modules
# The current Magisk installation config
$MAGISKTMP/config
# Partition mirrors
# Each directory in this path will be mounted with the
# partition of its directory name.
# e.g. system, system_ext, vendor, data ...
$MAGISKTMP/mirror
# Block devices Magisk creates internally to mount mirrors.
$MAGISKTMP/block
# Root directory patch files
# On system-as-root devices, / is not writable.
# All pre-init patched files are stored here and bind mounted.
$MAGISKTMP/rootdir
Paths in /data
Some binaries and files should be stored on non-volatile storages in /data
. In order to prevent detection, everything has to be stored somewhere safe and undetectable in /data
. The folder /data/adb
was chosen because of the following advantages:
- It is an existing folder on modern Android, so it cannot be used as an indication of the existence of Magisk.
- The permission of the folder is by default
700
, owner asroot
, so non-root processes are unable to enter, read, write the folder in any possible way. - The folder is labeled with secontext
u:object_r:adb_data_file:s0
, and very few processes have the permission to do any interaction with that secontext. - The folder is located in Device encrypted storage, so it is accessible as soon as data is properly mounted in FBE (File-Based Encryption) devices.
SECURE_DIR=/data/adb
# Folder storing general post-fs-data scripts
$SECURE_DIR/post-fs-data.d
# Folder storing general late_start service scripts
$SECURE_DIR/service.d
# Magisk modules
$SECURE_DIR/modules
# Magisk modules that are pending for upgrade
# Module files are not safe to be modified when mounted
# Modules installed through the Magisk app will be stored here
# and will be merged into $SECURE_DIR/modules in the next reboot
$SECURE_DIR/modules_update
# Database storing settings and root permissions
MAGISKDB=$SECURE_DIR/magisk.db
# All magisk related binaries, including busybox,
# scripts, and magisk binaries. Used in supporting
# module installation, addon.d, the Magisk app etc.
DATABIN=$SECURE_DIR/magisk
Magisk Booting Process
Pre-Init
magiskinit
will replace init
as the first program to run.
- Early mount required partitions. On legacy system-as-root devices, we switch root to system; on 2SI devices, we patch fstab and execute the original
init
to mount partitions for us. - Load sepolicy either from
/sepolicy
, precompiled sepolicy in vendor, or compile split sepolicy - Patch sepolicy rules and dump to
/sepolicy
or/sbin/.se
or/dev/.se
- Patch
init
orlibselinux.so
to force the system to load the patched policies - Inject magisk services into
init.rc
- Execute the original
init
to continue the boot process
post-fs-data
This triggers on post-fs-data
when /data
is decrypted and mounted. The daemon magiskd
will be launched, post-fs-data scripts are executed, and module files are magic mounted.
late_start
Later in the booting process, the class late_start
will be triggered, and Magisk "service" mode will be started. In this mode, service scripts are executed.
Resetprop
Usually, system properties are designed to only be updated by init
and read-only to non-root processes. With root you can change properties by sending requests to property_service
(hosted by init
) using commands such as setprop
, but changing read-only props (props that start with ro.
like ro.build.product
) and deleting properties are still prohibited.
resetprop
is implemented by distilling out the source code related to system properties from AOSP and patched to allow direct modification to property area, or prop_area
, bypassing the need to go through property_service
. Since we are bypassing property_service
, there are a few caveats:
on property:foo=bar
actions registered in*.rc
scripts will not be triggered if property changes does not go throughproperty_service
. The default set property behavior ofresetprop
matchessetprop
, which WILL trigger events (implemented by first deleting the property then set it viaproperty_service
). There is a flag-n
to disable it if you need this special behavior.- persist properties (props that starts with
persist.
, likepersist.sys.usb.config
) are stored in bothprop_area
and/data/property
. By default, deleting props will NOT remove it from persistent storage, meaning the property will be restored after the next reboot; reading props will NOT read from persistent storage, as this is the behavior ofgetprop
. With the flag-p
, deleting props will remove the prop in BOTHprop_area
and/data/property
, and reading props will be read from BOTHprop_area
and persistent storage.
SELinux Policies
Magisk will patch the stock sepolicy
to make sure root and Magisk operations can be done in a safe and secure way. The new domain magisk
is effectively permissive, which is what magiskd
and all root shell will run in. magisk_file
is a new file type that is setup to be allowed to be accessed by every domain (unrestricted file context).
Before Android 8.0, all allowed su client domains are allowed to directly connect to magiskd
and establish connection with the daemon to get a remote root shell. Magisk also have to relax some ioctl
operations so root shells can function properly.
After Android 8.0, to reduce relaxation of rules in Android's sandbox, a new SELinux model is deployed. The magisk
binary is labelled with magisk_exec
file type, and processes running as allowed su client domains executing the magisk
binary (this includes the su
command) will transit to magisk_client
by using a type_transition
rule. Rules strictly restrict that only magisk
domain processes are allowed to attribute files to magisk_exec
. Direct connection to sockets of magiskd
are not allowed; the only way to access the daemon is through a magisk_client
process. These changes allow us to keep the sandbox intact, and keep Magisk specific rules separated from the rest of the policies.
The full set of rules can be found in magiskpolicy/rules.cpp
.