Chromecast Rooted

http://forum.xda-developers.com/hardware-hacking/chromecast/root-hubcap-chromecast-root-release-t2855893

by CSDude • 12 years ago

204 101 12 years ago

ftoma• 12 years ago

Sorry for being stupid but what effect does this have on a regular chromecast?

Root SSH/Telnet/ADB, Access/Modify DNS Servers, Google OTA's Disabled, Custom Boot Image, Custom OTA Update Engine (Read more Here:http://ota.team-eureka.com/), FlashCast Recovery Image

CSDude• 12 years ago

For the hacks of course. Chromecast is a nice device but it is just a Chrome browser. One istance is you can build a lightweight version of popcorn time and stream torrents to tv.

jahmed• 12 years ago

I believe the Android Popcorn Time app already has Chromecast support.

mixologic2• 12 years ago

The main benefit appears to be the ability to load your own ROM onto it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2578653

And the main benefit of that ROM seems to be that you can set an alternate DNS server to get around (some) forms of region controlling, as well as set your own application whitelist - not sure whats missing from the existing whitelist or what killer app you would root this for, but if I own the device, I should have total control over the device.

GuiA• 12 years ago

if I own the device, I should have total control over the device.

I agree (mostly) with you, but I still want to prod at this because I think it's interesting.

I'm guessing you probably own a (recent) car, a microwave, etc. Do you have total control over these devices? If not, does it bother you as much as not having total control over the Chromecast? How are they different (or not) from a Chromecast? A phone? A computer?

smtddr• 12 years ago

Not stupid at all; that should be the first question anyone asks. As far as I know, the Chromecast doesn't allow for discovering & streaming files via DLNA/UPnP. That feature alone is worth the rooting even if I "lost"[1] Netflix & Youtube support.

1. "Lost" is relative for a device that cost $35. I could just... buy another one.

muaddirac• 12 years ago

It doesn't directly, but for example I run plex on my network and I can stream all of my local files to the chromecast with the plex iOS app.

johndoeee• 12 years ago

Google charges money (to verify your identity I assume, it's quite cheap) if you wanted to make actual apps for chromecast, I assume you can sidestep that with this.

I made a transcoding proxy for Chromecast, for it to work, I'd have to piggyback the url-player (without selling my identity). I don't like stuff like that.

magicalist2• 12 years ago

Google charges money (to verify your identity I assume, it's quite cheap) if you wanted to make actual apps for chromecast

It's $5, but just FYI, you don't have to pay or register your app if you make a Default Media Receiver. You don't get on-TV UI, but that's probably fine if you're just transcoding and displaying video.

err4nt• 12 years ago

What would the capabilities of a rooted Chromecast be? I finally just got mine, and it's still new in box.

michaelx386• 12 years ago

One thing which comes to mind is the DNS settings on the Chromecast can't be modified so being able to change them could help get around regional restrictions.

drdaeman2• 12 years ago

It could also be fixed at the router by forcibly redirecting the DNS traffic to another DNS server.

Like in `iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p udp -s 192.168.1.100 --dport 53 -j DNAT --to 192.168.1.2`

eli• 12 years ago

My understanding is that if you prevent Chromecast form reaching Google's DNS servers it will allow you to provide an alternate address. Haven't had a need to try that myself, though.

yelnatz• 12 years ago

When I try to stream from the US Netflix, chromecast blocks it. (Canada)

This restriction could be unlocked one day.

mmastrac2• 12 years ago

For me, forcing 1080i output would have been fantastic. My TV advertises 1080p support but for complicated reasons, does not support it.

SyneRyder• 12 years ago

Forcing screen resolution / changing aspect ratio is what I'd want. I've got my Chromecast connected to an ancient 4:3 TV and I'd love the Chromecast to support that, or to at least not pillarbox 4:3 Youtube content. Unfortunately there's no setting on my TV to change the aspect ratio, I have to do it on my devices.

(Yes, I know, I should just upgrade the TV, but in that case I probably wouldn't have bought the Chromecast.)

mcescalante• 12 years ago

Does anybody know anything more than I about what this will enable (now)? Or is this just the first step of many in creating a hacker community around the Chromecast and software is to come? I've got one, and I'd love to make better use of it, or even help develop some stuff for it if it's that time :)

nmjohn• 12 years ago

For me, it's a modified home screen.

If I get around to it I am going to port a dashboard I built for the chromecast to act as the normal home screen.

The problem with how it works now is you would manually have to re-cast the dashboard when you turn it on, or after you were done casting anything else. I did that for the first day, but after that it just didn't really seem to be as worthwhile.

darklajid2• 12 years ago

Anyone having a Chromecast and able to tell me what I'm missing? Currently I've got xbmc running on a Raspberry Pi. Connected via HDMI, online via wifi and I can stream more or less everything (videos, images, music) from my phone to that thing - not sure if there's a decent way to do that from my laptop running Linux.

What are Chromecasts used for? Should I buy one?

micro_cam• 12 years ago

For me the main selling point is the low price and not sure it makes sense if you have something setup to do most of it. I do use mine a ton for netflix, hulu (via tab casting) and arbitray media files via the videostream chrome extension/app from the webstore.

It has a simple unintrusive ui which is nice.

darklajid2• 12 years ago

Hey - thanks for answering. The price is about the same (and I have the Pi). So that's mostly an argument for 'why not' and 'you might waste $35, but nothing more'.

Netflix/Hulu - no user myself and I'm not sure if those services are available outside of the US/available in DE. Tab casting, as far as I understand that, is a Chrome feature. I'm a Firefox guy. Would I be able to do something useful with that device?

Right now it seems like it would be equivalent to the Pi w/ xbmc, in an arguably smaller/nicer package. I'm hoping for a killer feature that I haven't considered/noticed :)

ajtaylor• 12 years ago

Thank you for the pointer to the videostream app. I've been wondering how to do this for a couple weeks now!

notjustanymike• 12 years ago

$35 and let's me use my phone as my remote for Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu. Drop dead simple casting. Also it doesn't stream from the phone; it simply takes in commands so it might save your battery some.

Touche7• 12 years ago

Phones are poor remotes.

bane• 12 years ago

Don't forget plex, entire chrome tabs, podcasts, photo libraries etc.

allegory• 12 years ago

I had one for two weeks and found it overly pointless and another chunk of ecosystem tie in so I gave it to a friend. It has been passed on already.

I reverted back to using foobar2000 on windows with the upnp plugin and my Sony DLNA capable TV for all local media (and a USB stick for mp3s rsync'ed with my laptop). Works fine. The TV does youtube, netflix, amazon video, iplayer etc already. This is a 3 year old Bravia EX unit worth about £100 now.

hayksaakian• 12 years ago

One special use is live streaming your screen from your phone or computer to the chrome cast.

Thaxll• 12 years ago

xbmc is terrible on a Raspberri Pi, it's way too slow.

cookiecaper2• 12 years ago

It's greatly improved with XBMC 13.0+, which included a bunch of optimizations to make XBMC on the RPi more bearable. Go through the XBMC Raspberry Pi wiki page to turn off things that waste CPU (like the RSS ticker). It also helps to use rpi-config and select the modest overclocking option (the one that doesn't change any voltages). XBMC is very smooth after doing those things.

The only issue I still have is that the wifi dongle I attached to the RPi can only pull 10Mb/s. I hear this is due to lack of power provided by the RPi to its USB ports and that it can be mitigated by using a powered USB hub, but I haven't tried that yet. 10Mb/s is enough to stream SD and some HD, but not all HD. I've tweaked the buffering settings to make this a little more bearable but honestly I usually end up transcoding a lower-bitrate version for the RPi to stream, which is a pain without a UPnP server to do that transparently.

zmmmmm• 12 years ago

The real "feature" of the Chromecast isn't technical. It's the ecosystem and particularly the fact it "just works" and is built in and enabled by default on a large number of Android apps. So for example, my friend can come over to my house and fire up his Google Music and his phone automatically sees my Chromecast and he can play to it. Or movies, or photos or ... etc etc. You can get any number of devices that do this, but only the Chromecast is built in and enabled by default on every Android device (not sure what iOS status is ...).

girvo• 12 years ago

iOS has AirPlay which is Apple's implementation of a Chromecast style local streaming service. I use it with an Apple TV myself.

TD-Linux• 12 years ago

Google wanted an Airplay competitor, and for whatever reason wanted to hobble it with the same restrictions as Airplay - a proprietary protocol to only let certain (closed source) programs stream to it, and prevent those programs from streaming to non-Google targets.

pinkyand• 12 years ago

and for whatever reason wanted to hobble it with the same restrictions as Airplay

They want to work with the big content companies. The end game might be ads on the chromecast served through Google with the stick is access to chromecast and the carrot is ad-optimization by Google and maybe blocking pirated content.

higherpurpose2• 12 years ago

It's not "whatever reason". Google is in the content selling business now - which means they are going to add as much DRM and restrictions to their operating systems, browsers, and devices as possible, to either try to "protect it" (which I think we all know it never works), or to please their content suppliers.

This is not just a constant thing we're seeing either. Expect Google to become ever more restrictive and anti-piracy, as they delve deeper into the content selling business. The days of the "Open Google" are long gone now, and they're never coming back.

ssully• 12 years ago

Easiest way I have found to watch Netflix. Also it's pretty nice for renting movies. I used to rent from Amazon and play off my ps3, but I have started renting from google play and throwing it on the chromecast. I also like that frequent guests(girlfriend) to my house can use it without having to ask me.

It sounds like with your current set up a chromecast might only be slightly more convenient, so you might not be missing much.

jethro_tell• 12 years ago

I take it to hotel ls when i travel. Its tiny, Combined with my phone as a wifi i stream to the hotel tv with a tablet or laptop. easy small portable.

vidarh3• 12 years ago

For me it's the convenience of being able to throw up various content from every device in the house (either via a dedicated app, or via chrome). It doesn't replace xbmc in any but when you want to e.g. play a youtube video, it's fantastically convenient for the low price.

kusuriya• 12 years ago

35 dollars for an android device that can now be turned into an XBMC device with netflix.... I think I may give the chromecast a second swing...

msturgill• 12 years ago

You can find them even cheaper (~$30).

Hackability is just icing on the cake.

javajosh• 12 years ago

For those who don't know (as I didn't) XBMC[1] is an open-source media center/entertainment application that supports a variety of OSes, including Android. And, apparently, the project is going to be renamed "Kodi" in the near future.

[1] http://xbmc.org/about/

ocb• 12 years ago

It blows my mind that XBMC is still being developed, let alone relatively popular on several platforms. I used it pretty extensively on a modchipped Xbox ~10 years ago as my first real "streaming" box (i.e. to play pirated movies from my computer on my TV). Strange that they didn't drop the 'XB' from their moniker earlier.

fpgaminer• 12 years ago

Is it just me, or is it odd that we rejoice when things like this happen? It just doesn't feel right to reward companies who release locked-down hardware. Don't get me wrong, I share in the excitement for a $35 XBMC capable android device. But on the other hand, it seems a better idea to spend money on a product that isn't locked down in the first place.

I haven't followed the Chromecast, but why is it locked in the first place!?

chii• 12 years ago

what can you buy with $35 that has the capabilities of the chromecast?

drcross2• 12 years ago

It's locked because they are selling it at a knock down price to tempt you into their eco system. As a consumer you are free to buy any of the SOC devices out on the market at the moment, of which there is a fantastic array, but they all cost more.

steeve2• 12 years ago

Don't hold your breath on that one. XBMC is very resource demanding and the SoC on Chromecast is not only not documented but also very low on resources.

However, they might be able to grab the private keys from it and use them to build add Chromecast emulation to XBMC.

userbinator2• 12 years ago

exploited a new vulnerability in the Chromecast which allows root access

Normally, vulnerabilities would be considered a bad thing. Heartbleed is a great example of that. But in cases like these, it's a very good thing. This is why I always like to remind those whose goal is to build more secure systems to consider the implications of their work, lest our devices become even more secure against us. They usually have in mind a world where everyone has full control of their devices which are then highly secure against attacks by others, and that's a good thing; but I think it's far more likely to turn into one where corporations have all the control and devices are secure against their owners, especially as typical users continue to choose security over freedom.

TazeTSchnitzel• 12 years ago

I'd say users choose convenience over freedom, the security is in the back of their minds. Make a more convenient but free phone and people will use it.

TeMPOraL• 12 years ago

This. I'd say they care about freedom more-less as much as about security, i.e. not at all. They just choose more convenient over less convenient. And honestly, it's perfectly understandable.

userbinator2• 12 years ago

Convenience is a big part of it, but I don't see freedom being marketed quite as much (if at all) as security - these days, the new version of a product almost always mentions "more secure" in its list of features, while "more freedom", when it appears, seems to read more like "you can now do new things with your device that you couldn't before", than "you can have more control over it."

higherpurpose2• 12 years ago

They could also decide to allow their devices to be unlocked in a secure way, instead of us having to rely on vulnerabilities, and then them having to fix them.

thethimble• 12 years ago

Devil's advocate: perhaps Google is taking a loss on the $35 device in exchange for user lock-in? I doubt the immense R&D behind building it would have been worth it otherwise.

I'm not arguing against unlimited freedom - just arguing against the expectation of unlimited freedom when all things are considered.

thibauts• 12 years ago

One thing it may allow is grabbing the private key it uses for Device Authentication and emulate a Chromecast on other devices. It would enable streaming from Chrome to anything using the Chromecast protocol. See [1]. I had a go at implementing the protocol server-side on node, so it's basically waiting for a valid cert. I couldn't test it much though it should work. See [2] and [3]. Any help welcome.

[1] https://github.com/thibauts/node-castv2/issues/2

[2] https://github.com/thibauts/node-castv2

[3] https://github.com/thibauts/node-castv2/blob/master/lib/serv...

mmastrac2• 12 years ago

I'd be interested to hear if you manage to extract a key from a Chromecast. I think I'll root mine now just to keep my options open.

dooptroop• 12 years ago

This is interesting. Never understood why this was a dedicated hardware-dongle, rather than an app for any number of HDMI-out capable android devices.

tuxidomasx• 12 years ago

The biggest problem I've had with Chromecast was using it in a hotel that had wifi login pages.

The device is ideal for hotels since you usually get a nice HD TV in the room. But half the time I can't stream from Chromecast because of the wifi login.

A rooted Chromecast would essentially let me log in to the hotel wifi like I would on my laptop or phone. Then I can stream away.

defen2• 12 years ago

I've solved this problem for Apple TVs by spoofing the device's MAC address on my laptop, using the laptop browser to accept the WiFi ads or login or whatever, and then resetting my laptop address and plugging the device in.

drcross2• 12 years ago

smart but only works if the hotel NAC uses mac whitelisting and not more advanced techniques like browser posturing.

mseebach• 12 years ago

I carry a small travel router that I plug in to the wired network in hotels. I don't travel with my chromecast but I like that I don't have to login from my phone, tablet, Kindle and laptop. The chromecast would work in the same way and would also have the benefit of not announcing its presence to the entire hotel.

Jemaclus2• 12 years ago

Not super related to the rooting (which is awesome), but I have a Chromecast question:

I have a Chromecast and I love it, but the one thing I want to use it for that I haven't been able to figure out how is to show a dashboard at work. We have these giant TVs that are basically off all the time, except when there's a football game or something on, and I want to put up my stats dashboard for our app. Chromecast should theoretically make it easy for me to just stream the dashboard to the screen, but what I've found happens is that it goes to sleep after 10 minutes or so.

I don't want to spend hours and hours rooting around and figuring out application IDs and stuff. I just wanna click some buttons and have my dashboard show up and stay up all day. Are there any resources for that?

Or is Chromecast just the wrong tool for the job?

bdpuk• 12 years ago

http://greenscreen.io/ Any good to you?

Jemaclus2• 12 years ago

Oh neat. Thanks!

Chromecast Rooted

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