android_x86_root

These steps will elaborate how to enable root access for Android in x86-based machine from a terminal in the host Android itself(Not through adb). I am using Intel's Celadon branch for Android 8.1-x86_64.

This is not a permanent solution to enable root. However, it still works in a straightforward way.

1. Change the sepolicy from enforcing to permissive in device/intel/project-celadon/celadon/mixins.spec. Now, we can at least see the su binary in /system/xbin from a devloper mode Terminal app in Android. However, we still cannot execute the su binary for other users through the Terminal app because of file permissions (execute access is not available for other users).
2. To enable execute access for other users, we need to change the system/core/libcutils/fs_config.cpp file. Find and change the line to { 04755, AID_ROOT, AID_SHELL, 0, "system/xbin/su" } to enable execute permission of the su binary.
3. Finally, we need to change the su program itself in system/extras/su/su.cpp. I commented out the following line in the main function: if (current_uid != AID_ROOT && current_uid != AID_SHELL) error(1, 0, "not allowed"); This is because we want to enable access to any program (in our case the Terminal app) so that it can change the user to root.

The Terminal app is available by enabling the developer mode in Android settings.