Rooting the LG Optimus L3 (and just about any Android model, really)

I recently purchased an LG Optimus L3 (“e400”) mobile phone. I’ve to admit it would be a perfectly fine purchase if it wasn’t for the huge amount of time I had to invest in order for this thing to recognize me as its master. Even though I wanted to install CyanogenMod in it, the device blocked my attempts to install it through ROM Manager. Yes, for some awkward reason LG kept on thinking they still owned the device even after they sold it to me.

Anyway, as none of the rooting instructions for LG Optimus L3 I found on the net worked for me, I figured I should try with the recently-discovered “master key” vulnerability. A bit of research shows there’s very extensive documentation on this hole and how to exploit it, as well as proof-of-concept exploits. But unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any complete solution to implement this in easy steps.

On the soulders of giants…

After running through the whole manual setup of this exploit (and succesfully rooting my LG Optimus L3), I figured it would be useful if I put the pieces together into a unified script.

So here it is, an exploit for the Android “master key” vulnerability which will give you root access to almost every Android device in existance:

https://github.com/robertmillan/mkbreak

Enjoy. Oh and btw: fuck you LG.