mount unknown (linux) image

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

I want to buy an ereader described known among others as MDB-106 described here: ambiancetechnology . com . Because I promissed myself never to buy anything (again) that is closed I am trying to see how open it is.

It states there there is Linux 2.6 inside. Also some software updates can be downloaded there. Sofar I have found that there are software updates in the form of zipped files. Unzipping gives two files ebook.img (around 28MB) and qte.img (around 25 MB).

A cat of these files shows some recognizable text mainly text about "GCC" compiler, "libraries" and "crosstool". So the files are obviously not encrypted.

An od of the files show a lot of 00's and FF's so the files are not compressed.

I dd' ed one file to a disk and tried to mount that disk thereafter but to no avail. I tried several mount types but never success. fdisk -l shows no recognizable filesystem type. (it says "Disk doesn't contain a valid partition table"). Unfortunately I am no disk hero so maybe I made some error here(?).

I tried PowerIso but it finds no legitimate image in those files.

I tried tar but also no luck.

I am running out of options. Does somebody have other suggestions?

I did not find many information about this reader but a "Kogan eBook reader" described here: david.boxall.id.au sums it all up. Although it seems not exactly the same reader.

I made an octal dump of the beginning of the file "qte.img". Attached.

2

It seems the file(s) aren't disk (or other) images, but rather produced by an unusual archiver using a fixed block size (4096 bytes). It's might be possible to extract some files that carry their own size in the header (like the BMP that's contained) using dd, but for a full extract one would have to analyze the archive format & write his own extractor.

3

I wonder if it's an initrd or initramfs. I think those are CPIO archives. Have you tried running file ./filename on it to see what it thinks it is?

It never would -- fdisk partitions disks, it doesn't understand or care about the contents of partitions.

I see no files attached. I wonder if it blocked them because of your first-post status?

Try hexdump -C filename | head and post that output in code tags, not as an attachment.

4

Did a file on it, it's reported as an VMS executable, which I find very unlikely with ARM as the target architecture. ELF headers from within the file(s) support this, as they report being compiled with Linux on ARM as the target.

5

Thanks very much for the replies!

I forgot about cpio (that was a long time ago for me). I tried it but all it said was "malformed number".

The attached file did go wrong so here follows some output of the qte.img file:

It is output of od -ah

0000000 etx nul nul nul soh nul nul nul del del nul nul nul nul nul nul
           0003    0000    0001    0000    ffff    0000    0000    0000
0000020 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
           0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000
*
0000400 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul del del del   m   A nul nul
           0000    0000    0000    0000    ff00    ffff    41ed    0000
0000420  ht stx nul nul  nl stx nul nul   Y  ff dc3   M   !   u   l   L
           0209    0000    020a    0000    0c59    4d13    75a1    4cec
0000440   !   u   l   L del del del del del del del del del del del del
           75a1    4cec    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff
0000460 del del del del del del del del del del del del del del del del
           ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff
*
0000700 del del del del del del del del del del del del nul nul nul nul
           ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    0000    0000
0000720 del del del del del del del del del del del del del del del del
           ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff    ffff
*
0010000 nul dle nul nul soh nul nul nul nul nul nul nul del del nul nul
           1000    0000    0001    0000    0000    0000    ffff    0000
0010020   0   g   q   ? enq nul nul nul enq nul nul nul   P   g   q   ?
           6730    bff1    0005    0000    0005    0000    6750    bff1
0010040  fs   W   q   ? etx nul nul nul   (   g   q   ? sub dc1 eot  bs
           571c    bff1    0003    0000    6728    bff1    919a    0804
0010060 del del nul nul enq  us eot  bs del nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
           ffff    0000    9f85    0804    00ff    0000    0000    0000
0010100 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul soh nul nul nul etx nul nul nul
           0000    0000    0000    0000    0001    0000    0003    0000
0010120 soh nul nul nul del del nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
           0001    0000    ffff    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000
0010140 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
           0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000
*
0010200 soh nul nul nul soh nul nul nul del del   o   p   e   n   _   s
           0001    0000    0001    0000    ffff    706f    6e65    735f
0010220   t   a   r   t   .   b   m   p nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
           6174    7472    622e    706d    0000    0000    0000    0000
0010240 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
           0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000    0000

Sorry but the layout is a bit messed up.

I did a "file" on this file too and VMS/Alpha as file type seems a bit strange for this device as it is ARM.

As for the cpio: should I use special options to extract files from this supposedly cpio archive?

Thanks for any hints you can give.

And if it leads nowhere I will not buy the ereader: strange all these companies that sell products with doubtfull applications (I read that on a dutch ereader forum) and at the same time preventing anybody to do something about these problems. I am old enough to know that support for such a product will stop at the time it works more or less or when they made a new product that supposedly is much better.

6

One thing you can do, since we already verified it's based on GPL software: demand a copy of the sources used and any changes made to them. Those parts based on GPL software are automatically licensed as GPL too, and thus have to be provided as machine-readable source code (means: files, not printout).

7

Yes, that's what I'd do. they'd have to give you the real stuff, not an unreadable archive.

I don't suppose you could try hexdump -C like I asked?

8

Here the output for

hexdump -C qte.img 

00000000  03 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000100  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 ff ff ff ed 41 00 00  |.............A..|
00000110  09 02 00 00 0a 02 00 00  59 0c 13 4d a1 75 ec 4c  |........Y..M.u.L|
00000120  a1 75 ec 4c ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |.u.L............|
00000130  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
000001c0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001d0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00001000  00 10 00 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 ff ff 00 00  |................|
00001010  30 67 f1 bf 05 00 00 00  05 00 00 00 50 67 f1 bf  |0g..........Pg..|
00001020  1c 57 f1 bf 03 00 00 00  28 67 f1 bf 9a 91 04 08  |.W......(g......|
00001030  ff ff 00 00 85 9f 04 08  ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00001040  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 03 00 00 00  |................|
00001050  01 00 00 00 ff ff 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00001060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00001080  01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  ff ff 6f 70 65 6e 5f 73  |..........open_s|
00001090  74 61 72 74 2e 62 6d 70  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |tart.bmp........|
000010a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*

I send a request for some information about the two files to the reseller of this device ( ambiance ). I stated that I will not buy devices that are closed because in my experiences even the simplest software upgrades (or repairs) are stopped if the device is not sold anymore.

I referred to a Lacie NAS (that is closed) and that was hanging regularly. It is only after I made myself a root access that I could repair the problem (and it is now working as it should). But I will not buy Lacie anymore. (Instead I bought a Netgear Nas)

I will wait for the answer from the reseller before asking for GPL sources.

Thanks very much for your replies!!

BTW. Why do I get this remark:

You are only allowed to post URLs once you have at least 5 posts.

I am not aware that I am posting URL's.

9

It may have tried to convert something in your post to a URL automatically.