[Q] What it takes to unroot?

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Casteel

Member
Mar 17, 2014
19
1
Hey guys,

Last time, I asked you about some technical details of rooting.
Now, I have some little questions about unrooting :)

Lets say I have rooted my device with CF-Auto-Root (which is great by the way...)
so now I have SuperSu and the su binary in /system/xbin, stock ROM and recovery, and unlocked bootloader.
Now I wish to unroot without loosing any data.

1. If I manually delete su, does it enough to say I have unrooted my phone? Or any other actions are required?
2. What does the unroot option in SuperSu actually do?
3. If I flash stock recovery (even though I already have it), will it unroot my device?
4. How does the survival mode of SuperSu keep me rooted in case of OTA update?

Thanks,
Casteel.
 
danarama

danarama

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2010
31,277
18,811
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, UK
There are existing threads that can help you.

Please read:

Q&A - all you need to know about android
General - how to flash factory images
General - ota help-desk

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
El Daddy

El Daddy

Retired Forum Moderator
May 2, 2008
4,261
5,210
Roseville, MN
Casteel said:
Hey guys,

Last time, I asked you about some technical details of rooting.
Now, I have some little questions about unrooting :)

Lets say I have rooted my device with CF-Auto-Root (which is great by the way...)
so now I have SuperSu and the su binary in /system/xbin, stock ROM and recovery, and unlocked bootloader.
Now I wish to unroot without loosing any data.

1. If I manually delete su, does it enough to say I have unrooted my phone? Or any other actions are required?
2. What does the unroot option in SuperSu actually do?
3. If I flash stock recovery (even though I already have it), will it unroot my device?
4. How does the survival mode of SuperSu keep me rooted in case of OTA update?

Thanks,
Casteel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

1. If you remove the binary, you are essentially unrooted.
2. The unroot option does the same thing as above.
3. Flashing stock recovery alone, will not remove root permissions.
4. I'm not certain on the technical aspects of Survival mode, but I believe, it runs a script after the OTA to retain root.
 
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C

Casteel

Member
Mar 17, 2014
19
1
El Daddy said:
1. If you remove the binary, you are essentially unrooted.
2. The unroot option does the same thing as above.
3. Flashing stock recovery alone, will not remove root permissions.
4. I'm not certain on the technical aspects of Survival mode, but I believe, it runs a script after the OTA to retain root.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Cool. Thanks. :eek:
Why flashing stock recovery won't remove root, but OTA update will?
What's the difference between these processes?
 
El Daddy

El Daddy

Retired Forum Moderator
May 2, 2008
4,261
5,210
Roseville, MN
Casteel said:
Cool. Thanks. :eek:
Why flashing stock recovery won't remove root, but OTA update will?
What's the difference between these processes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The reason why is because recovery is on a separate partition. It does not effect anything on /system/ where the su binary lies.

OTA's patch and update files on /system/ causing SU to be removed in most cases. In some cases having root may cause the OTA to fail, requiring removal of the binary before continuing with the OTA.

Click the link in my signature for the Nexus 5 OTA Help-Desk for more info on OTA's
 
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C

Casteel

Member
Mar 17, 2014
19
1
El Daddy said:
The reason why is because recovery is on a separate partition. It does not effect anything on /system/ where the su binary lies.

OTA's patch and update files on /system/ causing SU to be removed in most cases. In some cases having root may cause the OTA to fail, requiring removal of the binary before continuing with the OTA.

Click the link in my signature for the Nexus 5 OTA Help-Desk for more info on OTA's
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Great, thank you very much :good:
And thanks for referring to the links, looks useful indeed.
 
BirchBarlow

BirchBarlow

Senior Member
Oct 6, 2013
428
155
Philadelphia
Deleting SuperSU or unrooting will prevent apps from gaining root access, but it won't return your phone to stock. The only way to return to stock is to reflash the factory image.
 
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    El Daddy
    El Daddy
    Casteel said:
    Hey guys,

    Last time, I asked you about some technical details of rooting.
    Now, I have some little questions about unrooting :)

    Lets say I have rooted my device with CF-Auto-Root (which is great by the way...)
    so now I have SuperSu and the su binary in /system/xbin, stock ROM and recovery, and unlocked bootloader.
    Now I wish to unroot without loosing any data.

    1. If I manually delete su, does it enough to say I have unrooted my phone? Or any other actions are required?
    2. What does the unroot option in SuperSu actually do?
    3. If I flash stock recovery (even though I already have it), will it unroot my device?
    4. How does the survival mode of SuperSu keep me rooted in case of OTA update?

    Thanks,
    Casteel.
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    1. If you remove the binary, you are essentially unrooted.
    2. The unroot option does the same thing as above.
    3. Flashing stock recovery alone, will not remove root permissions.
    4. I'm not certain on the technical aspects of Survival mode, but I believe, it runs a script after the OTA to retain root.
    View
    1
    El Daddy
    El Daddy
    Casteel said:
    Cool. Thanks. :eek:
    Why flashing stock recovery won't remove root, but OTA update will?
    What's the difference between these processes?
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    The reason why is because recovery is on a separate partition. It does not effect anything on /system/ where the su binary lies.

    OTA's patch and update files on /system/ causing SU to be removed in most cases. In some cases having root may cause the OTA to fail, requiring removal of the binary before continuing with the OTA.

    Click the link in my signature for the Nexus 5 OTA Help-Desk for more info on OTA's
    View

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