Determine if running on a rooted device

Question

My app has a certain piece of functionality that will only work on a device where root is available. Rather than having this feature fail when it is used (and then show an a

Answer 1

Using C++ with the ndk is the best approach to detect root even if the user is using applications that hide his root such as RootCloak. I tested this code with RootCloak and I was able to detect the root even if the user is trying to hide it. So your cpp file would like:

#include 
#include 


/**
 *
 * function that checks for the su binary files and operates even if 
 * root cloak is installed
 * @return integer 1: device is rooted, 0: device is not 
 *rooted
*/
extern "C"
JNIEXPORT int JNICALL


Java_com_example_user_root_1native_rootFunction(JNIEnv *env,jobject thiz){
const char *paths[] ={"/system/app/Superuser.apk", "/sbin/su", "/system/bin/su",
                      "/system/xbin/su", "/data/local/xbin/su", "/data/local/bin/su", "/system/sd/xbin/su",
                      "/system/bin/failsafe/su", "/data/local/su", "/su/bin/su"};

int counter =0;
while (counter<9){
    if(FILE *file = fopen(paths[counter],"r")){
        fclose(file);
        return 1;
    }
    counter++;
}
return 0;
}

And you will call the function from your java code as follows

public class Root_detect {



   /**
    *
    * function that calls a native function to check if the device is 
    *rooted or not
    * @return boolean: true if the device is rooted, false if the 
    *device is not rooted
   */
   public boolean check_rooted(){

        int checker = rootFunction();

        if(checker==1){
           return true;
        }else {
           return false;
        }
   }
   static {
    System.loadLibrary("cpp-root-lib");//name of your cpp file
   }

   public native int rootFunction();
}