Playing with native.db

[matiu]

@mudasscar

Two good questions...

1) Related to the A780... I really don't know, I only have a E680i, but the E680i's Berkeley DB subdatabase is named 780_xxxxx, so, maybe...
Could someone try?

2) About running the program on the phone! Yes! It should be possible, since no extrange libraries are used, only libdb, which is installed by default on the phone. I don't have the toolchain installed yet, but, I will do that sometime in the future...again...It would be great if someone try to compile the program using a cross compiler, and send it back to the forum.
I think the only problem we may found there could be en endianess and the type sizes differences (if they exists?) between x86 and ARM.

[matiu]

I am working on the new version of usync. Synchronization from E680i native.db file and vcf files is almost ready.

I am facing the following problem: native.db is a Berlekey DB file, which seems to be accesed only by the process db_deamon (and its children). (See /proc/*/fd/ at the phone). These processes also have a socket open, so they seem to be ad-hoc programs developed by EZX to give Bekeley DB a client-server structure...?

Someone knows what db_deamon does? Or ...its interfase with the applications?

To modify native.db we can:
1) overwrite it.... doesn´t work. After orverwriting, all the applications say 'Record not found'. I need to restore the all file and reboot the phone.
2) shutdown db_demon. overwrite native.db, restart the phone. Seems to work, awfull method.
3) Connect to db_daemon, and ask for the modifications... I don't know the interfase...
4) Access native.db thru Samba, with the Berkeley API interfase with a program running on the PC...may work...didn´t try this.

Any ideas?

matias

[pascal]

think number 4 is best solution if it works, cause its a sync tool, so we have anyway a pc program running

[rhizod]

My guess is that all applications that wish to read/write in the database connects to a socket on db_deamon send a request and then db_deamon does the actual file read-write. Probably a way of solving locking and serialization issues.

To reverse engineer the db_daemon protocol, let strace attach to the daemon,
./strace -p <pid> -f -s 500
and watch reads and writes on the application sockets.

You can get a pre-compiled strace here:
http://www.pashkovsky.com/e680/
(link named 'lots of utils')

This is probably the cleanest solution. But I can see how replacing nativedb on reboot is simpler.

I don't belive in alt #4. Locking will probably not work over samba; and db_daemon most likely don't care about locking anyway, since it normally is the only process reading/writing. If I'm right, you will have awful race condition problems.

[matiu]

@rizhod,

I guest you are right. I have been doing some testing. A single contact addition to the database, updates almost 32 tables!! So, making the update by hand is difficult, awfull... and dangerous.

Now I am stracing the phone while synchronizing from windows MBT, may be that way I can understand the protocol of the db_server...

thanks for your suggestions!

matias

[mudassar]

@matiu:
hi. i was trying to compile your source code with gcc 3.3 but it lists so many errors...the first error is that db.h file is not included. is that by default included in gcc include libraries ? i am attaching the error.txt file in case if u can figure out....

thanks,
-MAQ

[chiennk]

I use E680i and have installed Unicode and my language keyboard in my phone. I changed all the person's name in the contact to my language. When I backup/sync the connact from/to PC with the tool provided by motorola all the unicode characters are lost!

I am looking for a tool can sync/backup all the contact without loosing the unicode characters.

So I am waiting for your E680i's native database sync tool. Can you make your it run on Windows also? Just like a phone backup tool run on Windows provided by Motorola?

[matiu]

Sorry, the project is discontinued because the lack of information about the i680 's DB format.

You can use it to synchronize from your phone to the PC, but now backwards.

matías

[matiu]

@matiu:
hi. i was trying to compile your source code with gcc 3.3 but it lists so many errors...the first error is that db.h file is not included. is that by default included in gcc include libraries ? i am attaching the error.txt file in case if u can figure out....

thanks,
-MAQ

You need to install Berkeley's DB. See INSTALL/README.

matías

[intoxicated]

here is another program written by Toby Liu on ccmove...
it can export the contact and sms as two text files (contact.txt, sms.txt)
just put ur native.db in the same directory as the program and run it..

u can try if u can get the unicode contact out as i don't have any contacts stored in unicode...
maybe i should try to contact him for the source code so the project can continue?




This software was written by Toby Liu
Personal USE Only
If you want the source code, contact me via QQ:14565229
Thank you for trying!
Good Bye