FOX T2 Hacking?

ChrisDaniels

ChrisDaniels

Well-Known Member
FOX T2 Hacking?

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the Humax brand, does anybody know if the firmware can be hacked or modded in any way?

On search google I found some old sites that refer to hacking old Humax satelite boxes or old PVRs that use the .hdr firmware and also some tools, but they are probably years out of date by now.

Does anyone have any knowledge about this?
I'm thinking if Humax wont fix the firmware in the HDR T2 to how I would like it, I may attempt it myself.
See my post in the Wishlist thread for an idea of what I want..
 
FOX T2 Hacking?

I think you will only get humax software any other non official software will make your product null and void of any warranty
 
Re: FOX T2 Hacking?

I'm not bothered about that, you can usually always reflash back to an original firmware if it needs a service.
Like the iPhone...lol
 
Re: FOX T2 Hacking?

ChrisDaniels said:
I'm new to the Humax brand, does anybody know if the firmware can be hacked or modded in any way?

On search google I found some old sites that refer to hacking old Humax satelite boxes or old PVRs that use the .hdr firmware and also some tools, but they are probably years out of date by now.
Click to expand...
I don't think much has been done but it appears possible. Traditionally the Humax terrestrial PVRs have not seen much hacking because it was just easier to do it on the similar Topfield boxes. I would expect a steep learning curve with no help from Humax; good luck if you decide to give it a go.
 
Re: FOX T2 Hacking?

cptblue said:
the hd fox is built using busybox an open source linux kernel
Click to expand...
Quibbling but busybox isn't a kernel; it is a single executable providing many of the common UNIX utilities in a slimmed down form.
 
Re: FOX T2 Hacking?

hmmm yes, open source! i remember seeing that at the back of the manual now.

I will be downloading those and having a looksy.

Humax dont reply to emails about bug reports etc, so no, i wouldnt expect them to help me hack their firmware haha
 
Re: FOX T2 Hacking?

cptblue wrote:
the hd fox is built using busybox an open source linux kernel


Quibbling but busybox isn't a kernel; it is a single executable providing many of the common UNIX utilities in a slimmed down form
Click to expand...

i am ashamed :oops:
 
Its occured to me that perhaps as a lesser hack it might be possible to divert the humax TV portal to a webserver running on your own system and then have a go at making some portal elements of your own.
 
Now that would be nice... couldn't you just search for the website string in the .hdr file and change it? Or is that too simple!
 
Just read all of that Foxsat thread and it certainly is impressive ( to save others the 15 pages of reading, they have managed to add FTP, Telnet SAMBA and DLNA !). There is talk of a guide on that thread which might get someone tech savvy here started in modding the T2. I dont even know how to look inside the HDF file, any ideas?
 
I would be more interested if they hacked away some of the Foxsat's more irritating idiosyncrasies.
 
imagine how good it would be to have the equivalent of mystuff on hummy, bring it on you hackers, i'm well up for invalidating my warranty!!
 
absolutely! i've just moved back to a humax after (at first) owning a 9200T which went poof but then using a TF5800 with mystuff. brilliant. alas the topfield went poof too just recently; i couldn't find a replacement, cried a bit and then went for one of these foxy numbers. not being able to transfer (unencrypted) directly from the humax to my pc without phsyically moving a drive about is annoying, as is the HD encryption (though I didn't buy it for HD so i'm not too bothered). but they've made the rest of the experience a lot nicer than the old 9200 days. i still miss mystuff though :)
 
A few points for discussion:-

1) The first thing to suggest here is not hacking the loader! This is the bit of the inbuild software that allows you to a) flash the box b) boot the thing in the first place and then start to load the main O/S - as long as this remains intact you SHOULD be able to reflash the box back to the original software!

2) As for diverting to another website - this should be very easily acomplished by altering your DNS tables in your router/DNS server (if your router allows you to do this - hopefully HUMAX have not used an ip address to reference the tv portal sever )

3) As for hacking the main software yes it does seem quite stratight forward, and reasonable safe to do aslong as No. 1 is applied! - I'm going to start by removing the cover and examining the chips (graphics, audio etc) as there is no single preconfigured uncompiled code avalible for the box it would seem that one must start with the basic linux OS+busybox and then add in the specific humax code etc...

I'm awaiting the new software version for the HD (which is the only box I have before starting on this project)
 
Yes, your no.1 point should always be followed. This how they have done it on the foxsat by just effectively replacing/adding to the busybox Linux install.

We should be able to do exactly the same thing, unrestrict tinyftp, and add in the tversity script.
I like how they are expanding on the system too by creating startup scripts etc without breaking or even affecting the core Humax firmware.

Hopefully further down the line, someone with come up with a tool to mod the actual firmware itself, but that just depends if a good bunch of hackers with T2s turn up ;-)

It really does help to read http://www.catshout.de/?p=1 as this gives a really big insight into Humax modding
 
Just a quick note to anyone following this thread, I've managed to extract the firmware from the 1.02.07 hdf file.
I think we are able to do the same as what's been done on the foxsat :)

I'll update when I've done some tests and checked a few more things over.
 
Presumably telnet or SSH access would be one of the first things to be implemented? Do we know if the box has Busybox loaded and it's just a case of telnet being disabled, or would Busybox need to be added?
 
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