[Magisk] topjohnwu:
2017.6.8 [BETA] Magisk v13.0

Due to the fact that this release is nearly completely rewritten from scratch compared to the last release, I decided that it will be a better idea to release it as a beta, since many things might not work properly due to the massive changes.

On the other hand, many previous bugs might be fixed due to complete different structure.

Unified Binary

As I previously mentioned in an update post, this release comes with the unified Magisk binary. The binary itself can be used as resetprop, su, magiskpolicy, magiskhide. Along with this change is that all operations are running in the same "unified daemon", including all boot operations, selinux live patches, magic mount etc. Even though this only covers one line in the changelog, it actually takes a lot of effort to redesign a lot of details.

Magisk only requires a single binary (magisk) to be injected into /sbin, an rc script defining all entrypoints, sepolicy minimally patched in order to start magisk daemon to fully work on a device. The ext4 image creation, resize, merging etc. are all handled automatically by the daemon.

Magisk Manual Injection

Due to many changes in this release, it is possible to patch a boot image on the Android device without root.

The only requirement is the boot image itself (it is not possible to dump the boot image from the device without root, you will need the boot image from somewhere else), the ability to flash a boot image (most likely an unlocked bootloader), and a few adb commands.

This doesn't seem like a big deal, but for devices with no custom recovery, this will be a good way to start rooting and do further modification on your device (flashing zips through FlashFire, adding modules by Magisk Manager etc.)

I will post the simple instructions soon, and this boot patch without root feature is planned to be added into Magisk Manager in the future.

MagiskSU Massive Improvements

I spent some time to improve the included root a lot. Added multiuser support, added re-authentication support, and tons of bug fixes.

Another point worth mentioning is the new timeout queue for root requests. In this release, root requests from the same requester will use a cached policy and suppress logging if called within 2-3 seconds. This will prevent heavy performance hit from poorly programmed root applications, which calls su for excessive amount of times within a few seconds.

(Addition in 2017.6.9)

New namespace mode options are added in build (0b4baad). In versions before this build, all root sessions run in the same global namespace. Starting from this build, the default mode will inherit the requester's namespace, so an application will internally share the namespace for both privileged and unprivileged processes, but do not share across different applications. Users can choose to use the global namespace, or opt in a stricter "isolated mode", which each root session will have its own separated, isolated namespace.

Temporarily Dropping SuperSU Compatibility

This is not a move against SuperSU. In previous versions, in order to support merging Magisk modifications into SuperSU without breaking stuffs requires TONS of handling in the scripts, and I don't think supporting an already patched boot image worth the effort. I plan to release a su.d Magisk alternative for SuperSU users who wants to use resetprop and magic mount features.

Documentations, module template updates, manual injection instructions will be updated in the few days.