Wii U kiosk and the mystery ubuntu silver box - I have access to the files, demos, client updates, i
I recently picked up a Wii U kiosk, and I apoligize if I missed this info but Im trying to solve 2 mysteries with it. Paid about $150 CAD total for everything (the kiosk was free, this was the cost of the truck rental and expenses), and it came with the demo unit and TV. It`s totally complete, minus one side led and one back white poster bar, also included the acrylic which isnt in the pics as its being cleaned and a black back poster.
Now on to where I need some info. Ive been searching in the forums and on google trying to figure out the error message Im getting when trying to load 3 of the demos. Ive posted a pic for reference. In addition there is a silver box that has a ton of usb inputs, and is basically like a computer. When hooked up it shows the ubuntu screen in the pics as well. From all I can research this was used initally to show videos, I was hoping someone had more insight or how to unlock it to be used. Is this silver box rare, is it a total paperweight or can it be salvaged for historical purposes. Is it just some random trash the guy had in there, id really love some help.
Now on to where I need some info. Ive been searching in the forums and on google trying to figure out the error message Im getting when trying to load 3 of the demos. Ive posted a pic for reference. In addition there is a silver box that has a ton of usb inputs, and is basically like a computer. When hooked up it shows the ubuntu screen in the pics as well. From all I can research this was used initally to show videos, I was hoping someone had more insight or how to unlock it to be used. Is this silver box rare, is it a total paperweight or can it be salvaged for historical purposes. Is it just some random trash the guy had in there, id really love some help.
Comments
I don't really know a lot about the errors. Perhaps its just corrupted data and it needs to be reinstalled using the demo discs that were given to these stores.
This kiosk seems to be an older version as it doesn`t seem to have any of the fancy artwork Ive seen on others that are more recent. It was taken out of a Future Shop here in Canada shortly after the Wii U released when they were closing down. From some older posts Ive read on other forums people have pictures of this screen in Ebgames when the kiosk first came out and there were claims the intial demo units were dummies, the original videos shown when the kiosks first came out ran off ubuntu so Nintendo didnt have to pay microsoft to use windows to show videos. That leads me to speculate this might be a box that was never removed when the working demo unit was installed (my unit is fully functional). I was hoping someone found a similar one and had more knowledge, the loose usb and hdmi cables with the other pics Ive seen seem to rule out its random junk the previous guy left in it.
http://wiiubrew.org/wiki/Kiosks
Freaking awesome deal at $150!!!
It's definitely SATA after googling the model number. Standard 2.5" SATA drive, USB adapters can be had for $10 or so. You'd want a more proper caddy or dock if you plan to do more than just poke around with it. But a loose adapter is probably good enough for a quick analysis. If it's formatted as EXT3/4, ZFS, etc., you'll need to mount it within a linux distribution.
Im not super computer literate, how would I go about that. I dabbled in clonezilla this afternoon and go paranoid about messing my comp up while in the program.
This is the kind of stuff I could find when I searched online about what the box is and what might be on it:
http://www.cubed3.com/news/17568/1/rumour-wii-u-demo-booths-running-ubuntu.html
Here is what the box actually is
https://www.viatech.com/en/systems/industrial-fanless-pcs/amos-3002/
It pretty much confirms that this box appears to be what ran the kiosk the weeks leading up to the wii u release, when they didnt want the actual unit getting stolen and leaked. I just wish I had the usb key, is it specific to each unit or generic, as that would make this a whole lot easier. If anyone lives near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and has the skills to dig into whats on this shoot me a message.
UPDATE: Made a boot usb stick, and this new screen pops up after reading the stick before it goes to the ubuntu screen again.
If the machine has an encrypted drive, mounting the drive from a USB live OS won't do much because you'll still need the password to unlock the drive.
Personally, I'd boot the machine and attempt to get to grub by interrupting the boot process (use a keyboard to do this). From there you can boot into the kernel and bypass the need for a root login... and from there you can edit the shadow file if you want (shadow contains the root password hash, so you can reset it to nothing which would give you total control over the machine...be VERY careful when editing the shadow file), or you can simply list the directories and find out what's on the machine. Resetting the shadow would probably allow you to bypass the need for that USB key, and then you'll always have full access/you can lock the box (computer) with a new password or do whatever you'd like.
There are tutorials online that can help you do everything I just mentioned, just takes a bit of googling. Read, read, and read some more... and then read even more lol...
Forgive me if anyone else has covered any of this or if you've gotten to a point beyond what I'd mentioned. I read the OP and just thought I'd toss my 2 cents in the ring.
Best of luck, let me know if I can help.
edit: I read more of the post. If the console is tenchnically hacked/ is a computer rather than a real console like you mentioned, or using some type of of sanity/password check to unlock the box then do NOT edit the root password in the shadow file... it may brick... If you do decide to go the route of editing the shadow file, copy down the hash so that you can at least restore it from the kernel at a later time.
Good job.
1) First command you're going to want to put in is "whoami"
Hit enter and record the results. This may tell you something about the user. If you are in fact not root, you can check your privilege level by seeing step 3 here, but first, let's find out exactly where you are in the computer:
2) Next, enter "pwd" and hit enter. This stands for "print working directory". This will tell you exactly where you are in the computer. Record this result also.
3) After that I'd type the following command: "sudo su"
This is the super user command. If the command executes, you'll have full control over the computer. It may ask you for a password, in which case, if you don't know it, you will not be given super user privileges. But... you will know where you stand as a user...
You'll be able to glean 3 things from this:
1)your privilege level
2) where you are exactly in the box
3) whether you are truly root, or whether you are simply a user with/without Super User privileges
There are two commands to be aware of now going forward to glean the information you want:
"cd" - change directory - will allow you to change into a new directory. Will also put you into the parent directory of the current directory if only "cd" is used.. for now let's avoid moving around until we know where you are. We will skip this command for now.
"ls" - list - will allow you to list all files in your current directory.
You may also want to run the “w” command... just to see if any other users are technically logged in... just thought of that...
Record the results and get back to me
1) you're in the home directory
2) you are not root
3) you do have a password that (Might) attain super user privileges on the machine.... IF we can find the password haha.
So next question: do you have any idea what the password could be, or where it may be stored?
Would contacting the previous owner possibly be any help?
A quick note: Ubuntu Desktop/Ubuntu Server/Ubuntu Core can all be used to build a kiosk machine.
Let's find out what version of the software we are running:
Type the following commands and record all of their outputs.
uname
(Press enter)
uname -r
(Press enter)
cat /etc/os-release
(Press enter)
^ the IT guys are gunna shred me for having you run all of these commands when we can glean most of what we need from a single command... butttt... I'm using so many to reduce correspondence redundancy (we have no idea which version of Ubuntu this is just yet
Get back to me with results:
2 answers:
1) can we possibly locate the password?
2) what are the outputs from the commands I've asked you to run.
1) this appears to be a kiosk setup that went out just prior to release
2) many people who own this kiosk have never seen the silver box
3) the CD port is blocked...
If this silver box was in fact used to run updates on the console, it would make perfect sense, and here's why very simply:
It's be a LOT harder to swipe a full computer from the kiosk and copy down a locked version of Ubuntu to a new hard drive ... and then turn it into a usable system (pass the hash type hacks may work against the shadow file, but there's no telling what's in that console unless you break it open and check the circuitry... maybe the console/silver box acts as some sort of double gatekeeper so that the units cannot be stolen/abused).
^i references the possibility of this in my prior post without going into a heavy level of detail... and if my above point is correct, it would be VERY cool and worthwhile to the historical aspect of data preservation to simply clone this harddrive and have it preserved for years to come. (Although I will say one thing about preservation... it would behoove ANYONE who makes copies of data to make sure they're written to solid state media, vs optical. Example: if you preserved a poem you wrote on a CD, 300 yrs from now, you can try all you want... that CD probably won't load as optical media degrades with time to an un-functioning state. Solid state media, and usb drives may degrade over time, but here's the difference.... if a usb drive degrades... you may not be able to write more data to the usb... but you will ALWAYS be able to read from what is on that usb).
* keep this in mind ALWAYS when preserving data.. CDs are no gos for me
again my 2 cents... and sorry for double posting...
Serial port
USB (data in, data out, power in, power out... that's why there's 4 little metallic tabs on every usb)
Etc..
There could be a number of ways it happened for the guys who ran maintenance on these machines, and the only way to know would be to crack both of them open and put them side by side.
Now onto your questions about copying down the hard drive:
If the hard drive can be removed from the silver box, you can check the connection ports (it's a SATA drive from 2012 with 320GB of space), and buy an adapter on amazon to get it hooked up to, and mounted to another machine.
If this is the route you want to go:
I'd actually recommend getting a raspberry pi with raspbian installed on it.
Hookup the silver box drive to the raspberry pi.
Hookup a blank EXT formatted drive of the same volume to the same raspberry pi.
Mount the silver box drive
Mount the newly formatted blank drive
Use gparted on the raspberry pi (a partition editing program, built into raspbian OS) to copy down the exact partitions of the silver drive into the blank one.
Once you have a direct copy, you can unmount the silver box drive and know that it is safe.
Now you'll have a copy of the drive on that blank one you hooked up... and you'll be able to poke and prove effectively without worrying over erasing a potentially early/prototype piece of equipment for that console.
There are MANY tutorials online to doing what I just stated you can do.
The process will be tedious but absolutely possible.
I'll keep helping as I can
We have some good news! It's unlikely that the silver hard drive was wiped and rewritten for on reason:
The cat /etc/os-release command failed. This command would only work in newer versions of Ubuntu... which is why I asked you to record the result.
Try the following command and tell me the output:
lsb_release -a
Update: found some possibly interesting stuff. Found folders that look interesting, demos, firware and client updates, demos and they have sizeable files in them, also found an .xml file that appears to order the files on the console.
2nd, that's great, you're running Ubuntu 10.xx. Now we know what we are dealing with, and the release date for that OS corresponds with the timeframe (somewhat) of the hard drive.
Have you discovered any useful files or demo type files that you can identify after poking around?
Best of luck OP! Hope you bring it back to life.
This kiosk may be a CAT-R unit??(I really don't know for sure).
Maybe this thread can help you get in touch with someone who can help!:
https://assemblergames.com/threads/wii-u-dev-unit.58951/