# Enabling a backdoor on reboot



## TubaMan-Z (Apr 8, 2004)

A long time ago in a life far, far away I was a pretty decent programmer (before I went to the dark side and became a manager....). Now that I've had the pleasure of Zippering two of my DTivos (thanks again Gunny and Russ), I'd like to poke a little further. Specifically, I've come to appreciate the backdoor that enables the short program info (Thumbs up/down/up/7/8). This however gets reset (turned off) with the now scheduled reboot. I'm not specifically asking for details on HOW to do it, but rather a pointer (or appropriate Google search terms would be OK too  ) to info to read and educate myself. I've learned a bit from the enhancement script and various config files and now Linux (my background is DOS/Windows, but I've also worked with OS/2, AS/400, and AIX. Anyone guess where I work?) 

Thanks!


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## the new guy (Oct 29, 2004)

As far as I know, the only way to enable a backdoor code on reboot in 6.x is to modify tivoapp. Older versions could probably be done with a sendkey-type script called from the .author file, but that functionality is not present in the newer versions of the software. The permanent 30-second skip is a good example of a modified tivoapp backdoor code. 

There are probably some relevant threads buried in DDB somewhere... I am not sure what search terms will be the best ones to find them, though. 

Tim


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## austin61 (Jun 3, 2005)

TubaMan-Z said:


> (my background is DOS/Windows, but I've also worked with OS/2, AS/400, and AIX. Anyone guess where I work?)


I'd have to guess IBM in Rochester, MN.


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## rbautch (Feb 6, 2004)

TubaMan-Z said:


> A long time ago in a life far, far away I was a pretty decent programmer (before I went to the dark side and became a manager....). Now that I've had the pleasure of Zippering two of my DTivos (thanks again Gunny and Russ), I'd like to poke a little further. Specifically, I've come to appreciate the backdoor that enables the short program info (Thumbs up/down/up/7/8). This however gets reset (turned off) with the now scheduled reboot. I'm not specifically asking for details on HOW to do it, but rather a pointer (or appropriate Google search terms would be OK too  ) to info to read and educate myself. I've learned a bit from the enhancement script and various config files and now Linux (my background is DOS/Windows, but I've also worked with OS/2, AS/400, and AIX. Anyone guess where I work?)
> 
> Thanks!


If you don't have a phone line connected, you can also disable the reboots, if you choose. Edit the /enhancements/varhacks/spool/cron/crontabs/root file, and comment out the reboot commands.


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## starbiker99 (Feb 4, 2005)

Thanks Rbautch I only have one Tivo connected to the phone line as a server so I will stop my other 2 from rebooting twice weekly.


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## normr (Feb 16, 2007)

Is there somewhere I can send my Phillips DSR-708 to be modified so I can use the USB ports and and add some other features?


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## jporter12 (Mar 10, 2006)

normr said:


> Is there somewhere I can send my Phillips DSR-708 to be modified so I can use the USB ports and and add some other features?


Look around here, especially the zipper thread.


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