Hardening The Moto One Macro

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Tags:guide security android
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The Motorola One Macro is a mid-range phone, with decent “openness” which allows basic hardening modification. The phone has the follow specifications:

This guide goes over unlocking the bootloader, flashing a GSI, flashing LineageOS, reflashing stock ROM, fixing bootloop problems, and news on TWRP for the Moto One Macro.

Moto’s Naming Schemes

Motorola has a weird naming scheme, but the following is a fair summary. XT2016 is the model name. XT2016-1 and XT2016-2 are two different models. To check for your own variant, go to Settings -> About phone -> Model & hardware. PMD named ROMs are older than QMD named ROMs. QMD30, 30 is the release version. Lima is the nickname for Moto One Macro. Software channel, from my understanding, is related to the source of system updates. I had trouble updating after flashing Android 10 directly, but flashing stock Android 9.0 solved the issue. I haven’t tested it thoroughly though. Updating from stock Android 9.0 to Android 10 is easily done from the settings.

Unlocking the Bootloader

Go to Motorola’s official website🔗, click next, create an account, plug your phone into your computer and run:

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fastboot oem get_unlock_data

This command will return five lines of data, concatenate the data returned after (bootloader) . Paste this string into the textbox on the site. You will be e-mailed with your unlocking code.

Finally, to unlock the phone:

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fastboot oem unlock [e-mailed code]
# run the previous command twice

Note: This formats ALL user-data and voids any warranty

Flashing Stock

Stock ROMs can be useful to reset and try any new updates Motorola bestows upon its users, or to use Google-based Apps. Usually, these ROMs are infested with Motorola & Metaverse software.

To get the stock ROM, navigate to motostockrom.com🔗, search for XT2016, select the correct model varient and choose your stock ROM to download.

Unzip the file, chmod the flashfile.bat, after examining the file. Plug your phone, and run the following commands:

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unzip $(moto_stock_rom_file).zip
cd $(moto_stock_rom_file)/Firmware/
vi flashfile.bat # examine the file, make sure it isn't doing something fishy
chmod +x flashfile.bat
./flashfile.bat

Note: This formats ALL user-data and voids any warranty

Flashing GSI

GSIs are generic images, where the Android system is updated seperate from proprietary vendor drivers. GSI can be AOSP, Google plagued, or LineageOS. This section talks about the treble GSIs🔗. The only treble GSI ROM I have tested is AOSP 10.0 v220🔗. Always choose arm64 A/B ROMs.

Download Google’s vbmeta🔗. After downloading the variant you want to flash, run the following commands:

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unxz $(system_iso).xz
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_b vbmeta.img
fastboot flash system_a $(system_iso)
fastboot flash system_b $(system_iso)
fastboot erase userdata

Note: This formats ALL user-data and voids any warranty

Flashing LineageOS

LineageOS being a customizable custom android ROM, is wanted by many. Unfortunately, one can only support as many Android devices until it is no longer feasable. GSIs try to deliver a user experience that attempts to solve this. LineageOS GSI ROMs tend to be very buggy, mainly because of issues with vendor bootloaders. LineageOS GSI is flashable to the One Macro, and does indeed work. Wi-Fi, SMS and Calls do work. I have not tested Bluetooth. The image we are going to flash is not official nor affiliated with LineageOS developers themselves.

Download Google’s vbmeta🔗. Navigate to Andy Yan’s files🔗. I have tested LineageOS 17. Pick the image with arm64 and A/B systems. Then run the following commands:

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unxz $(system_iso).xz
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_b vbmeta.img
fastboot flash system_a $(system_iso)
fastboot flash system_b $(system_iso)
fastboot erase userdata

Note: This formats ALL user-data and voids any warranty

Magisk

Generally, following Magisk’s official🔗 installation guide works out of the box. Note however after flashing phh’s treble GSIs, first Securize ROM by unrooting the device. Settings -> Phh Settings -> Securize

Common Problems

I have intentionally left out problems to this section due to its repetitiveness. This section includes solutions that are hacky but worked for me. Suprisingly, this phone never permanently soft-bricked.

Corrupted dm-verity

After flashing multiple times with different ROMs, you might recieve a dm-verity & memory is corrupt error or something similar. You might have also tried formatting user-data and flashing vbmeta as done before. This issue happened to me after I tried to downgrade to Android 10 stock ROM. Resolving this issue is as easy as relocking and unlocking the bootloader.

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fastboot oem lock
# run the previous command twice

Note: This formats ALL user-data and voids any warranty

Motorola Updates not Working

Contrary to what Motorola said, updates can still be delivered OTA even after unlocking the bootloader. I was able to upgrade from stock Android 9.0 to Android 10. Although I haven’t tested twice, downloading stock PMD29.70-81 should work with OTA updates.

Failed to Flash Bootloader

This section is not completely fledged out, but there are multiple methods that could be tried when you occur an error when flashing stock bootloader. Firstly, try with verity off, download Google’s vbmeta🔗:

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fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_b vbmeta.img
fastboot erase userdata

Note: This formats ALL user-data and voids any warranty

Secondly, you can try flashing Magisk’s patched bootloader. If you would like an un-rooted system, do not install Magisk’s Manager.

Thirdly, as a last resort, try relocking and unlocking the bootloader. Process mentioned in “Corrupted dm-verity” section.

TWRP

TWRP🔗 is an amazing bootloader. Control and customizability is a hallmark pillar of TWRP. I personally tried working on building a TWRP recovery for the One Macro. I got a basic working demo. Unfortunately, could not get any drivers to work properly. This issue could be blamed on Motorola. Their drivers aren’t open-source. There might be a solution of getting blobs, although I found non.

The current Git repositories that are trying to develop a recovery:

If you know any more, feel free to send me an email! me@ayham.xyz

Conclusion

This article was titled “Hardening the One Macro” for a reason. A first step towards hardening your mobile phone is unlocking the bootloader. And although this guide shows how to flash stock ROMs, these are only for pragmatic reasons. I encourage you to flash your Moto One Macro with a treble FOSS build.