Android Debug Bridge (adb) device - no permissions [duplicate]

Question

I just had this problem myself under Debian Wheezy. I restarted the adb daemon with sudo:

sudo ./adb kill-server
sudo ./adb start-server
sudo ./adb devices

Everything is working :)

The cause of that problem has to do with system permissions (thanks @ IsaacCisneros for this suggestion). Somehow HTC Wildfire (and maybe the others) need something more from the system than Samsung devices. Simple solution is to run Eclipse as a root, but this is not very comfortable with non-sudo Linux systems like Fedora.

I've found another way of achieving the same goal, which seems to be more user friendly and is lesser security hole then running entire IDE with super user privileges. Mind this is still only a workaround of the problem. System root usage should be minimalized only to administrative tasks, and “adb” was designed to work with normal user account without SUID. Despite of the fact that the proper setting of SUID is quite secure, every single permission increase is a potential system security hole.

1.Setting ownership of the adb binary (owner – root, owner group - user_group):

chown root:user_group adb

2.Setting permissions with SUID:

chmod 4550 adb

This should result something similar to this (ls -llh):

-r-sr-x---. 1 root user_name 1.2M Jan 8 11:42 adb

After that you will be able to run adb as a root, event though you'll be using your normal user account. You can run Eclipse as a normal user and your HTC should be discovered properly.

./adb devices 
List of devices attached 
HT0BPPY15230    device 

I have a similar problem:

$ adb devices
List of devices attached 
4df15d6e02a55f15    device
????????????    no permissions

Investigation

If I run lsusb, I can see which devices I have connected, and where:

$ lsusb
...
Bus 002 Device 050: ID 04e8:6860 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone ...
Bus 002 Device 049: ID 18d1:4e42 Google Inc. 

This is showing my Samsung Galaxy S3 and my Nexus 7 (2012) connected.

Checking the permissions on those:

$ ls -l /dev/bus/usb/002/{049,050}
crw-rw-r--  1 root root    189, 176 Oct 10 10:09 /dev/bus/usb/002/049
crw-rw-r--+ 1 root plugdev 189, 177 Oct 10 10:12 /dev/bus/usb/002/050

Wait. What? Where did that "plugdev" group come from?

$ cd /lib/udev/rules.d/
$ grep -R "6860.*plugdev" .
./40-libgphoto2-2.rules:ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6860", \
  ENV{ID_GPHOTO2}="1", ENV{GPHOTO2_DRIVER}="proprietary", \
  ENV{ID_MEDIA_PLAYER}="1", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
./40-libgphoto2-2.rules:ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6860", \
  ENV{ID_GPHOTO2}="1", ENV{GPHOTO2_DRIVER}="proprietary", \
  ENV{ID_MEDIA_PLAYER}="1", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

(I've wrapped those lines)

Note the GROUP="plugdev" lines. Also note that this doesn't work for the other device ID:

$ grep -Ri "4e42.*plugdev" .

(nothing is returned)

Fixing it

OK. So what's the fix?

Add a rule

Create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-adb.rules containing the following line:

ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e42", ENV{ID_GPHOTO2}="1",
  ENV{GPHOTO2_DRIVER}="proprietary", ENV{ID_MEDIA_PLAYER}="1",
  MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

This should be a single line, I've wrapped it here for readability

Restart udev

$ sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
$ sudo service udev restart

That's it

Unplug/replug your device.

Try it

$ adb devices
List of devices attached 
4df15d6e02a55f15    device
015d2109ce67fa0c    device

You udev rule seems wrong. I used this and it worked:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

(ATTR instead of SYSFS)

under ubuntu 12.04, eclipse juno. I face the same issue. This what I found on Yi Yu Blog

The solution is same as same as Leon

sudo -s
adb kill-server
adb start-server
adb devices

Changing the USB Mode from phone did the trick for me. (I set it to File Transfer)

Stephan's answer works (using sudo adb kill-server), but it is temporary. It must be re-issued after every reboot.

For a permanent solution, the udev config must be modified:

Witrant's answer is the right idea (copied from the official Android documentation). But it's just a template. If that doesn't work for your device, you need to fill in the correct device ID for your device(s).

lsusb

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05c6:9025 Qualcomm, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0e0f:0003 VMware, Inc. Virtual Mouse
...

Find your android device in the list.

Then use the first half of the ID (4 digits) for the idVendor (the last half is the idProduct, but it is not necessary to get adb working).

sudo vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules and add one rule for each unique idVendor:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="05c6", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

It's that simple. You don't need all those other fields given in some of the answers. Save the file.

Then reboot. The change is permanent. (Roger shows a way to restart udev, if you don't want to reboot).