Developer Mode

The reMarkable Paper Pro requires the user to enable developer mode in order to make modifications to their device.

💡 This section is not relevant for the first two paper tablet generations (reMarkable 1 and 2).

Why do you need developer mode

By default, the reMarkable Paper Pro’s security features prevent modification of the boot chain and root file system. In order to be able to access the device using SSH, load a custom kernel or modify the contents of the root file system (which contains the operating system), developer mode must be enabled.

What is developer mode

Developer mode allows installing custom software on the reMarkable paper tablet.

For reMarkable Paper Pro secure boot is used to ensure that the bootloaders, kernel and root file system, which contains the operating system, have not been tampered with. Developer mode disables most parts of secure boot, but it does not disable disk encryption. The initial part of the boot chain prior to loading the kernel will still be protected in developer mode, in order to be able to disable developer mode again and revert the device to a secure state.

⚠️ If privacy and data protection are your highest priority, we recommend not enabling developer mode!

Since developer mode breaks the chain of trust enabled by secure boot and grants shell access, the security of the device and any data stored on the device is fundamentally weakened by enabling developer mode.

Enabling developer mode will cause a warning to be displayed on every boot, informing the user that developer mode is enabled. This warning can not be removed or modified, since it is part of the early boot process which is still protected by secure boot even while developer mode is enabled.

Once developer mode is enabled, it will stay enabled until it is disabled. To make sure that no data stored on the device can be extracted using developer mode, enabling developer mode also performs a factory reset. Thus, enabling developer mode means that data on the device at the time of enabling developer mode will be lost. Make sure to have your data synced to your reMarkable cloud account before enabling developer mode.

Developer mode enables SSH access to the device, granting you full access to modify the file system.

Enabling developer mode

On your reMarkable Paper Pro, open Settings then navigate:

General -> Paper Tablet -> Software -> Advanced -> Developer Mode

Using developer mode

After enabling developer mode, you will find the needed information to connect to your paper tablet in the help section. Open Settings then navigate:

General -> Help -> About -> Copyrights and Licenses.

Under “General Information” you should now see the username (root at the time of writing) and password (randomly generated) to use.

When connecting the tablet to your PC via a USB cable, an ethernet-over-usb connection will appear. You can use this to connect to the tablet over SSH:

ssh root@10.11.99.1

SSH over WiFi is disabled by default for security reasons. You may enable it using the rm-ssh-over-wlan utility. This utility sets a configuration flag on the home partition to allow SSH over Wifi. The utility can also be used to disable SSH over WiFi.

rm-ssh-over-wlan on

You can you modify files in the home partition /home on the device. In order to modify the operating system or applications (be careful!) you need to make the root partition writable (“read-write”). This change is not permanent across reboots. After rebooting the partition will be read-only again. Note that the rm-ssh-over-wlan utility does not require mounting the root partition as read-write, as it controls a setting which is stored on the home partition.

⚠️ WARNING! Making the root partition (/) writable means you can easily get into a state where the paper tablet does not start any more. Use with caution!

mount -o remount,rw /

There are also some other parts of the file system that are protected. To change /etc for example, you need to unmount the overlay file system:

umount -R /etc

Changes to /etc will now be persisted.

Disabling developer mode

To disable developer mode you must use the recovery application. Please see the recovery section for details.