Allow user to access wifi settings without giving free reign - android

We are developing a locked down "kiosk-style" Android app on a stock Samsung tablet, which is mounted in customer vehicles. We would like to be able to allow customers to edit their wifi settings, without giving them access to the rest of the Settings app (e.g. Launcher, accounts, etc)
We have been able to launch the Wifi Settings activity, but it allows the user to go into other areas.
I'm not sure whether it's possible to create a custom interface for connecting to wifi, but even if it were possible, this seems fragile and a lot of work for something quite simple.
Is there any way to solve this well?

I would create a device policy controller app that is provisioned on the device as a device owner using Android Enterprise (Android for Work) APIs.
https://developers.google.com/android/work/dpc/build-dpc
As a device owner, you can set your app in lock task mode which is generally used for kiosks.
https://developer.android.com/work/cosu.html
Then, you can set user restrictions:
addUserRestriction api
user restrictions list
The user restrictions don't cover everything in the settings app, but the coverage is pretty good.
Then I would provision it using NFC or QR code reader from the Google Setup Wizard welcome screen.
https://github.com/googlesamples/android-NfcProvisioning
You might want to also look at existing open source EMM/MDM implementations that already exist such as WSO2.
Other references:
How to enable task locking in Android 5.0 production devices
How to make sure there is only one app

I was also working on Kiosk Type applications and we have to give options for Change wifi and Display Settings So we have used these commands on Button click for Wifi And Display
Settings
btnWifiSetting.setOnClickListener {
startActivityForResult( Intent(android.provider.Settings.ACTION_WIFI_SETTINGS), 0);
}
And For Display Setting
btnDisplay.setOnClickListener {
startActivityForResult(Intent(android.provider.Settings.ACTION_DISPLAY_SETTINGS),0)
}
And you can also check the full list of Available Commands here
https://ourcodeworld.com/articles/read/318/how-to-open-android-settings-programmatically-with-java

try LineAgeOS
https://lineageos.org/
Your requirement needs to access OS System level, this way you have access and customize the WIFI settings before releasing the phone itself

can you try this way.
WifiManager wifiManager = (WifiManager) getApplicationContext().getSystemService(Context.WIFI_SERVICE);
if (wifiManager.isWifiEnabled()) {
wifiManager.setWifiEnabled(false);
Tools_WiFi.setImageResource(R.drawable.tool_wifi_off);
} else {
wifiManager.setWifiEnabled(true);
Tools_WiFi.setImageResource(R.drawable.tool_wifi_on);
}

You can try this:
startActivityForResult(new Intent(Settings.ACTION_WIFI_SETTINGS), 0);
Hope it helps you.

Related

Detect if an always-on VPN is configured on Android

I have an Android VPN application. When I fire the intent to start the VPN (via VPNService.prepare), it fails immediately if there's an always-on VPN already configured on the device. That seems reasonable, but I'd like to be able to easily detect that case, so I can show a helpful message to the user.
By 'always on' I mean the specific VPN always-on Android VPN flag: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/vpn#always-on
I can't seem to find a way to access that info, even though it is used internally in Android (e.g. here but that getAlwaysOnVpnPackage doesn't seem to be available publicly AFAICT).
The best option I've seen is Check if a VPN connection is active in Android?, which will tell you if any VPN connection is currently active, but that's not enough, because:
I don't want to know about temporary VPN connections: I'm only interested if it's an always-on VPN connection.
Sometimes 'always-on' connections aren't actually always on. If you have a disconnected connection and set it as 'always-on', it's configured as such, and blocks all other VPN installs, but there's no network connection created (Android shows a persistent warning instead, which takes you to the other app to activate the connection). Because there's no connection, the above technique doesn't work. I still need to detect this case, since it still blocks my VPN setup.
Is there any way to check whether the device currently has a VPN configured as 'always-on'?
You can use this method
private fun isVpnAlwaysOn(): Boolean {
return if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP_MR1) {
val alwaysOn = Settings.Secure.getString(contentResolver, "always_on_vpn_app")
return !alwaysOn.isNullOrEmpty()
} else false
}
'alwaysOn' contains the package name of the app for which always-on is configured.
In the end, it seems this isn't possible on a normal device any way that I can find. I think is possible if you're a device admin, but that requires managed enterprise devices etc.
For now, I've handled this by watching for near-instant (less than 200ms) VPN setup failures (between running startActivityForResult(vpnIntent) and receiving onActivityResult with RESULT_CANCELED) and then showing a helpful message in that case.
Full implementation is in https://github.com/httptoolkit/httptoolkit-android/commit/928fbf92a4f868042789471be0d42800a226194b in case you're trying to do the same.

How to prevent users from turning off GPS, Wifi and Bluetooth?

I'm developing a tracking application and I need to prevent users from turning off the basic sensors used to determine the location. I can not modify the devices ROM or have root access (or at least it would be very desirable to had not), but I thought of using the Device Administration API to perform these functions through the Profile Owner or Device Owner modes. I'm basically looking for a method to block these functions in Android settings.
I'm unsure about whether this is possible and how to do it, I have not found examples in GitHub for applications that have implemented this. Could anyone give me a light, some example or specific documentation?
I tried to follow these three documentations, without success in finding a solution to this specific feature:
https://source.android.com/devices/tech/admin
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/admin/device-admin
https://developers.google.com/android/management/introduction
This is an excerpt from what I've been trying:
setUserRestriction(UserManager.DISALLOW_CONFIG_WIFI, true);
setUserRestriction(UserManager.DISALLOW_CONFIG_MOBILE_NETWORKS, active);
setUserRestriction(UserManager.DISALLOW_CONFIG_BLUETOOTH, active);
private void setUserRestriction(String restriction, boolean disallow){
if (disallow) {
mDevicePolicyManager.addUserRestriction(mAdminComponentName, restriction);
} else {
mDevicePolicyManager.clearUserRestriction(mAdminComponentName,
restriction);
}
}
DISALLOW_CONFIG_BLUETOOTH
Added in API level 18
public static final String DISALLOW_CONFIG_BLUETOOTH
Specifies if a user is disallowed from configuring bluetooth. This does not restrict the user from turning bluetooth on or off. The default value is false.
This restriction doesn't prevent the user from using bluetooth. For disallowing usage of bluetooth completely on the device, use DISALLOW_BLUETOOTH.
This restriction has no effect in a managed profile.
Key for user restrictions.
Type: Boolean
You cannot prevent them from turning GPS, WIFI and Bluetooth off. What you can do is have an implementation as below or use this library.
https://github.com/KI-labs/gps-permission-checks-livedata
You can't, obviously for security reasons. If you want to achive something like that you'll probably need to modify the devices ROM. You should create a BroadcastReceiver and keep tracking Internet and Bluetooth connection changes, than you can properly handle it when user disconnect them pausing the service, showing a dialog, finishing the application or whatever you need to do.
It would be pretty weird if an app could have some control of user settings, imagine if you install an app, then suddently you can't disable wi-fi anymore until you unistall it. You can't do that for a good reason
Preventing bluetooth/wifi disconnection will also prevent usage of aircraft mode, that is a security issue bounded in the ROM and not overridable.
As suggested above your option is to monitor for wifi/bluetooth/gps deactivations and prompt the user with an alert.
By the way, GPS is not affected by aircraft mode, as it's a pure receiver and doesn't make active transmissions. In that case GPS will be always active and collecting informations (if active and the phone is not in power save mode, aka relying on wifi location). I suggest you to check if the user activated aircraft mode, in order to be less annoying with your alerts (air mode is mandatory in same situations, and should be considered "legal" by your application, and maybe less critical than an user voluntary disconnection
In simple words, You cannot, but you can listen to when wifi is enabled/connected, and you can prompt a dialog stating the reason.
This way it gives the user a more concise grip on what needs to be done.
Just a suggestion

Not able to understand WIFI_DEVICE_OWNER_CONFIGS_LOCKDOWN functionality

Not able to understand WIFI_DEVICE_OWNER_CONFIGS_LOCKDOWN, which is introduced in Android M. .However the definition in android developer site is very ambiguous.Please anyone clarify about this varible
WIFI_DEVICE_OWNER_CONFIGS_LOCKDOWN - is the defined user wifi configuration state (true means its locked, false means its changeable).
from android documentation :
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings.Global.html
This setting controls whether WiFi configurations created by a Device
Owner app should be locked down (that is, be editable or removable
only by the Device Owner App, not even by Settings app).
since Marshmallow this configurations have been changed and now are accessible only if you produce your own configuration per application using specific API's.
please refer to Android 6.0 Changes.
https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/android-6.0-changes.html
Your apps can now change the state of WifiConfiguration objects only
if you created these objects. You are not permitted to modify or
delete WifiConfiguration objects created by the user or by other apps.
hope it clarifies a bit.

Setup Wi-Fi from an Android app

Android app which i am developing has some modes like:
Kiosk Mode
Normal Mode
Semi-Kiosk Mode
Now my question is while my app is running in a Kiosk mode it will blocks all the other apps to open/make himself on the top. So user is unable to go to the settings screen.
I want a way to provide a Wi-Fi settings within my app so that user can do:
Search for the Wi-Fi nearby
Select and provide the password
Can see which Wi-Fi node is connected
Any help will be appreciated.
I know this is a bit old, but just in case it saves someone a little bit of research in the future this is a solution that I came up with for a similar use case.
Just use the activity that Android provides for managing wifi (without the user seeing the rest of the settings) by manually assembling an intent like so:
Intent intent = new Intent("com.android.net.wifi.SETUP_WIFI_NETWORK");
intent.setComponent(ComponentName.unflattenFromString("com.android.settings/com.android.settings.wifi.WifiSetupActivity"));
intent.addCategory("android.intent.category.DEFAULT");
startActivity(intent);

Enable Wifi Programatically or via Activity?

Is it considered best practice or more acceptable or, for any other reason, preferable, to initialise WiFI on an Android device via a programmatic approach:
WifiManager oWiFIMgr = (WifiManager) getApplicationContext().getSystemService(Context.WIFI_SERVICE);
oWiFIMgr .setWifiEnabled(true);
vs. launching the WiFI settings activity?
startActivity(new Intent(Settings.ACTION_WIFI_SETTINGS));
I guess it depends on the purpose of your app.
If you are going to create a home screen widget like wifi toggle or something similar, the user would be pleased if just touching the widget turns On the wifi, but if its some app that just require the wifi access to do certain task, it would be better to open the wifi page allowing the user to take his own choice.
What really matters is you should design your app in such a way that once the purpose of wifi is done, it should be turned off again.
PS: No matter which choice you make in your app design the permissions of that app is going to be displayed during the installation.
So just keep in mind for the user friendliness of your app and its performance.
In Android Q (Android 10) you can't enable/disable wifi programmatically anymore. So you don't have a choice, you need to use Settings Panel to toggle wifi connectivity:
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.Q) {
val panelIntent = Intent(Settings.Panel.ACTION_INTERNET_CONNECTIVITY)
startActivityForResult(panelIntent, 0)
}
Always let user take those kind of decisions, enable WiFi, GPS .. stuff like that .. new Google maps app does that .. i think it's best ..

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