I want to create a app where the user can factory reset its device. I already know that its done with the DevicePolicyManager. After the wipe, Google docs say, a reboot happens.
Calling from the primary user will cause the device to reboot, erasing all device data - including all the secondary users and their data - while booting up.
Now my question is: After reboot is it possible to avoid the set up guide of the Android System or is it even possible to still execute some code to do it for the user?
Not unless this is a personal device where you can override the default factory image. You just reset the device- even if you could set a flag somewhere to skip it, resetting the device would erase the flag.
Now if this is a personal device and you overwrite the recovery image you can use a recovery image that's already past that point. But not on a generic app.
Related
I'm looking for an Apk or something that will stop the user from resetting the device from settings app
in factory rest options.
I think that it can work that when a user goes into factory reset options it should close the settings app . ("this is a plus" unless you have some sort of password or something like it )
I have a filter on the device and if you do a reset it will go away
will making it a system app help (Ill probably have to root it)
I am making an android app. In this app I am trying to save my app from destroying on reboot or factory reset. can anyone help me out?
Apps won't get deleted if you reboot the device. About the second part(factory reset), the whole point of a factory reset is that everything on the phone will be deleted and restored to factory settings. If you want to keep your app even after that you'd have to install your own OS with the app installed as a part of it.
Also, if a reboot is somehow "destroying the app", something is very wrong with the app and you need to find out what it is.
Assuming you mean by "Save my app" that the app .apk should be still present and installed, thats impossible for a factory reset, like the name suggest its a reset.
If you want to save the settings of the app prior to rebooting, you can do that with a background service, which can be also called when the phone finishes the reboot.
I'm working on an Anti-Theft app. Supposing that my phone is stolen, the first thing a thief will do is factory reset it, what means all apps and data will be lost.
I can convert my app to a System App and it will probably "survive" a hard reset but its data will be lost. Is there a way to keep the app and its data after a reset?
If it's not possible to keep its data, I thought I could store its settings in a file, but it would be erased too. Is there also a way to keep a file after a reset?
Edit: I don't want its data. I want its data not be erased after a factory reset cause erasing its data means erasing all user settings. Since I'm developing an anti-theft app, if a thief resets it, the app should keep its data (user data like a email and phone number) to contact the owner even after a reset made by the thief...
Why do you want a copy of the data after it's stolen (????). May be you have a use case. Anyways, if you are basing your app on API level 23 and above, you can have a look at this - https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/autobackup.html
This kind of automatically does what you wanted to achieve.The backed up data is on Google drive of the user account but it's of no use unless restored. Funny thing is, the autobackup feature would actually restore this data after the app is installed again (and the same user has logged in).
This will not really help if you don't have the phone (i mean if it's stolen :)). But if you want to persist app data across app uninstalls and factory reset, autobackup would do the trick for you (available only on API level 23 and above)
It is possible to recover data once a mobile is factory reset or so was uncovered by some Cambridge University researchers in the paper titled Security Analysis of Android Factory Resets published in 2015. I haven't had much time to go through it, but it looks promising.
It seems they did manage to get master tokens even after factory reset by utilizing some flaw in android system where the composition of flash drives make them dangerously hard to erase. Seems something you can experiment with depending on the usage. Do go through it once.
I have a request on developing enterprice tracking application. The application should be able to get current postion of the phone and send it to server every 5 minutes. Even if application is running on background - user can easily shut it down. I need to create some sort of restriction for that, maybe password based. In order to shut down this application user must enter a password. And if he is rebooting, application should autorun after rebooting.
Is it possible to do this?
No it is not!
But... I know a trick that can do the work, it's name is AlarmManager
You can set alarm for your application that will alert every 1 sec, and if the application been shut down it will rebuild it self.
At this point you can set a password to shut down the alarmManager.
But just to let you know, I been trying this once, Google told me nothing, but users left me a comment that the application is hacking they device ;)
From ICS onwards, any app implementing Device Administration cannot be stopped. But the only drawback is the user can remove the Devvice Administrator.
You could restrict your app to work only when Administrator is On.
One more way is if the user removes the administrator you can lock the whole device with a custom password using resetpassword.
If the devices were rooted you could implement that but you probbaly wouldn't be able to distribute the app as an APK due to the required modification of system files. Maybe as a Zip that is flashed via Clockwork mod. Beware of voiding the devices' warranty though.
Babibu's suggestion regarding Alarms is a novel approach, but be cautious of waking the system constantly as that will drain the battery much faster.
Actually a big problem you'll face is that the user can disable GPS and then you can't programatically turn it back on again - unless you try to use an exploit which is obviously not ideal and won't work on all devices.
A better idea might simply be to report to your server whenever the user disables the application or GPS. You'll know which user disabled it so your organisation can punish that user appropriately.
What you are looking for is Device Administration
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/admin/device-admin.html
This page explains how it works and how you can change all sort of policies about passwords and disable camera.. et cetera
What they barely talk about is as soon as an application is enabled as device administrator you can't kill it or uninstall it without disabling this feature first. It's up to you to implement enable/disable buttons the proper way.
To be sure the service always restart even if killed by system (in low ressources cases) you need to override this method of your Service :
public int onStartCommand (Intent intent, int flags, int startId)
{
return START_STICKY;
}
Finally to make your service start at boot you need to catch ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast.
The main issue is you can't prevent user from disabling GPS or using mock locations but you can detect it and log it.
It is a good practice (actually it is mandatory in my country) to notice users they are watched so you can explain them at the same time that you'll know if they mess up with the GPS.
Rooting the phone is another solution but you will likely open more doors than you close ;)
Does anyone know if there's a way to either keep the user from uninstalling an app from an Android phone or reinstall it on removal? Before you flame me, please know that I have an app that's intended to be installed on the phone by a parent/employer/etc. and has a password-protected settings screen; the user would need to enter the password to remove the app.
What if you have it send an email alert to a registered email address on uninstall?
On the topic of email notification when your service is uninstalled--
A lot of security software runs multiple processes which monitor each other, so that it's more difficult to shut the system down. You could do something similar with two services installed, each monitoring to see if the other is installed. If something goes wrong, they can send off the e-mail.
Not without modifying the kernel, or reducing the user priviledges on the device. Think of it as a Linux computer, where the cell phone user has root.
Can you prevent them from removing your app? No.
But you can make it painful and difficult enough that it's not worth it, and include alerts that indicate it has been removed.
First, I would modify the software so it requests and successfully answers a cryptographic challenge/response periodically from a remote server - daily should be enough, and wouldn't impact battery use. This way your server knows when it has been disabled (could be sold as an additional $10/yr service charge) and you can alert the purchaser.
Second, I would tie the software into the system at the driver level so that removal also removes text services. There are drivers or services that the texting application uses that could be replaced with your custom versions, and on removal would render the texting app useless. Chances are good that you already tie into the system in a similar way to block the texting app (and other apps) while traveling too fast.
Third, I would consider installing a monitoring program that runs as a separate process (check out how the latest viruses operate for clues). It would check to make sure that not only is the app still running, but it's running the latest version, and there isn't a GPS simulator or other program that prevents your app from getting correct GPS data.
I'm curious how you differentiate between the driver texting and a friend in the passenger seat texting on the driver's cell, though.
-Adam
Well, solution would be to mount /system/apps/ to be writable and put your app there once.
When you restart the phone it would automaticly install it and prevent a user from uninstalling (as every app in that folder, list it to see it). That's how mobile providers force user to have they app.
However, user could always delete this app by rooting + mounting /system/app/ to writable and then to delete. But "normal parents" can't do that :)
Regards
P.S. This question is two years old, I've notice it just now... :S
I'd highly doubt that's possible. The permission structure of Android is going to give the user full control over what's happening on their phone (to some degree) and not being able to uninstall an app would be a pretty large security risk.
If you modified the Android core, it would probably be possible, but if you're trying to force something onto an end-user, that's a bad idea.
Maybe there's a better approach to what you're doing? If there's some required functionality in the app to keep the user from uninstalling it, that would be a small incentive to keep the app, but there's no way to keep a user from removing something they really don't want. You could have the app report uptime to a seperate server so you could be notified if the app was removed, but I think that's as far as you're going to get.