Android debugging via Bluetooth - android

I was using earlier adb to debug Android applications over wifi, usb - it was great.
Right now I am wondering if it is possible to connect phone with adb via bluetooth.
I did a quick research but didn't find anything - have you tried it already ?

It is not supported by the current adb software, however you could probably make it possible if you have a rooted device (or possibly even if not - see below) either by modifying adb or by using bluetooth to tunnel a channel it does support, such as tcp.
You would need to obtain the source for the adb program - the same source is used to build both the PC and the device versions. First step is to just build it with unmodified functionality, which may take a fair amount of build system modification unless you do so as a part of a complete android source build (the way it was intended to be done)
Then you would modify it to add a bluetooth channel as an option and install it on the device (why you need root) and in your path on the PC. You'd think you could run it from an alternate location on the PC, and you likely can as long as you use it from the command line, but if your fire up DDMS it may kill off the running adb server and launch a new one using the default in the path, so ultimately you'll have to put your modified version there.
IF you can already get your device to accept adb connections over tcp (possible with root, perhaps possible in some cases without) there is another option, which is to not modify ADB (or at least not modify the device side) and instead come up with something running on the device which accepts bluetooth connections and forwards the traffic via local loopback to the tcp port on which the stock adb is operating. This would save the trouble of having to rebuild adb.
If you have some kind of tethering or similar network-over-bluetooth solution, you might even be able to leverage that to carry adb-over-tcp-over-bluetooth without writing any code.
Finally note that it is not 100% essential that the adb daemon run as a more privileged userid or be installed in place of the official one - you can run an adb daemon as an ordinary application and do many of the expected things with it. However, whichever adb daemon is running first will grab the unix domain java debug socket, and so only that adb daemon will be able to provide the full java debug services. More primitive things like logcat, shell, running process list, push/pull, etc will at least partially work without this, provided that your adb daemon doesn't quit (modification may be required) when it is unable to claim the debug socket. If you can kill the official adb daemon and exploit a race condition, you may be able to get an unofficial one started before it restarts - you would probably need to have a script or program to do this and run it with setsid from the official adb shell, meaning you'd need to connect via USB first. At that point, you'd also be able to start your unofficial adb daemon running as the same userid as the official one.
You may want to spend some time estimating or testing if the performance (speed) will be satisfactory before investing in a lot of time setting this up for real.

I know this is a bit old but I seem to have found a post that does this. All credit goes to the author of fomori.org for finding this and making the information available. Today it helped me, maybe tomorrow I'll help you by making it easier to find.
Source

Related

Is there a way to fake the ADB device, or modify adb.exe/build tools?

I am doing some investigation of a closed-source app using ADB. I would like to log the commands this app is making, the ADB binaries it uses are in the same directory. Would I be able to sniff the commands by faking an ADB device or maybe modding the source code of the build tools to include a log?
Best regards.
I tried using some apps on a physical android device to log the incoming packets, though I got nowhere. I expect to be able to know what this closed source app is doing on my device.
PS: I am sorry if this sounds dumb, I know ADB is open source, part of the Android Open Source Project, but I made this post to make sure I am not missing some small detail. I am not an expert in the ADB protocol so excuse my clumsiness.
Answer:
Copied from this answer to How to fetch ADB shell traffic?
It is as simple as listening on the ADB server's port through Wireshark (TCP port 5037) since all the commands pass through the adb server/daemon before going to USB.
It is also possible to sniff the USB traffic using USBPcap, as it also is unencrypted.

Connect to RS232 from Android - No permission dialog or shell command

Objective
I'm developing a custom app for internal use on a rooted android mini-pc.
The goal (between others... so...many...others...) is to be able to turn on and off a tv using the serial port embeeded on the tv.
I'm using an FTDI UART RS232 serial usb cable for it.
Status
The application is working right now, using an android library (serial-driver) i can communicate with the tv, but the problem is that the device asks for permissions every install (and sometimes, weirdly, again on the same device), so it needs to be improved.
Issue
Since the device doesn't have mouse or keyboard by default, when this happens someone has to click the buttons, and since the device is normally hidden behind the screen, it can be really annoying.
My two bits
This problem, i feel, can be solved by two methods, but i still haven't been able to make them work.
Since the device is rooted, i might be able to modify an unknown (to me) parameter that allows me to bypass the permission request. For this i have tried to make an intent filter for the usb device, and to rewrite the interface that controlls this behaviour, both without success. Is there a way to make this android version more lenient about permissions?
I use for other reasons SuperSU inside the app, so i can use the full width of the might shell power. Using this i've been trying to send commands manually to the device (/dev/bus/usb/00X/00Y), but this haven't worked. My theory is that it's beacuse of the permissions of the device path, but even doing an unhealthy chmod 777 i cannot have them working.
So, that's my problem right now. I hope someone here can help me.
Additional data
Running: Custom Android 4.4.2 (Cannot be changed)
Needs to be doable solely from within the apk (but it can use shell commands)
We don't have the manufacturer signature to install it as a system app
We can use only one app, so i cannot have another one to move this one to /sys/apps, and i don't know if an app can do that to itself.
using Busybox stty -F /dev/.../ returns "Operation not permitted"

ADB | Having troubles with device connection

I am working flashing a custom ROM on a new device. Through a bit of research, I've found that I am able to completely circumvent the need to port Clockworkmod by simply using UniFlash on my Windows based laptop. From there, I am left with needing to port the ROM I desire, Cyanogenmod 12, to my device.
I've come to learn that I do not need to build from source, rather I can tailor an existing recovery to fit my device. I am unsure if that is true, so that may need to be cleared up. I went ahead and installed ADB and found a porting guide on the Cyanogenmod Wiki. This is where I am running into problems. I do not seem to have ADB permissions for my device.
When attempting to grab my build.prop, I get this return:
user#mypc:~$ adb pull /system/build.prop
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
error: insufficient permissions for device
After realizing my computer may not see the device, I tried to see which were connected:
user#mypc:~$ adb devices
List of devices attached
???????????? no permissions
It seems I do not have any access to the device at all. USB Debugging is connected, it is a rooted device, and it is set show as a USB Storage. I'm sure if I can at least get this fixed, I should be able to find my way through the rest of the guide myself.
Thank you for any help I can receive!
EDIT 01-
So, I decided to do more digging, and I guess I needed to START the server as super user, and not just run commands in super user.
After running this command, I was able to use my others with permission:
user#mypc:~$ sudo adb start-server
Now, I am running into a problem in which my device is offline:
user#mypc:~$ adb pull /system/build.prop
error: device offline
After referring to this (set up device for development (?????? no permissions)) thread, I seem to get a new response:
user#mypc:~$ adb pull /system/build.prop
error: device not found
I feel it's safe to say I should remove 51-android.rules from my ~/rules.d/.
Edit 02:
It seems I have answered my own question with research. I guess I just needed to update to the newest version because Android 4.2+ requires bridge authorization to complete tasks, and my version did not know to do that! I was successfully able to pull my build.prop!
The reason is that when you connect the USB device it shows a popup asking if you want to allow your pc access the device. You have to accept that manually from the device.
Something like this
http://www.gihosoft.com/android-recovery/img/allow-usb-debugging.png

Android command list

I have many questions about Android command. I do not know where I should start But, anyway, I have put all question related Android commands. Here ;
Is subset of Linux commands come in Android by default ? Or, Are we installing something ?
In system/bin, there are lots of commands. Where can I find their meaning ? I have tried man, but man is not built in.
Can I start and stop application via start and stop command ?
Why cannot I run the reboot from terminal emulator ? The error permission is denied.
NOTE : feel free to reedit the question, if you see meaningless part.
Is subset of Linux commands come in Android by default ? Or, Are we installing something ?
A subset exists by default within the system. Things like ls, cd, mkdir, cat etc... are present. You can gain access to a wider range by installing Busy Box on a rooted device, as stated by Zac.
In system/bin, there are lots of commands. Where can I find their meaning ? I have tried man, but man is not built in.
The ADB Page is a good place to start. That covers many of the basic ADB and shell commands. It states near the bottom:
"For a complete list of commands and programs, start an emulator instance and use the adb -help command."
So you can use adb -help on an emualator or device to see a full list of the ADB and shell commands (note I think this list will be android specific commands only, it won't include things like cd,ls and other basic unix commands).
Can I start and stop application via start and stop command ?
No, it states on the ADB dev page:
start ........ Starts (restarts) an emulator/device instance.
stop ........ Stops execution of an emulator/device instance.
To start an application you'll use the am utility iirc it will look something like am start com.your.packagename It's been a while though, I might have syntax wrong. The instructions are listend if you issue the am command by itself with no params in a shell.
Why cannot I run the reboot from terminal emulator ? The error permission is denied.
The system prevents applications from rebooting the device unless they are signed with the same key as the OS. When you use the terminal emulator you are restricted to whatever permissions that application has declared. The reboot permission is not granted to any third party applications, so it won't work correctly from any terminals. You could probably do it if your device was rooted and you used su though
EDIT:
Here is another good resource that lists more of the shell commands
There are not many Linux commands included in android, however if you are rooted you can easily install busybox which has a large range of linux commands.
You need to have root access to reboot your device via the command line (to prevent any old app being able to do it)

Monitor network activity in Android Phones

I would like to monitor network traffic of my Android Phone. I was thinking using tcpdump for Android, but I'm not sure if I have to cross-compile for the phone.
Another question is the following, If I want to monitor the trafic data for a certain application, there's any command for doing that?
TCPDUMP is one of my favourite tools for analyzing network, but if you find difficult to cross-compile tcpdump for android, I'd recomend you to use some applications from the market.
These are the applications I was talking about:
Shark: Is small version of wireshark for Android phones). This program will create a *.pcap and you can read the file on PC with wireshark.
Shark Reader : This program allows you to read the *.pcap directly in your Android phone.
Shark app works with rooted devices, so if you want to install it, be sure that you have your device already rooted.
Good luck ;)
If you are doing it from the emulator you can do it like this:
Run emulator -tcpdump emulator.cap -avd my_avd to write all the emulator's traffic to a local file on your PC and then open it in wireshark
There is a similar post that might help HERE
Note: tcpdump requires root privileges, so you'll have to root your phone if not done already. Here's an ARM binary of tcpdump (this works for my Samsung Captivate). If you prefer to build your own binary, instructions are here (yes, you'd likely need to cross compile).
Also, check out Shark For Root (an Android packet capture tool based on tcpdump).
I don't believe tcpdump can monitor traffic by specific process ID. The strace method that Chris Stratton refers to seems like more effort than its worth. It would be simpler to monitor specific IPs and ports used by the target process. If that info isn't known, capture all traffic during a period of process activity and then sift through the resulting pcap with Wireshark.
For Android Phones(Without Root):- you can use this application tPacketCapture this will capture the network trafic for your device when you enable the capture.
See this url for more details about network sniffing without rooting your device.
Once you have the file which is in .pcap format you can use this file and analyze the traffic using any traffic analyzer like Wireshark.
Also see this post for further ideas on Capturing mobile phone traffic on wireshark
The DDMS tool included in the Android SDK includes a tool for monitoring network traffic. It does not provide the kind of detail you get from tcpdump and similar low level tools, but it is still very useful.
Oficial documentation: http://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/ddms.html#network
Preconditions: adb and wireshark are installed on your computer and you have a rooted android device.
Download tcpdump to ~/Downloads
adb push ~/Downloads/tcpdump /sdcard/
adb shell
su root
mv /sdcard/tcpdump /data/local/
cd /data/local/
chmod +x tcpdump
./tcpdump -vv -i any -s 0 -w /sdcard/dump.pcap
Ctrl+C once you've captured enough data.
exit
exit
adb pull /sdcard/dump.pcap ~/Downloads/
Now you can open the pcap file using Wireshark.
As for your question about monitoring specific processes, find the bundle id of your app, let's call it com.android.myapp
ps | grep com.android.myapp
copy the first number you see from the output. Let's call it 1234. If you see no output, you need to start the app. If you still don't see the app via ps try using top.
Download strace to ~/Downloads and put into /data/local using the same way you did for tcpdump above.
cd /data/local
./strace -p 1234 -f -e trace=network -o /sdcard/strace.txt
Now you can look at strace.txt for ip addresses, and filter your wireshark log for those IPs.
You would need to root the phone and cross compile tcpdump or use someone else's already compiled version.
You might find it easier to do these experiments with the emulator, in which case you could do the monitoring from the hosting pc. If you must use a real device, another option would be to put it on a wifi network hanging off of a secondary interface on a linux box running tcpdump.
I don't know off the top of my head how you would go about filtering by a specific process. One suggestion I found in some quick googling is to use strace on the subject process instead of tcpdump on the system.
Without root, you can use debug proxies like Charlesproxy&Co.
Packet Capture is the best tool to track network data on the android.
DOesnot need any root access and easy to read and save the calls based on application.
Check this out
Try this application
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.greyshirts.sslcapture
We can view all networking communications .. even SSL encrypted communications.
The common approach is to call "cat /proc/net/netstat" as described here:
Android network stats

Categories

Resources