This workshop was held in #android-learning on irc.freenode.net by XDA Member Adrynalyne. All credit to him for this guide, I simply am taking it and turning it into a guide. Here we go!
You can find the raw IRC log here
Good evening folks, and welcome to my ADB workshop. This is by no means a full explanation on the subject, but more of a crash course to help folks get up to speed, and get more from their devices. There may be some things you already know here, so please be patient and respect those who do not.
Reference Files
http://adrynalyne.us/files/How to install adb.pdf
http://adrynalyne.us/files/Using ADB.pdf
So, lets just start with the basics.
What is ADB?
ADB stands for the android debugging bridge and is used for testing and debugging purposes by developers.
However, we like to get more out of our devices, and its a great way to fix things.
Knowing adb can mean the difference between a paperweight and a working phone.
So, to start with, we will look at installing ADB.
Generally speaking, the Sun/Oracle JDK is required to run all SDK functions.
ADB is but one tool in the SDK arsenal.
So, we begin by downloading and installing the JDK. This can be found here:
https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/[email protected]_Developer
Choose your OS, download and install. I recommend that 64 bit users use the regular x86/32 bit version as well.
Moving ahead, we download the Windows sdk from here:
http://dl.google.com/android/installer_r08-windows.exe
Due to already installing JDK, you won't be stopped by the install process.
Now, if you notice, I installed it to:
C:\android-sdk-windows
I did this because it makes things easier when setting up path variables.
I encourage everyone to do the same, but obviously it is not required.
So, this SDK is handy, but is only good up to 2.2. We want the latest and greatest! (Well I do)
So, we navigate to:
C:\android-sdk-windows\
and we run SDK Manager.exe
If you notice in your PDF file for installing adb, you will notice that you can update, and I made a choice not to include earlier sdk versions.
I won't go into full detail on that, but depending on the version of SDK you have, 8 or 9, it WILL make a difference in using adb.
By default, for version 8 adb.exe resides in C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
By default, for version 9 adb.exe resides in C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools
We will assume version 9 in this guide
Really, the SDK is installed and adb is usable right now, but in my humble opinion, its not enough
I like the ability to use adb in ANY directory on my machine.
To do this, we edit Windows's environment variables.
Specifically, the system path.
To do this, we click on start, or the orb (depending on OS), and right click on Computer, left clicking on properties in the menu.
If its windows XP, I believe it brings you into advanced system properties immediatly. Vista and 7 need a second step.
On the left hand side, as you notice I have highlighted in the pdf, left click advanced system settings.
Under advanced tab, we left click environment variables...
There are two boxes here.
We are concerned with system variables, however.
So we scroll down the list and highlight path and click edit.
Ignoring all the extra stuff in here, make sure you are at the end of the line, and type
Code:
;C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools
The semicolon allows us to separate it
from the previous path statement.
Click ok all the way out.
We now have ADB setup globally. We can use cmd.exe (I use powershell) and no matter what directory we are in, adb is recognized.
If it is not, make certain you entered the path into system variables, and made no typos.
If you installed to a different location, you will need to adjust the path accordingly.
This concludes the section on installing the Android SDK to use ADB.
This next section will be on using ADB, so please open that pdf now.
Now, this applies to any OS, not just Windows.
Well, with the exception of the USB drivers.
I will not go too much into that, but if you take a look at the PDF, it goes through installing usb drivers for the sdk, and how to download them.
Fiarly straightforward, in that rspect.
Now, to setup our phones to use with the SDK and ADB, we must change some settings.
First, we go to menu softkey, then settings.
We scroll down to Applications and tap it.
Under Development, we will check Enable USB Debugging. Please note the SGS phones are different in this respect.
The USB cable must be unplugged before enabling or disabling this setting.
Once this is done, we are now ready to play with adb
One quick note: If you get device not found/conencted, please reboot your phone. DJ05 has a quirk in it where ADBD randomly crashes on boot.
A reboot will fix this
ADBD= ADB Daemon
Ok, continuing on.
Lets look at installing applications. This is also known as sideloading.
Unlike installing from the SD card, it does not require unknown sources to be enabled.
The command for this is
Code:
adb install packagename
This assumes that you are working from the directory where the file is located.
This will install the application to /data/app.
It will also show sometimes useful errors if install fails.
That is not something you will see from the Android GUI.
Now, a lot of us have probably deleted files with apps like Root Explorer. While this isn't really a bad thing, it leaves behind databases and data for the application removed.
This is where the 0kb applicaiton entries come from.
If you take that application entry name, you can uninstall the extra data via adb.
First we go to the adb shell which logs into the phone.
Code:
adb shell
If we end up with a $, we will want admin rights, in many cases. This is not one of them, I don't beleive.
To get admin rights, you want to type
Code:
su
Look at your phone if this is the first time, it may prompt you to allow access. Else you will get permission denied.
If you are not rooted, this will not work either.
Ok, now that we are logged in, we will type
Code:
pm uninstall packagename
where packagename is the name of the 0kb listing.
Now this seems like a pain in the a** and I agree.
HOWEVER
There will be a time where Manage applications crashes when you try to uninstall it from the phone. In this case, a factory reset, or this method is the only effective way to fix the problem.
Moving on.
How many of us have removed system applications or renamed them? Did you know that you can simply disable them from the system?
Code:
adb shell
su
pm disable appllicationname
This will disable it, and the system will ignore it.
This can be seen as safer than deleting or renaming things, but your mileage may vary.
On the other hand, you can also re-enable these applications.
Code:
adb shell
su
pm enable applicationname
Please note: Not all applications will properly re-enable. I believe a factory reset or reinstall of said application will fix the issue.
Also, application names are absolutely case sensitive.
*nix based Operating Systems see the letter 'a' and 'A' as two different things.
when you log into adb shell, you are playing by android rules
Ok, a lot of us tweak and mod our phones and turning off the device to get to clockwork recovery, or battery pulls, or multiple button holds to get into Download mode are troublesome and annoying at best.
ADB can help us here.
Here, we do not need to be logged into the shell
If we want to merely reboot the phone:
Code:
adb reboot
If we want to go to recovery (works well with voodoo5)
Code:
adb reboot recovery
If we want to go to Download Mode because we need Odin, heaven forbid:
Code:
adb reboot download
Its instant. No waiting on animations or anything else.
Its also handy if Android has locked up, but yet still works in adb.
I for one hate taking my case off to battery pull.
So now we move on to pushing and pulling files.
Sometimes, I don't feel like mounting my sd card to copy a file over to my phone.
I can use this command to push a file straight to my sd card:
Code:
adb push filename /pathtodirectoryonphone
So for instance, if I have test.txt that I want to send, I would type:
Code:
adb push test.txt /sdcard/
and there it goes.
Ok moving on
Pushing files can be done to any directory, however, some are protected.
For instance, /system is going to give you a permission denied or a read only filesystem error.
To get around this, the easiest thing to do is push the file to your sdcard, then log into the shell:
Code:
adb shell
Code:
su
We will then mount the system as writable
Code:
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
Then we can use something like
Code:
cp /sdcard/test.txt /system/app/test.txt
cp stands for copy
and it requires the path of the file and destination path. The name of the file is optional
When you copy it, you can rename it to whatever you like.
For instance, if we wanted to backup a file
Code:
cp /sdcard/test.txt /sdcard/backuptest.txt
Now, lets assume you do not have busybox installed.
You non rooted users will not.
Then you must use a slightly more complicated command called dd
This is used like this:
Code:
dd if=/sdcard/test.txt of=/system/app/test.txt
if is for inputfile
of= output file
Not every user friendly, but probably one of the safer copy commands.
Ok, moving on to pulling files.
Lets say you want to get a file from your phone, to modify, backup, etc.
To do this, we simply use adb in this manner:
Code:
adb pull /pathtofile/filename destinationname
For instance, if I wanted to backup ADW launcher in system/app
I would do this
Code:
adb pull /system/app/ADWLaucnher.apk ADWLauncher.apk
And it will pull the file from the phone and put it in the current directory.
Like above, you can specifcy where it goes.
pushing files to the sdcard, it seems prudent to talk about changing permissions.
sdcards are typically fat32, which destroys permisisons, and Android is heavily permission based.
So if you push an application to your sd card, then try to copy it to /system/app/ bad things are going to happen, or the app may not even show up.
So in that case, we use something called chmod.
This is used in this manner
Code:
adb shell
su
chmod 755 /pathtoapplication/applicationname
Keep in mind
you dont want to do this while its still on your sd card.
an example
Code:
adb shell
su
chmod 755 /system/app/ADWLauncher.apk
755 is good for applications and script files.
Just a couple more topics to cover.
Lets go over deleting files.
This becomes especially handy for removing rogue applications.
To do this, we must be in the adb shell.
Code:
adb shell
su
rm /system/app/ADWLauncher.apk
You may need to remount system as writable with:
Code:
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
That applies when using chmod as well.
So what I did above was delete ADW Launcher from system/app
However, what if I wanted to delete the entire contents of a directory?
Same thing as before, except
Code:
adb shell
rm -f /data/dalvik-cache/*.*
I just cleared my dalvik-cache with that command
very quick, very effective.
If you just tried that, please reboot your phone now
Ok....this leaves us with the final topic: logcat
logcat allows us to log what the OS is doing, and possibly delve information for when things are not working
its quite simple Reading it is another.
To use logcat
Code:
adb shell
logcat
To logcat to a certain file do
Code:
adb shell
logcat > /sdcard/logcat.txt
Now we let the log settle down to a reasonable amount of data coming in and not a wall of scrolling, then start the app in question. When it gives an error, we hit ctrl-C and kill the adb shell session.
This should have captured enough data to see the error. Now, I prepared an example. A user came to me on IRC, and Google Maps was force closing. Clearing data didnt fix it, Clearing dalvik-cache, and fix permissions did not fix it. In this case, the user did not know how to use adb So I had him grab an app called alogcat from the market and email me the log. This is also a very valid method.
this file explains what the problem was, and highlights what to look for as an example.
http://adrynalyne.us/files/logcat.pdf
___________________________________________________________________
This concludes the guide from Adrynalyne, there will be more workshops such as this one in irc.freenode.net #android-learning.
Thanks to everyone in #samsung-fascinate !
Reserved for possible extension of topic
Great, saves a lot of questions/answers & search
Every new user should read this!!
Thread stuck as valuable reference thread
Just to add, if I may, a little about the permissions...
============================================================
File permissions for Unix... which Android is based, just so those who tinker with the file permissions may know what they are getting into.
============================================================
Use the chmod command to set file permissions.
The chmod command uses a three-digit code as an argument.
The three digits of the chmod code set permissions for these groups in this order:
1.Owner (you)
2.Group (a group of other users that you set up)
3.World (anyone else browsing around on the file system)
Each digit of this code sets permissions for one of these groups as follows. Read is 4. Write is 2. Execute is 1.
The sums of these numbers give combinations of these permissions:
0 = no permissions whatsoever; this person cannot read, write, or execute the file
1 = execute only
2 = write only
3 = write and execute (1+2)
4 = read only
5 = read and execute (4+1)
6 = read and write (4+2)
7 = read and write and execute (4+2+1)
Chmod commands on file apple.txt (use wildcards to include more files)
Command Purpose
chmod 700 apple.txt Only you can read, write to, or execute apple.txt
chmod 777 apple.txt Everybody can read, write to, or execute apple.txt
chmod 744 apple.txt Only you can read, write to, or execute apple.txt Everybody can read apple.txt;
chmod 444 apple.txt You can only read apple.txt, as everyone else.
Detecting File Permissions
You can use the ls command with the -l option to show the file permissions set. For example, for apple.txt, I can do this:
$ ls -l apple.txt
-rwxr--r-- 1 december december 81 Feb 12 12:45 apple.txt
$
The sequence -rwxr--r-- tells the permissions set for the file apple.txt. The first - tells that apple.txt is a file. The next three letters, rwx, show that the owner has read, write, and execute permissions. Then the next three symbols, r--, show that the group permissions are read only. The final three symbols, r--, show that the world permissions are read only.
Compliments and full credit from:
http://www.december.com/unix/ref/chmod.html
Amazing thread just what I needed lol thanks!
cooolone2 said:
Just to add, if I may, a little about the permissions...
============================================================
File permissions for Unix... which Android is based, just so those who tinker with the file permissions may know what they are getting into.
============================================================
Use the chmod command to set file permissions.
The chmod command uses a three-digit code as an argument.
The three digits of the chmod code set permissions for these groups in this order:
1.Owner (you)
2.Group (a group of other users that you set up)
3.World (anyone else browsing around on the file system)
Each digit of this code sets permissions for one of these groups as follows. Read is 4. Write is 2. Execute is 1.
The sums of these numbers give combinations of these permissions:
0 = no permissions whatsoever; this person cannot read, write, or execute the file
1 = execute only
2 = write only
3 = write and execute (1+2)
4 = read only
5 = read and execute (4+1)
6 = read and write (4+2)
7 = read and write and execute (4+2+1)
Chmod commands on file apple.txt (use wildcards to include more files)
Command Purpose
chmod 700 apple.txt Only you can read, write to, or execute apple.txt
chmod 777 apple.txt Everybody can read, write to, or execute apple.txt
chmod 744 apple.txt Only you can read, write to, or execute apple.txt Everybody can read apple.txt;
chmod 444 apple.txt You can only read apple.txt, as everyone else.
Detecting File Permissions
You can use the ls command with the -l option to show the file permissions set. For example, for apple.txt, I can do this:
$ ls -l apple.txt
-rwxr--r-- 1 december december 81 Feb 12 12:45 apple.txt
$
The sequence -rwxr--r-- tells the permissions set for the file apple.txt. The first - tells that apple.txt is a file. The next three letters, rwx, show that the owner has read, write, and execute permissions. Then the next three symbols, r--, show that the group permissions are read only. The final three symbols, r--, show that the world permissions are read only.
Compliments and full credit from:
http://www.december.com/unix/ref/chmod.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Added
ih4ckback said:
Amazing thread just what I needed lol thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, all goes to Adrynalyne
Thanks for the guide. Helped me pick out the stupid stupid mistakes I was making...so just a problem. I'm able to use fastboot easily but I seem to be unable to use ADB still on my windows 7. It says there are no devices and I'm dang well sure I have USB debugging on. Is it because Windows 7 is missing drivers for the nexus one or something else?
wonderful guide. I would like to add it to the guides thread.
Really awesome work, thumbs up.
But we should also take a guide on installing adb with Ubuntu/Linux, which isn't a very difficult thing...
mm7490 said:
Really awesome work, thumbs up.
But we should also take a guide on installing adb with Ubuntu/Linux, which isn't a very difficult thing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I got time tomorrow I could do that. I work primarily in Linux also
Sent from my Samsung Fascinate using Tapatalk Pro
This is good but I have a problem, when I try to remove an .apk file from /system/app it fails and says 'rm failed, Directory not empty'
I have followed exact instructions many time but never succeeded :s any help!!
(I am runnging these commands in device mod)
when I am in recovery mod I get this prompt ~ # and I am not able to enter su mod. how to get rid of this??
Well when the $ changes to # it means you have SU access
mustafa.aziz said:
This is good but I have a problem, when I try to remove an .apk file from /system/app it fails and says 'rm failed, Directory not empty'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please give us the exact command(s) you entered
Here are the commands I entered after adb shell;
su
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
rm /system/app/mytouchmusic-signed.apk
exact message returned is 'rm failed for mytouchmusic-signed.apk, Directory not empty'
mustafa.aziz said:
Here are the commands I entered after adb shell;
su
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
rm /system/app/mytouchmusic-signed.apk
exact message returned is 'rm failed for mytouchmusic-signed.apk, Directory not empty'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok i think you need to do a recursive force delete which should be rf but i am not too sure! could somebody please confirm/ correct this?
Well, I don't think so ^^ As he doesn't want to erase a whole directory, but only a file.
What surprises me the most is the returned message... You're trying to delete an apk, and it says it's a directory :/
Could you please give us the output of this :
Code:
su
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
ls -l /system/app/mytouch*
Perhaps you don't even need the su and mount lines, but I'm not sure about that, and that can't harm your system ^^
Khoral said:
Well, I don't think so ^^ As he doesn't want to erase a whole directory, but only a file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know he doesn't want to delete a whole directory, but since the apk isn't compressed perhaps android looks at is as a directory and not a file? i don't know since what was returned suggested that it was a directory i presumed it was a directory! :S
mustafa.aziz said:
Here are the commands I entered after adb shell;
su
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
rm /system/app/mytouchmusic-signed.apk
exact message returned is 'rm failed for mytouchmusic-signed.apk, Directory not empty'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rm -rf /blah/blah
here is your desired output:
sh-3.2# su
su
sh-3.2# mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/stl9 /system
sh-3.2# ls -l /system/app/mytouch*
ls -l /system/app/mytouch*
-rw-r--r-- root root 299838 2008-08-01 18:00 mytouchmusic-signed.apk
sh-3.2#
I was looking for a command line ssh program for Android, and was surprised that I couldn't find anything. I didn't want to install a chroot environment, but then I found Optware for Android. I've used it before on other devices and it's VERY useful for getting a more complete unix environment on otherwise stripped down linux devices.
The version on that page was built for a rooted Nook Color, but I only had to make minor changes to get it to run on an Epic running SRF:
1. Extract miniunz from Barnes and Noble's Nook Color 1.2 update zip and put it somewhere in the path - I put mine at /system/bin. You can get it from the first link here http://www.google.com/search?q=nook+color+1.2+update.
2. Make sure /system has at least 2MB or so free. Mine was full... I deleted a few ringtones from /system/media/audio/ringtones/
3. run this:
mount -o remount,rw /
ln -s /data/tmp /tmp
4. Follow the instructions from the Optware for Android page
Optware will now be installed, but pretty much nothing will run at the moment. I'm VERY new to Android, so I don't know that this is the right way to fix it, but here's what I did to get it working:
1. mount -o remount,rw /system
create /system/xbin/optlinks.sh with these contents:
#!/bin/sh
if [ ! -L /tmp ]; then
mount -o remount,rw /
ln -s /data/opt/lib/ld-linux.so.3 /lib/ld-linux.so.3
ln -s /data/opt /opt
ln -s /data/tmp /tmp
mount -o remount,ro /
fi
create /system/xbin/shell.sh with these contents:
#!/bin/sh
/system/bin/su -c /system/xbin/optlinks.sh
/system/bin/su -c "/opt/bin/bash --login"
2. chmod 755 shell.sh and optlinks.sh
3. Edit /etc/profile and add :/opt/sbin:/opt/bin to the PATH export and :/opt/lib to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH export.
4. Install Jack Palevich's Terminal Emulator from the Market
5. In Terminal Emulator's Prefs, set Initial Command to shell.sh.
I had to put the optlinks.sh part in because that's what optware expects - the Nook has those locations, SRF doesn't. Symlinks seem to work fine, but they disappear on reboot - no idea why - so that's why I run it every time.
Now, when I launch Terminal Emulator, I get a root shell, and can use ipkg install to get anything optware provides. It would be really cool if I the shell was run as a normal (non-root) user, and even better if the optware installer didn't need all the workarounds. Anybody have any ideas?
Tried this on CM 7
First off, thanks!
I tried this on CM 7 nightly (nexus one) and here is what I found:
- Most importantly, it broke root access to other apps on the phone. Not sure if this is due to not being able to update init.rc, may try to sort this out later.
- The goal of the install is to be able to run an SSH server and in addition to that you will have access to optware.
- The default busybox that is included with CM7 does not include adduser, addgroup or passwd applets which will cause things to fail once the install script tries to add a new user. Also, there is an app called "busybox installer" on the market that *will* update busybox, however it depends on libraries that CM7 does not include by default. The result is none of the busybox applets can reach the internet due to not being able to resolve domain names.
If you open the optware-bootstrap-0.0.1.shar file with 7zip, you will see there is a busybox executable included. It's an older version, however it includes what you need. I copied that version to /system/xbin and I was able to use the aforementioned applets
- At the end of my install I received an error that it was unable to edit the ram disk while trying to update init.rc. I think the solution is to add a script to /system/etc/init.d/ . Still working that out.
- I'm probably going to try combining this method with this one: http://android.modaco.com/topic/312...cripts-installing-bash-dropbear-mc-nano-opkg/ Since this is more of a manual method, however it's connecting to a custom optware feed that only has a few packages.
I dont suppose you got anywhere with this?
Looking to install optware on my desire hd running miui rom.