README.md

Android Emulator Container Scripts

This is a set of minimal scripts to run the emulator in a container for various systems such as Docker, for external consumption. The scripts are compatible with both Python version 2 and 3.

Note that this is still an experimental feature!

Requirements

These demos are intended to be run on a linux OS. Your system must meet the following requirements:

• A Python interpreter must be installed.

• ADB must be available on the path. ADB comes as part of the Android SDK. Note that installing the command line tools is sufficient.

• Docker must be installed. Make sure you can run it as non-root user

• Docker-compose must be installed.

• KVM must be available. You can get access to KVM by running on "bare metal", or on a (virtual) machine that provides nested virtualization. If you are planning to run this in the cloud (gce/azure/aws/etc..) you first must make sure you have access to KVM. Details on how to get access to KVM on the various cloud providers can be found here:

  • AWS provides bare metal instances that provide access to KVM.
  • Azure: Follow these instructions to enable nested virtualization.
  • GCE: Follow these instructions to enable nested virtualization.

Keep in mind that you will see reduced performance if you are making use of nested virtualization.

Install

You can install the python package as follows:

python setup.py install --user

This should make the executable emu-docker available. You can get detailed information about the usage by launching it as follows:

emu-docker -h

Quick start, interactively creating and running a docker image

You can interactively select which version of android and emulator you wish to use by running:

emu-docker interactive --start

You will be asked to select a system image and an emulator version, after which a docker file will be created. The system image and emulator will be downloaded to the current directory if needed. The script will provide you with a command to see the logs as well as the command to stop the container.

You can now connect to the running device using adb:

adb connect localhost:5555

Do not forget to stop the docker container once you are done!

If you wish to interact with the emulator via the web, and you have port 80 and 443 available you can run:

docker-compose -f js/docker/docker-compose.yaml build

After building the containers, you can launch the emulator as follows

docker-compose -f js/docker/docker-compose.yaml up

The emulator should be avaiable at http://localhost.

Obtaining URLs for emulator/system image zip files

Issuing:

emu-docker list

will query the currently published Android SDK and output URLs for the zip files of:

• Available and currently Docker-compatible system images
• Currently published and advertised emulator binaries

For each system image, the API level, variant, ABI, and URL are displayed. For each emulator, the update channel (stable vs canary), version, host os, and URL are displayed.

Example output:

SYSIMG android 21 L x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-21_r05.zip
SYSIMG android 22 L x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-22_r06.zip
SYSIMG android 23 M x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-23_r10.zip
SYSIMG android 24 N x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-24_r08.zip
SYSIMG android 25 N x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-25_r01.zip
SYSIMG android 26 O x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-26_r01.zip
SYSIMG android 27 O x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-27_r01.zip
SYSIMG android 28 P x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-28_r04.zip
SYSIMG android 28 Q x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/android/x86_64-Q_r04.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 21 L x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-21_r30.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 22 L x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-22_r24.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 23 M x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-23_r31.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 24 N x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-24_r25.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 25 N x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-25_r16.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 26 O x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-26_r13.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 28 P x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-28_r09.zip
SYSIMG google_apis 28 Q x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86_64-Q_r04.zip
SYSIMG google_apis_playstore 28 P x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis_playstore/x86_64-28_r08.p
SYSIMG google_apis_playstore 28 Q x86_64 https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis_playstore/x86_64-Q_r04.zp
EMU stable 29.0.11 windows https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-windows-5598178.zip
EMU stable 29.0.11 macosx https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-darwin-5598178.zip
EMU stable 29.0.11 linux https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-linux-5598178.zip
EMU stable 28.0.25 windows https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-windows-5395263.zip
EMU canary 29.0.12 windows https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-windows-5613046.zip
EMU canary 29.0.12 macosx https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-darwin-5613046.zip
EMU canary 29.0.12 linux https://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-linux-5613046.zip

One can then use tools like wget or a browser to download a desired emulator and system image. After the two are obtained, we can build a Docker image.

Given an emulator zip file and a system image zip file, we can build a directory that can be sent to docker build via the following invocation of emu_docker:

 emu_docker create <emulator-zip> <system-image-zip>  [--dest docker-src-dir
 (getcwd()/src by default)]

This places all the right elements to run a docker image, but does not build, run or publish yet. A Linux emulator zip file must be used.

Building the Docker image: Setting up the source dir

To build the Docker image corresponding to these emulators and system images:

docker build <docker-src-dir, either ./src or specified argument to
emu_docker.py>

A Docker image ID will output; save this image ID.

Running the Docker image

We currently assume that KVM will be used with docker in order to provide CPU virtualization capabilties to the resulting Docker image.

We provide the following run script:

./run.sh <docker-image-id>

It does the following:

docker run -e "ADBKEY=$(cat ~/.android/adbkey)" --device /dev/kvm--publish
5556:5556/tcp --publish 5555:5555/tcp <docker-image-id>

• Sets up the ADB key, assuming one exists at ~/.android/adbkey
• Uses `--device /dev/kvm to have CPU acceleration
• Starts the emulator in the docker image with its gRPC service, forwarding the host ports 5556/6555 to container ports 5556/5555 respectively.
• The gRPC service is used to communicate with the running emulator inside the container.

Communicating with the emulator in the container

adb

We forward the port 5555 for adb access to the emulator running inside the container (TODO: make this configurable per container). Adb might not automatically detect the device, so run:

adb connect localhost:5555

Your device should now show up as:

$ adb devices

List of devices attached:
emulator-5554   device

Make the emulator accessible on the web

This repository also contains an example that demonstrates how you can use docker to make the emulator accessible through the web. This is done by composing the following set of docker containers:

• Envoy, an edge and service proxy: The proxy is responsible for the following:
  • Offer TLS (https) using a self signed certificate
  • Redirect traffic on port 80 (http) to port 443 (https)
  • Act as a gRPC proxy for the emulator.
  • Redirect other requests to the Nginx component which hosts a React application.
• Nginx, a webserver hosting a compiled React App
• The emulator with a gRPC endpoint and a WebRTC video bridge.

Important Notice!

In order to run this sample and be able to interact with the emulator you must keep the following in mind:

• The demo has two methods to display the emulator.

  1. Create an image every second, which is displayed in the browser. This approach will always work, but gives poor performance.
  2. Use WebRTC to display the state of the emulator in real time. This will only work if you are able to create a peer to peer connection to the server hosting the emulator. This is usually not a problem when your server is publicly visible, or if you are running the emulator on your own intranet.

• There is no Authorization/Authentication:. Anyone who can reach the website will be able to interact with the emulator. Which means they can control the emulator and run arbitrary code inside your emulator.

Requirements

• You will need docker-compose.
• You must have port 80 and 443 available. The docker containers will create an internal network and expose the http and https ports.
• You will need to create an emulator docker image, as described in the documentation above.

Running the emulator on the web

Once you have taken care of the steps above you can create the containers as follows:

docker-compose -f js/docker/docker-compose.yaml build

After building the containers, you can launch the emulator as follows

docker-compose -f js/docker/docker-compose.yaml up

Point your browser to localhost. You will likely get a warning due to the usage of the self signed certifcate. Once you accept the cert you should see the emulator in action

Troubleshooting

We have a seperate document related to dealing with issues.

Modifying the demo

Details on how to modify the React application can be found here