# Microdroid Microdroid is a (very) lightweight version of Android that is intended to run on on-device virtual machines. It is built from the same source code as the regular Android, but it is much smaller; no system server, no HALs, no GUI, etc. It is intended to host headless & native workloads only. ## Building You need a VIM3L board. Instructions for building Android for the target, and flashing the image can be found [here](../docs/getting_started/yukawa.md). Then you install `com.android.virt` APEX. All files needed to run microdroid are included in the APEX, which is already in the `yukawa` (VIM3L) target. You can of course build and install the APEX manually. ```sh $ source build/envsetup.sh $ choosecombo 1 aosp_arm64 userdebug // actually, any arm64-based target is ok $ m com.android.virt $ adb install $ANDROID_PRODUCT_OUT/system/apex/com.android.virt.apex $ adb reboot ``` ## Running Create a config file, `microdroid.json`: ```json { "bootloader": "/data/local/tmp/microdroid/bootloader", "disks": [ { "image": "/data/local/tmp/microdroid/os_composite.img", "writable": false }, { "image": "/data/local/tmp/microdroid/env_composite.img", "writable": false }, { "image": "/data/local/tmp/microdroid/payload.img", "writable": false }, { "image": "/data/local/tmp/microdroid/userdata_composite.qcow2", "writable": true } ] } ``` Copy the artifacts to the temp directory, create the composite image using `mk_cdisk` and copy the VM config file. For now, some other files have to be manually created. In the future, you won't need these, and this shall be done via [`virtmanager`](../virtmanager/). ```sh $ adb root $ adb shell 'mkdir /data/local/tmp/microdroid' $ adb shell 'cp /apex/com.android.virt/etc/microdroid_bootloader /data/local/tmp/microdroid/bootloader' $ adb shell 'cp /apex/com.android.virt/etc/fs/*.img /data/local/tmp/microdroid' $ adb shell 'cp /apex/com.android.virt/etc/uboot_env.img /data/local/tmp/microdroid' $ adb shell 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/data/local/tmp/microdroid/misc.img bs=4k count=256' $ adb shell 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/data/local/tmp/microdroid/userdata.img bs=1 count=0 seek=4G' $ adb shell 'mkfs.ext4 /data/local/tmp/microdroid/userdata.img' $ adb shell 'cd /data/local/tmp/microdroid; /apex/com.android.virt/bin/mk_cdisk /apex/com.android.virt/etc/microdroid_cdisk.json os_composite.img' $ adb shell 'cd /data/local/tmp/microdroid; /apex/com.android.virt/bin/mk_cdisk /apex/com.android.virt/etc/microdroid_cdisk_env.json env_composite.img' $ adb shell 'cd /data/local/tmp/microdroid; /apex/com.android.virt/bin/mk_cdisk /apex/com.android.virt/etc/microdroid_cdisk_userdata.json userdata_composite.img' $ adb shell '/apex/com.android.virt/bin/crosvm create_qcow2 --backing_file=/data/local/tmp/microdroid/userdata_composite.img /data/local/tmp/microdroid/userdata_composite.qcow2' $ adb shell 'cd /data/local/tmp/microdroid; /apex/com.android.virt/bin/mk_payload /apex/com.android.virt/etc/microdroid_payload.json payload.img' $ adb shell 'chmod go+r /data/local/tmp/microdroid/*-header.img /data/local/tmp/microdroid/*-footer.img' $ adb push microdroid.json /data/local/tmp/microdroid/microdroid.json ``` Ensure SELinux is in permissive mode to allow virtmanager and crosvm to open files from `/data/local/tmp`. Opening files from this directory is neverallow-ed and file descriptors should be passed instead but, before that is supported, `adb shell setenforce 0` will put the device in permissive mode. Now, run the VM and look for `adbd` starting in the logs. ```sh $ adb shell "start virtmanager" $ adb shell "RUST_BACKTRACE=1 RUST_LOG=trace /apex/com.android.virt/bin/vm run /data/local/tmp/microdroid/microdroid.json" ``` ## ADB ```sh $ CID=10 $ adb forward tcp:8000 vsock:$CID:5555 $ adb connect localhost:8000 ``` `CID` should be the CID that `vm` reported was assigned to the VM. You can also check it with `adb shell "/apex/com.android.virt/bin/vm list"`. `5555` must be the value. `8000` however can be any port in the development machine. Done. Now you can log into microdroid. Have fun! ```sh $ adb -s localhost:8000 shell ```