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1page.title=Employing Managed Profiles
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19<div id="qv-wrapper">
20  <div id="qv">
21    <h2>In this document</h2>
22    <ol id="auto-toc">
23    </ol>
24  </div>
25</div>
26
27<p>A <em>managed profile</em> or <em>work profile</em> is an Android <a
28href="multi-user.html">user</a> with additional special properties around
29management and visual aesthetic.</p>
30
31<p>The primary goal of a managed profile is to create a segregated and secure
32space for managed data (such as corporate date) to reside. The administrator of
33the profile has full control over scope, ingress, and egress of data as well as
34its lifetime. These policies offer great powers and therefore fall upon the
35managed profile instead of the device administrator.</p>
36
37<ul>
38  <li><strong>Creation</strong>. Managed profiles can be created by any
39  application in the primary user. The user is notified of managed profile
40  behaviors and policy enforcement before creation.</li>
41  <li><strong>Management</strong>. Management is performed by applications that
42  programmatically invoke APIs in the
43  <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/admin/DevicePolicyManager.html">DevicePolicyManager</a>
44  class to restrict use. Such applications are referred to as <em>profile
45  owners</em> and are defined at initial profile setup. Policies unique to
46  managed profile involve app restrictions, updatability, and intent behaviors.
47  </li>
48  <li><strong>Visual treatment</strong>. Applications, notifications, and
49  widgets from the managed profile are always badged and typically made
50  available inline with user interface (UI) elements from the primary user.</li>
51</ul>
52
53<h2 id=data_segregation>Data segregation</h2>
54<p>Managed profiles use the following data segregation rules.</p>
55
56<h3 id=applications>Applications</h3>
57
58<p>Applications are scoped with their own segregated data when the same app
59exists in the primary user and managed profile. Generally, applications act
60independently of one another and cannot communicate directly with one another
61across the profile-user boundary.</p>
62
63<h3 id=accounts>Accounts</h3>
64
65<p>Accounts in the managed profile are distinctly unique from the primary user.
66There is no way to access credentials across the profile-user boundary. Only
67apps in their respective context are able to access their respective accounts.</p>
68
69<h3 id=intents>Intents</h3>
70
71<p>The administrator controls whether intents are resolved in/out of managed
72profile or not. Applications from the managed profile are default scoped to
73stay within the managed profile exception of the Device Policy API.</p>
74
75<h3 id=settings>Settings</h3>
76
77<p>Enforcement of settings is generally scoped to the managed profile, with
78exceptions for lockscreen and encryption settings that are still scoped
79to the device and shared between the primary user and managed profile.
80Otherwise, a profile owner does not have any device administrator privileges
81outside the managed profile.</p>
82
83<p>Managed profiles are implemented as a new kind of secondary user, such that:</p>
84
85<pre>uid = 100000 * userid + appid</pre>
86
87<p>They have separate app data like regular users:</p>
88
89<pre>/data/user/&lt;userid&gt;</pre>
90
91<p>The UserId is calculated for all system requests using
92<code>Binder.getCallingUid()</code>, and all system state and responses are
93separated by userId. You may consider instead using
94<code>Binder.getCallingUserHandle</code> rather than <code>getCallingUid</code>
95to avoid confusion between uid and userId.</p>
96
97<p>The AccountManagerService maintains a separate list of accounts for each
98user. The main differences between a managed profile and a regular secondary
99user are as follows:</p>
100
101<ul>
102  <li>The managed profile is associated with its parent user and started
103  alongside the primary user at boot time.</li>
104  <li>Notifications for managed profiles are enabled by ActivityManagerService
105  allowing the managed profile to share the activity stack with the primary
106  user.</li>
107  <li>Other shared system services include IME, A11Y services, Wi-Fi, and NFC.
108  </li>
109  <li>New Launcher APIs allow launchers to display badged apps and whitelisted
110  widgets from the managed profile alongside apps in the primary profile without
111  switching users.</li>
112</ul>
113
114<h2 id=device_administration>Device administration</h2>
115
116<p>Android device administration includes the following types of device
117administrators for enterprises:</p>
118
119<ul>
120  <li><em>Profile owner</em>. Designed for bring your own device (BYOD)
121  environments</li>
122  <li><em>Device Owner</em>. Designed for corp-liable environments</li>
123</ul>
124
125<p>The majority of the new device administrator APIs added for Android 5.0 are
126available only to profile or device owners. Traditional device administrators
127remain but are applicable to the simpler consumer-only case (e.g., find my
128device).</p>
129
130<h3 id=profile_owners>Profile owners</h3>
131
132<p>A Device Policy Client (DPC) app typically functions as the profile owner.
133The DPC app is typically provided by an enterprise mobility management (EMM)
134partner, such as Google Apps Device Policy.</p>
135
136<p>The profile owner app creates a managed profile on the device by sending the
137<code>ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_PROFILE</code> intent. This profile is
138distinguished by the appearance of badged instances of
139apps, as well as personal instances. That badge, or Android device
140administration icon, identifies which apps are work apps.</p>
141
142<p>The EMM has control only over the managed profile (not personal space) with
143some exceptions, such as enforcing the lock screen.</p>
144
145<h3 id=device_owners>Device owners</h3>
146
147<p>The device owner can be set only in an unprovisioned device:</p>
148
149<ul>
150  <li>Can be provisioned only at initial device setup</li>
151  <li>Enforced disclosure always displayed in quick-settings</li>
152</ul>
153
154<p>Device owners can conduct some tasks profile owners cannot, such as:</p>
155
156<ul>
157  <li>Wipe device data</li>
158  <li>Disable Wi-Fi/Bluetooth</li>
159  <li>Control <code>setGlobalSetting</code></li>
160  <li><code>setLockTaskPackages</code> (the ability to whitelist packages that
161  can pin themselves to the foreground)</li>
162  <li>Set <code>DISALLOW_MOUNT_PHYSICAL_MEDIA</code> (<code>FALSE</code> by
163  default). When <code>TRUE</code>, physical media, both portable and adoptable,
164  cannot be mounted.</li>
165</ul>
166
167<h3 id=dpm_api>DevicePolicyManager APIs</h3>
168
169<p>Android 5.0 and higher offers a greatly improved DevicePolicyManager with
170dozens of new APIs to support both corporate-owned and bring your own device
171(BYOD) administration use cases. Examples include app restrictions, silent
172installation of certificates, and cross-profile sharing intent access control.
173Use the sample Device Policy Client (DPC) app
174<a href="https://developer.android.com/samples/BasicManagedProfile/index.html">BasicManagedProfile.apk</a>
175as a starting point. For details, refer to
176<a href="https://developer.android.com/training/enterprise/work-policy-ctrl.html">Building
177a Work Policy Controller</a>.</p>
178