200 lines
6 KiB
Markdown
200 lines
6 KiB
Markdown
# Anbox
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Anbox is container based approach to boot a full Android system on a
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regular GNU Linux system like Ubuntu.
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## Overview
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Anbox uses Linux namespaces (user, pid, uts, net, mount, ipc) to run a
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full Android system in a container and provide Android applications on
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any GNU Linux based platform.
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The Android inside the container has no direct access to any hardware.
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All hardware access is going through the anbox daemon on the host. We're
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reusing what Android implemented within the QEMU based emulator for Open
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GL ES accelerated rendering. The Android system inside the container uses
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different pipes to communicate with the host system and sends all hardware
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access commands through these.
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For more details have a look at the following documentation pages:
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* Android Hardware OpenGL ES emulation design overview
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(https://goo.gl/O2Yi6x)
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* Android QEMU fast pipes (https://goo.gl/jl4GeS)
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* The Android "qemud" multiplexing daemon (https://goo.gl/DeYa5J)
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* Android qemud services (https://goo.gl/W8Lx6t)
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Anbox is currently suited for the desktop use case but can be used on
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mobile operating systems like Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS or Lune OS too.
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However as the mapping of Android applications is currently desktop specific
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this needs additional work to supported stacked window user interfaces too.
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The Android runtime environment ships with a minimal customized Android system
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image based on the [Android Open Source Project](https://source.android.com/).
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The used image is currently based on Android 7.1.1
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## Installation
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The installation process currently consists of a few steps which will
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add additional components to your host system. These include
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* Out-of-tree kernel modules for binder and ashmem as no distribution kernel
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ships both enabled.
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* A udev rule to set correct permissions for /dev/binder and /dev/ashmem
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* A upstart job which starts the Anbox session manager as part of
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a user session.
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To make this process as easy as possible we have bundled the necessary
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steps in a snap (see https://snapcraft.io) called "anbox-installer". The
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installer will perform all necessary steps. You can install it on a system
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providing support for snaps by running
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```
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$ snap install --classic anbox-installer
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```
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Alternatively you can fetch the installer script via
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```
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$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anbox/anbox-installer/master/installer.sh -O anbox-installer
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```
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Please note that we don't support any possible Linux distribution out there
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yet. Please have a look at the following chapter to see a list of supported
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distributions.
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To proceed the installation process simply called
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```
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$ anbox-installer
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```
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This will guide you through the installation process.
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**NOTE:** Anbox is currently in a **pre-alpha development state**. Don't expect a
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fully working system for a production system with all features you need. You will
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for sure see bugs and crashes. If you do so, please don't hestitate and report them!
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**NOTE:** The Anbox snap currently comes **completely unconfined** and is because of
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this only available from the edge channel. Proper confinement is a thing we want
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to achieve in the future but due to the nature and complexity of Anbox this isn't
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a simple task.
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## Supported Linux Distributions
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At the moment we officially support the following Linux distributions:
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* Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial)
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Untested but likely to work:
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* Ubuntu 14.04 (trusty)
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* Ubuntu 16.10 (yakkety)
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* Ubuntu 17.04 (zesty)
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## Install and Run Android Applications
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## Build from source
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To build the Anbox runtime itself there is nothing special to know. We're using
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cmake as build system. A few build dependencies need to be present on your host
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system:
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* libdbus
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* google-mock
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* google-test
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* libboost
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* libboost-filesystem
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* libboost-log
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* libboost-iostreams
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* libboost-program-options
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* libboost-system
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* libboost-test
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* libboost-thread
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* libcap
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* libdbus-cpp
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* mesa (libegl1, libgles2)
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* glib-2.0
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* libsdl2
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* libprotobuf
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* protobuf-compiler
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* lxc
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On an Ubuntu system you can install all build dependencies with the following
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command:
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```
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$ sudo apt install build-essential cmake cmake-data debhelper dbus google-mock \
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libboost-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-log-dev libboost-iostreams-dev \
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libboost-program-options-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-test-dev \
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libboost-thread-dev libcap-dev libdbus-1-dev libdbus-cpp-dev libegl1-mesa-dev \
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libgles2-mesa-dev libglib2.0-dev libglm-dev libgtest-dev liblxc1 \
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libproperties-cpp-dev libprotobuf-dev libsdl2-dev lxc-dev pkg-config \
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protobuf-compiler
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```
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Afterwards you can build Anbox with
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```
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$ mkdir build
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$ cd build
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$ cmake ..
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$ make
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```
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A simple
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```
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$ make install
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```
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will install the necessary bits into your system.
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If you want to build the anbox snap instead you can do this with the following
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steps:
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```
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$ mkdir android-images
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$ cp /path/to/android.img android-images/android.img
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$ snapcraft
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```
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The result will be a .snap file you can install on a system supporting snaps
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```
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$ snap install --dangerous --devmode anbox_1_amd64.snap
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```
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## Run Anbox
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Running Anbox from a local build requires a few more things you need to know
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about. Please have a look at the ["Runtime Setup"](docs/runtime-setup.md)
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documentation.
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## documentation
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You will find additional documentation for Anbox in the *docs* subdirectory
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of the project source.
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Interesting things to have a look at
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* [Runtime Setup](docs/runtime-setup.md)
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* [Build Android image](docs/build-android.md)
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## Reporting bugs
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If you have found an issue with Anbox, please [file a bug](https://github.com/anbox/anbox/issues/new).
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## Get in Touch
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If you want to get in contact with the developers please feel free to join the
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*#anbox* IRC channel on [FreeNode](https://freenode.net/).
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## Copyright and Licensing
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Anbox reuses code from other projects like the Android QEMU emulator. These
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projects are available in the external/ subdirectory with the licensing terms
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included.
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The anbox source itself, if not stated differently in the relevant source files,
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is licensed under the terms of the GPLv3 license.
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