Getting the emulator

Installing the pre-built emulator

• Install android-emulator package in Trusty
• Copy out emulator to read/write directory
• Generate sdcard
• Run the emulator

$ sudo apt-get install android-emulator
$ cp -r /usr/share/android/emulator/ ~/
$ cd ~/emulator/
$ ./build-emulator-sdcard.sh
$ ./run-emulator.sh

Building from scratch

To build

$ sudo apt-get install phablet-tools git bzr

$ # install android build-dependencies
$ sudo apt-get build-dep android

$ # if we're on amd64, we need to pull in certain 32-bit packages explicitly
$ sudo apt-get install libx11-dev:i386 libreadline6-dev:i386 libgl1-mesa-dev:i386 zlib1g-dev:i386

$ # and then work around the fact that libgl1-mesa-dev isn't Multi-Arch: same yet
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so

$ mkdir -p emulator/
$ phablet-dev-bootstrap emulator
$ cd emulator
$ source build/envsetup.sh
$ lunch cm_goldfish-eng
$ mka

To generate sdcard with the ubuntu rootfs

$ ./build/tools/build-emulator-sdcard.sh

Launch the emulator with the run-emulator script:

$ ./build/tools/run-emulator.sh

You can also launch the emulator using your own arguments and options:

$ emulator -verbose -gpu on -system $OUT/system.img -memory 512 -show-kernel -shell -no-jni -qemu -cpu cortex-a8

As of 2013/11/05 there is a bug in the goldfish kernel wrt AppArmor, so you may want to launch with AppArmor disabled until this issue is resolved:

$ emulator -verbose -gpu on -system $OUT/system.img -memory 512 -show-kernel -shell -no-jni -qemu -cpu cortex-a8 -append 'apparmor=0'

Username & password are:

phablet
phablet

To update your existing working tree to pull in new changes from the server, run repo sync.

For more information about how to use the repo command to manage your android working tree, see this page.

Using the emulator

After starting the emulator with the wrapper script following should be available:

• Adb
  • Emulator will appear in the output of $ adb devices, and will, once fully booted allow

    $ adb shell

    access into ubuntu.
• Serial console
  • The terminal will start an Ubuntu console by default, which can be used as any virtual console. Just be aware that hiiting Control + C will stop the emulator.
• SSH access
  • SSH is enabled by default in the emulator, but you can only access it via localhost (QEMU handles the routes and NAT internally). All you need is to forward the target SSH port to a known port at your host:

    $ adb forward tcp:9999 tcp:22
    $ ssh phablet@localhost -p 9999

• Telnet access
  • Once launched graphical window title will show a port number, e.g. 5554. Connect to that over telnet, to send hardware events to the emulator

    $ telnet 127.0.0.1 5554
    Trying 127.0.0.1...
    Connected to 127.0.0.1.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    Android Console: type 'help' for a list of commands
    OK
    help
    Android console command help:
    
        help|h|?         print a list of commands
        event            simulate hardware events
        geo              Geo-location commands
        gsm              GSM related commands
        cdma             CDMA related commands
        kill             kill the emulator instance
        network          manage network settings
        power            power related commands
        quit|exit        quit control session
        redir            manage port redirections
        sms              SMS related commands
        avd              control virtual device execution
        window           manage emulator window
        qemu             QEMU-specific commands
        sensor           manage emulator sensors
    
    try 'help <command>' for command-specific help
    OK

Known Issues

• Powerd is disabled by default as suspending & resuming corrupts the root filesystem.

• A few other services might also be disabled by default until everything is working properly with the emulator. Please check build-emulator-sdcard.sh to see the extra customization done for the emulator image.