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Android Emulator Tricks

When performing security (or regular) tests on Android applications, we sometimes need to emulate or fake mobile data or actions; making/receiving calls, sending SMS or setting the exact geo-location are some commands that can be done, using the Emulator Console.  Here are a few tricks that will help you through Android application testing using the emulator:

· First, connect to the emu, using telnet:

telnet localhost 5554

· To change geo-locations:

geo fix <longtitude value> <latitude value>

· To make a phone call to the emulator:

gsm call <callerPhoneNumber>

· To send an sms to the emulator:

sms send <senderePhoneNumber> <textMessage>

· To scale the emulator window:

window scale <value from 0 to 1>

· To take a screenshot:

screencap -p  </path/to/filename.png>

· To create input events (event codes list):

input keyevent  <event_code>

Monkey

The Monkey is a command-line tool that runs on the emulator instance or on a device. When the Monkey runs, it generates pseudo-random events and sends them to the system.

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IOT – Compiling Brillo Easily

Google published the first version of Brillo, and as IoT researchers, the first thing that we want to do is to quickly compile and run it in order to get a feel for it, investigate it and learn as much as possible about the system…
 

At the beginning of our work we made some assumptions, which we found to have been correct:

  1. Instead of installing a new environment, it will be easier to install it on our AppUse VM which already has a lot of stuff on it.
  2. Google probably built it similarly to Android (both are Unix-based), so we took the Android compilation guide (links below).

 
Despite these shortcuts, we still came across a lot of trouble… I know for sure that you don’t want to waste your time to find and fix some stupid errors, so let me give you the shortest way to install it in a few steps and one script 🙂
 
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ADB – Common commands

What is ADB (Android Debug Bridge)

The ADB shell is a bridge between your computer and the Android device, which may be a physical device or an emulator.

 

How to install ADB

ADB comes with Android SDK, but you can also find it alone. Inside the AppUse VM we have installed and prepared it for you.

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