adbncfs Documentation

Table of Contents

• Android Debug Bridge via Netcat File System (adbncfs)
  • Abstract
  • How to mount a android file system
  • Requirements
  • Installing
  • Known bugs
  • Not yet implemented

Android Debug Bridge via Netcat File System (adbncfs)

Abstract

This is a FUSE based file system client to mount the file system of your android device on your linux host.

The idea of adbncfs was taken from ADBFS file system.

ADBFS uses adb shell commands to communicate with the device. This involves creation of an adb process for every command to execute on the device and that's why it is very very slow, especially if using a file manager.

To overcome this limitation I use NETCAT instead of adb shell to communicate with the device.

At startup a NETCAT process is started on both the android device and on the local host. Additional a adb port forwarding is setup. Now the shell commands are sent to the local NETCAT, then via port forwarding to the NETCAT on the android device which forwards the shell command to the bash shell. The output is sent the reverse way back.

ADB shell is still used to set up port forwarding and to start and kill the NETCAT process on the android device. ADB push and pull are used to move files to and from the device.

Features of this implementation are:

• Based on [FUSE] (the best userspace file system framework for linux ;-)
• Multithreading: more than one request can be on it's way to the device
• Caching of file attributes and resolved links
• well-behaved filesystem, allowing tools like find(1) df(1) and rsync(1) to work as expected

How to mount a android file system

Once adbncfs is installed (see Installing) running it is very simple:

Make sure that

• BUSYBOX is installed on your device how-to-install-busybox
• USB Debugging is enabled enable-usb-debug
• your device is connected to the USB port

To mount the file system:

Create a mount point if needed (e.g. in your home directory)

> mkdir ~/mountpoint

For regular use, simply specifying a mountpoint will have the first available android device mounted under it.

> adbncfs mountpoint

Note, that it's recommended to run it as user, not as root.

To unmount the filesystem:

> fusermount -u mountpoint

Requirements

• libfuse-dev
  • on debian execute sudo apt-get install libfuse-dev
• pkg-config
  • on debian execute sudo apt-get install pkg-config
• An install of gcc that supports the C++11 standard.
• ADB
  • on debian execute sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb
• BUSYBOX installed on your android device
  • how-to-install-busybox
• optional
  • cppunit
    • on debian execute sudo apt-get install libcppunit-1.13-0 libcppunit-dev
  • cppcheck
    • on debian execute sudo apt-get install cppcheck
  • doxygen
    • on debian execute sudo apt-get install doxygen graphviz

Installing

First you need to DOWNLOAD the repository and unzip it.

Compile adbncfs the usual way:

>  make
>  make install (as root)

And you are ready to go.

Known bugs

• problems with files with ? in filenames (adb bug?)

Not yet implemented

The following FUSE callback functions are not yet implemented:

• fgetattr
• symlink
• link
• chmod
• chown
• ftruncate
• fsyncdir
• lock
• bmap
• setxattr
• getxattr
• listxattr
• ioctl
• poll