silkevicious
/
pages
Visit Page
2
1
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Projects Releases Wiki Activity
pages/apkrepo.html

290 lines
16 KiB
HTML
Raw Permalink Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters!

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters that may be confused with others in your current locale. If your use case is intentional and legitimate, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to highlight these characters.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="simple.min.css">
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>How to build an Android app and deploy an F-Droid repository</title>
</head>
<body>
<header>
<h1>How to build an Android app and deploy an F-Droid repository</h1>
<nav>
<a href="index.html">Home</a>
<a href="projects.html">Projects</a>
<a href="posts.html">Posts</a>
<a href="about.html">About</a>
</nav>
</header>
<main>
<blockquote>Welcome!<br />
These are our notes on how to build an Android app and deploy an F-Droid repository.<br />
This is also a reminder for the future me, when i forget steps (often).<br />
This guide is only possible with the collaboration of the Grey Eminence behind me, whose identity can't be disclosed.<br /><br />
<b>Personal suggestion:</b> if you have the chance and the possibility use a VM to do this.<br />
Android environment can require tweaks that you may not like for your main system, doing this in a VM can help, you can always nuke and redo in case things go nuts.<br />
I may explain my VM setup in a separate guide.<br /><br />
As always, you can do things in different ways, you can manually build things, you can build with F-Droid, etc...<br />
I'll try to be as linear as possible. Let's start!
</blockquote>
<h2 id="AndroidSDK">Setup Android SDK</h2>
<p>This is a common prerequisite for both the path (manual build and F-Droid build) so don't skip yet.
<br /><br />
Install necessary packages
<pre><code>$ sudo apt install git wget unzip default-jdk-headless
</code></pre>
Create a new folder for this project and cd into it
<pre><code>$ mkdir app_builds
$ cd app_builds
</code></pre>
Download Android SDK and save it as <code>sdk.zip</code>:
<pre><code>$ wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip -O sdk.zip</code></pre>
<b>Note:</b> this is the current link as of writing this guide. This can change in future. Check <a href="https://developer.android.com/studio#command-tools">https://developer.android.com/studio#command-tools</a> for future updates.
<br />Now we have to extract the <code>sdk.zip</code> to <code>android_sdk/cmdline-tools/</code>
<br /><br />
Create the directories
<pre><code>$ mkdir -p android_sdk/cmdline-tools/</code></pre>
Extract the files
<pre><code>$ unzip sdk.zip -d android_sdk/cmdline-tools</code></pre>
Command line tools of the Android SDK expects to be in a specific directory, so let's give what it want:
<pre><code>$ mv android_sdk/cmdline-tools/cmdline-tools android_sdk/cmdline-tools/latest</code></pre>
Add <code>ANDROID_HOME</code> environment variable
<pre><code>$ echo "export ANDROID_HOME=~/app_builds/android_sdk" >> ~/.bashrc
$ source ~/.bashrc</code></pre>
<!--export ANDROID_HOME=~/app_builds/android_sdk
export ANDROID_NDK=~/app_builds/android_sdk
export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=~/app_builds/android_sdk
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools-->
Add Java location to <code>PATH</code>
<pre><code>$ echo "export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64" >> ~/.profile
$ echo "export PATH=\$PATH:\$JAVA_HOME/bin" >> ~/.profile
$ source ~/.profile</code></pre>
Now we have to accept the licenses
<pre><code>$ ./android_sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --licenses</code></pre>
Once accepted see the package you can install with the command:
<pre><code>$ ./android_sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --list</code></pre>
At the moment of writing, the latest build tool version is 30.0.3. We need it to build the apps, so let's download it with:
<pre><code>$ ./android_sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --install "build-tools;30.0.3"</code></pre>
Prerequisites are done. Now, if you want to manual build apps, keep reading. If you want to build apps with F-Droid skip to <a href="#FDroidServer">F-Droid Server</a> Chapter.</p>
<h2 id="ManualBuild">Manual Android app build</h2>
<p>If you never built an app before, i suggest you to start with manually building an app.
This will let you learn a lot of things while troubleshooting errors you will encounter.<br /><br />
Let's take Fedilab as example for build. The procedure is very similar with almost any app.<br />
Clone Fedilab’s repository
<pre><code>$ git clone https://framagit.org/tom79/fedilab.git fedilab</code></pre>
Go to the cloned folder and build!
<pre><code>$ cd fedilab
$ ./gradlew assembleFdroid</code></pre>
I wrote <code>assembleFdroid</code> after the command. It's not the same for every app, for example for Blabber.im is <code>assembleGit</code>.<br />
Check the build.gradle file in your app's git repo to see how is called the flavour.<br />
Different flavour leads to different results: some flavours for example requires Google dependencies we may not like...<br />
It may happens the app has no flavours. In this case it's sufficient to execute
<pre><code>$ ./gradlew assemble</code></pre></p>
<h3 id="CreateKeyManual">Signature Key</h3>
<p><mark>This is needed just the first time.</mark>
<br />We need to generate our key to sign APK.
<pre><code>$ cd ~/app_builds/
$ keytool -genkey -v -keystore NAME.keystore -keyalg RSA -keysize 4096 -validity 10000 -alias NAME</code></pre>
It will ask you some infos, some can be left blank. After we have to convert it to PKCS12 format to fix the warning that just appeared.
<pre><code>$ keytool -importkeystore -srckeystore NAME.keystore -destkeystore NAME.keystore -deststoretype pkcs12</code></pre>
To make it quicker to sign the APKs i suggest you to add an alias in the end of .bashrc file.
<pre><code>$ nano ~/.bashrc</code></pre>
Paste and edit this
<pre><code>alias apksigner="~/app_builds/android_sdk/build-tools/30.0.3/apksigner sign --ks ~/app_builds/NAME.keystore --ks-key-alias NAME"</code></pre>
Then
<pre><code>$ source ~/.bashrc</code></pre></p>
<h3 id="SignAPKs">Sign APKs</h3>
<p>Now sign the apk (continuing the Fedilab example)
<pre><code>cp app/build/outputs/apk/fdroid/release/app-fdroid-release-unsigned.apk fedilab.apk
~/app_builds/android_sdk/build-tools/30.0.3/apksigner sign --ks <pathto>/YOURALIAS.keystore --ks-key-alias YOURALIAS fedilab.apk</code></pre>
Or if you followed my suggestion of the alias just
<pre><code>$ apksigner fedilab.apk</code></pre>
Done! Copy it to your phone and install! Of course, since your signature is different from the F-Droid one (if you installed already it from their repo) you need to uninstall that first.</p>
<h3 id="ManualDaily">Daily</h3>
<p>Go in every folder for each app you want to build, get the latest code, build and sign.
<pre><code>$ cd fedilab
$ git pull
$ ./gradlew assembleFdroid
$ cp app/build/outputs/apk/fdroid/release/app-fdroid-release-unsigned.apk fedilab.apk
$ apksigner fedilab.apk</code></pre>
As you can see this can take some time if you have a lot of apps...</p>
<h2 id="FDroidServer">F-Droid Server</h2>
<p>Instead of manual build each app, you could automatise things a bit and use F-Droid server.<br />
This requires more initial setup, but hopefully you gain time daily, especially if you want to build a lot of apps.</p>
<h3 id="SetupFDroidServer">Setup</h3>
<p>We need few more packages</p>
<pre><code>$ sudo apt install python3-pip curl rsync</code></pre>
<p>If you aren't already there, move yourself into app_builds folder</p>
<pre><code>$ cd app_builds</code></pre>
<p>Clone the fdroidserver repo</p>
<pre><code>$ git clone https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver.git _fdroidserver</code></pre>
<p>Install fdroidserver using pip</p>
<pre><code>$ pip3 install -e _fdroidserver</code></pre>
<p>Now run the command <code>fdroid</code> to check if it works. If not, try this</p>
<pre><code>$ source ~/.profile</code></pre>
<p>Now create a folder for this and cd into it</p>
<pre><code>$ mkdir fdroid
$ cd fdroid</code></pre>
<p>Initialize a fdroid working directory</p>
<pre><code>$ fdroid init</code></pre>
<p>Previous command will create a keystore, which is used for signing your F-Droid repository. We are going to remove it and manually create a new one. If you generated the key in the manual steps you can use that and skip this step.</p>
<pre><code>$ rm keystore.p12 keytool -genkey -keystore keystore.p12 -alias NAME -keyalg RSA -keysize 4096 -sigalg SHA256withRSA -validity 10000 -storetype pkcs12 -dname "CN=NAME, OU=F-Droid" -J-Duser.language=en</code></pre>
<p>Replace <code>NAME</code> with a name you like.
<br />
It will ask you for a password. Type a good password.
<br />
Edit the <code>config.yml</code> and update below values in it nano config.yml</p>
<pre><code>keystorepass: #password you used in previous step
keypass: #password you used in previous step
repo_keyalias: NAME #Replace NAME with the same value you used when creating the keystore
keydname: CN=NAME, OU=F-Droid #Replace NAME with the same value you used when creating the keystore</code></pre>
<p>Save and exit the text editor (press <kbd>CTRL+X</kbd> then press <kbd>Y</kbd> ). We're done!</p>
<h3 id="BuildFDroidServer">Build</h3>
<p>First we need to tell the F-Droid what to build. You have 2 ways.
<br /><br />
The easiest is fetch a metadata configuration from F-Droid Data repo of your app (if exists there).<br />
Copy metadata in <code>fdroid/metadata</code> folder. The metadata file name is something like <code>de.pixart.messenger.yml</code><br />
Then run this in <code>fdroid</code> folder</p>
<pre><code>$ fdroid checkupdates --allow-dirty --verbose --auto</code></pre>
<p>It will clone the repo to <code>fdroid/build</code> folder.
<br /><br />
OR
<br /><br />
Use this command to import an app:</p>
<pre><code>$ fdroid import --url=http://address.of.project</code></pre>
<p>It will create a basic metadata file and you can edit it yourself.
<br /><br />
Now let's trigger the build with:</p>
<pre><code>$ fdroid build --latest --no-tarball --verbose de.pixart.messenger</code></pre>
<p>If you have multiple apps you can build them all with <code>--all</code> instead of app codename. If the app is already build (no version change), it skips the build of course.</p>
<pre><code>$ fdroid build --latest --no-tarball --verbose --all</code></pre>
<p>If it says "Build successful", <mark>congrats</mark>! You made it!<br />
If not, check what it says. Usually you just have to install some SDK packages. Check <a href="#Troubleshoot">Troubleshoot</a> Chapter to fix some error i encountered so far in my experience.</p>
<h3 id="SignFDroidServer">Sign</h3>
<p>Similar to the manual build, we have to sign APKs before we made them available.<br />
The apk you built are in the unsigned/ folder.</p>
<pre><code>$ ../android_sdk/build-tools/30.0.3/apksigner sign --ks keystore.p12 --ks-key-alias NAME unsigned/NAMEOFTHE.apk</code></pre>
<p>Replace <code>NAME</code> with a name you used to create the key and <code>NAMEOFTHE.apk</code> with the name of the file. Insert the password and done!.
Of course if you added an alias for apksigner it's way easier. See <a href="#CreateKeyManual">above</a></p>
<h3 id="PrepareForDeploy">Prepare for deploy</h3>
<p><mark>This is needed just the first time.</mark>
<br />Place an icon of your choice into /fdroid folder.<br />
I created a cool QR code with a logo inside with the url of my repo and my avatar here: https://www.logodesign.net/qrcode-generator
<br /><br />
Add or update these in <code>config.yml</code>
<pre><code>make_current_version_link: false
deploy_process_logs: false
repo_url: https://codeberg.org/silkevicious/apkrepo/raw/branch/master/fdroid/repo/
repo_name: My F-Droid Repo
repo_description: This is a repository of apps to be used with F-Droid.
archive_older: 0</code></pre>
I decided to make available via git my repo. You can also make available via normal website (i may cover this in future).<br />
Edit config.yml Add or update these in config.yml
<pre><code>git_mirror_size_limit: 100MB
identity_file: ~/.ssh/ssh_key_for_git
servergitmirrors: git@codeberg.org:silkevicious/apkrepo.git</code></pre>
<h3 id="Deploy">Deploy</h3>
Place APKs fdroid/repo, from your manually build folder or from the unsigned folder, then run in fdroid folder
<pre><code>$ cd fdroid
$ fdroid update</code></pre>
You should run with -c if you haven't copied metadata from fdroid so it can add a skeleton of metadatas to edit.
<pre><code>$ fdroid update -c</code></pre>
And now
<pre><code>$ fdroid deploy</code></pre>
If you add your repo to fdroid you can now download and install your apps. Great job!
<h3 id="ServerDaily">Daily</h3>
<p>Go in fdroid folder, build, sign and deploy
<pre><code>$ sudo apt update && apt upgrade -y
$ cd ~/app_builds/fdroid
$ fdroid checkupdates --allow-dirty --auto && fdroid build --latest --no-tarball --verbose --all</code></pre>
then sign if there are new builds (this is the only boring move), move to repo folder and
<pre><code>$ fdroid update && fdroid deploy</code></pre>
Sometimes check also if the fdroidserver got updates
<pre><code>$ cd ~/app_builds/_fdroidserver
$ git pull</code></pre>
Thanks to the -e parameter while installing it we don't have to do anything else.</p>
<h2 id="Troubleshoot">Troubleshooting</h2>
<h5>Packages missing</h5>
Some apps require extra packages to be installed on the system.
For example <code>npm</code> is required by Tutanota, <code>mercurial</code> by Klar and <code>maven</code> by Seafile. There can be others, depending what you build.
<pre><code>$ sudo apt install npm mercurial maven</code></pre>
<h5>NDK missing</h5>
Some apps require specific versions of NDK.
<pre><code>$ ./android_sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --list
$ ./android_sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --install "ndk;21.3.6528147"</code></pre>
Also add or update these in <code>config.yml</code>
<pre><code>ndk_paths:
r21d: $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/21.3.6528147/</code></pre>
For example i have some ndk in my config:
<pre><code>ndk_paths:
r17c: $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/17.2.4988734/
r20b: $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/20.1.5948944/
r21: $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/21.0.6113669/
r21d: $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/21.3.6528147/
r22: $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/22.0.7026061/</code></pre>
<h5>Java errors</h5>
Some apps gave me some java errors. They required the old Java 8. This instruction are for Debian, but with few edits are ok for any other distro.
<pre><code>$ sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/stretch.list"
$ sudo sh -c "echo '\ndeb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ stretch/updates main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/stretch.list"
$ sudo sh -c "printf 'Package: *\nPin: release a=stretch\nPin-Priority: 90\n' >> /etc/apt/preferences.d/limit-stretch"
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk-headless</code></pre>
and edit <code>~/.profile</code>
<pre><code>JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64</code></pre>
and then
<pre><code>$ source ~/.profile</code></pre>
Also add or update these in <code>config.yml</code>
<pre><code>java_paths:
8: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/
11: /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64/</code></pre>
<h5>Warning or error about permission.</h5>
Happened to me after i nuked and rebuilt a VM. I moved files back and forth.
Check permission of ssh and config.yml keys.
<pre><code>$ chmod 0600 config.yml</code></pre>
<h5>Can't deploy on git because permission error</h5>
Happened to me the first time, with maiden VM.
start ssh agent and add your ssh key
<pre><code>$ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
$ ssh-add -K /Users/you/.ssh/id_rsa</code></pre>
You have to put your git host in the known hosts otherwise it will fail
<pre><code>$ git clone git@codeberg.org:silkevicious/apkrepo.git test</code></pre>
You may also want to config globally your email and name (not mandatory):
<pre><code>$ git config --global user.email "your@email.com"
$ git config --global user.name "Your Name"</code></pre>
</main>
<footer>
<p>Made with &#10084; by <a href="https://codeberg.org/silkevicious">Sylke Vicious</a> - License <a href="http://www.wtfpl.net/"><img src="http://www.wtfpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wtfpl-badge-4.png" width="80" height="15" alt="WTFPL" /></a></p>
</footer>
</body>
</html>
Reference in New Issue View Git Blame Copy Permalink