README.md

ravms - ranolfi's android virtual machine share

Share files between your PC and an Android-x86 virtual machine.

Note: Assumes a GNU/Linux operating system. Mostly portable, though I don't have the time to port it myself ATM.

Requirements:

On the computer:

• Android Debug Bridge (adb) - https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb
  _{(part of android-tools package in Arch Linux)}

On the virtual machine:

• A terminal emulator _{(the official Android-x86 release already includes the one from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jackpal.androidterm if I'm not mistaken)}
• Root access
• Network connectivity between guest and host (in virt-manager the network interface must be in bridged mode)

How to use:

Sending files from host to VM

1. In terminal emulator (in the VM), run ip a and note the IP address of the virtual network adapter. It's usually the last one in the list. It's named eth0 on my VM.
   It must be in the same subnet as the host (i.e. host IP is 192.168.0.2 and Android-x86 VM IP is 192.168.0.3).

2. Change the IP address in the Adb Push.sh script @line 1 to the one you just noted.

3. Put any files you wish to send to the Android-x86 VM in the Transfers folder. Feel free to delete the .gitkeep file while at it.

4. Run the Adb Push.sh script.

5. In the Android VM, browse to /sdcard/Transfers and find your newly pushed files.

Pulling files from VM to host

1. (Follow step 1 from instructions above)

2. Change the IP address in the Adb Pull.sh script @line 1 to the one from step 1.

3. Put any files you wish to send back to the host in a directory named out under /sdcard/Transfers/ (you'll probably need to create it).

4. Run the Adb Pull.sh script in the host.

5. Find your newly pulled files in the Transfers/out directory.

Remarks

1. If you see:

   unable to connect to 192.168.0.8:5555: No route to host
   adb: error: failed to get feature set: no devices/emulators found

   then there is no connectivity to the VM.

   If you indeed are using QEMU-KVM (possibly with virt-manager), I have the rmacvlan script to aid in getting virtual machines to talk to the host via network.

2. The first time you run either script, you should expect to see:

   • daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
   • daemon started successfully

   After that, all further runs will show:

   already connected to [ip:port]

   This is normal and expected. If, for any reason, the scripts stops working after rebooting the VM, you may get around that by running adb kill-server in the host.

3. Two additional scripts are provided for convenience: rip and rrscan. Those are intended to be copied to and used from the Android-x86 virtual machine. I recommend placing them under /system/sbin so that they can be called anytime from the terminal emulator right after executing su. Make sure they are executable, i.e. chmod u+x rip | chmod u+x rscan.

• rip is used to add a predefined IP address to the VM's network interface so that you won't have to edit your Adb Pull.sh and Adb Push.sh everytime. It must be run before running either script in the host.

• rrscan is useful to get your recently pushed media to be recognized by media applications (e.g. photos will appear in the gallery without having to reboot.) This script should be run after pushing files.
  _{(Note: it is probably possible to run adb shell "su -c 'am broadcast -a android.intent.action.MEDIA_MOUNTED -d file:///mnt/sdcard'" right after adb push from the Adb Push.sh script, and this eliminates the need for the rrscan script. But I haven't tested.)}

Support:

Please open an issue and I'll try my best to help you.