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F-Droid Privileged Extension

This enables F-Droid to install and delete apps without needing "Unknown Sources" to be enabled (e.g. just like Google Play does). It also enables F-Droid to install updates in the background without the user having to click "install".

When F-Droid is installed as a normal Android app, installing, updating, and removing apps can only be done by sending requests to the Android operating system. F-Droid cannot execute these operations itself. Android shows a screen on every install/update/delete to confirm this is what the user actually wants. This is a security feature of Android to prevent apps or websites from installing malware without user intervention.

F-Droid Privileged Extension grants elevated permissions to F-Droid, which allows it to do installs and uninstalls without needing user approval. It gives only F-Droid access to its install and delete commands. In order for F-Droid Privileged Extension to get these "privileged" powers, it must be installed as part of your system by either being flashed as an update.zip or by being built into an Android device or ROM. On Android 4 and older, it can be installed directly if you have root on your device.

Design

F-Droid Privileged Extension is designed on the principals of "least privilege", so that elevated powers are only granted where they are absolutely needed, and those powers are limited as much as possible. Therefore, the code that runs with increased powers is very small and easy to audit. This is in contrast to how typical built-in app stores are granted all of the privileges available to a "system priv-app".

Advantages of this design:

  • "Unknown Sources" can remain disabled
  • Can easily be built into devices and ROMs
  • Reduced disk usage in the system partition
  • System updates don't remove F-Droid

How do I install it on my device?

The best way to install F-Droid Privileged Extension is to flash the OTA update ZIP file using the standard mechanism for flashing updates to the ROM. This requires the device have an unlocked bootloader. A custom Recovery firmware is recommended. This is the same procedure as flashing "gapps" after flashing a ROM onto your device.

Installing the F-Droid Privileged Extension directly from the F-Droid app requires root access and is only possible on Android versions older than 5.0. It is not possible on Android 5.1, 6.0, and newer. To install the extension, open the settings inside the F-Droid app, enable "Expert mode", and then enable "Privileged Extension". It will lead you to the extension app, which will guide you through the installation process.

There are potential risks to rooting and unlocking your device, including:

  • often requires using random, unverified software
  • bootloader unlock often voids warranty
  • official updates might stop working with an unlocked bootloader
  • other functions may break (like Android Pay, DRM-protected content playing, camera enhancements, etc.)

How do I build it into my ROM?

F-Droid Privileged Extension is designed to be built into ROMs and signed by the ROM key. F-Droid only gets permissions via F-Droid Privileged Extension's internal key check, not via having a matching signing key or via "signature" protectionLevel. This git repo includes an Android.mk so it can be directly included via repo. Add F-DroidPrivilegedExtension to the PRODUCT_PACKAGES list to include it in the system image, and use a repo manifest like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manifest>

  <remote name="fdroid" fetch="https://gitlab.com/fdroid/" />
  <project path="packages/apps/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension"
           name="privileged-extension.git" remote="fdroid"
           revision="refs/tags/0.2.13" />

</manifest>

By default, F-Droid Privileged Extension trusts only the official F-Droid builds, and we recommend that https://f-droid.org/F-Droid.apk is also included in the ROM. You can verify the binaries by using both the APK signature and the PGP key: https://f-droid.org/F-Droid.apk.asc

APK signing certificate SHA-256 fingerprint:

43238d512c1e5eb2d6569f4a3afbf5523418b82e0a3ed1552770abb9a9c9ccab

PGP signing key fingerprint:

37D2 C987 89D8 3119 4839  4E3E 41E7 044E 1DBA 2E89

More documentation can be found here: https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Release_Channels_and_Signing_Keys

Direct download

F-Droid Privileged Extension needs to be flashed as an OTA update on all Android versions since 5.0 in order to function. The official, signed ZIP package and PGP signature are available for download from f-droid.org:

It is also possible to download the bare APK, though this is not the recommended way to install it for the first time. It is provided to update the extension after the OTA update ZIP has been flashed.

Building with Gradle

Build a complete "update.zip" to flash to a device to install F-Droid and the Privileged Extension:

./create_ota.sh debug binaries

Build an "update.zip" to flash to a device to install just the Privileged Extension:

./create_ota.sh debug

Build the standalone APK using:

./gradlew assembleRelease

In order to have final, signed release versions that are ready for installing, a release signing key must be set up in signing.properties with these contents:

key.store=/path/to/release-keystore.jks
key.store.password=mysecurestorepw
key.alias=release
key.alias.password=mysecurekeypw

Supporting a different app

It is possible to use Privileged Extension with any app. To do that, make a "whitelabel" build of Privileged Extension that includes the Application ID, key fingerprint, and app name for the app that the custom build will support. These are set by the script below, and should be committed to a fork git repo:

$ export ApplicationID=my.app
$ export AppName=MyApp
sed -i "s,org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged,$ApplicationID,g" \
    create_ota.sh app/src/main/scripts/*
$ sed -i "s,F-Droid,$AppName,g" \
    create_ota.sh app/build.gradle app/src/main/scripts/* \
    app/src/main/res/values*/strings.xml

Testing in the Emulator

To test the Privileged Extension in the emulator, one has to modify the system.img file. It is located under the Android SDK install path. For example, here is the android-23 (Marshmallow, 6.0) x86_64 image with Google APIs:

$ANDROID_HOME/system-images/android-23/google_apis/x86_64/system.img

To install it, first build the standalone APK, and then run these in the base directory of this git repo. This copies the APK into the right place, and sets up the correct SELinux context.

android-14 through android-25

$ ./gradlew assembleDebug
$ mkdir /tmp/system
$ sudo mount -o loop /path/to/system.img /tmp/system
$ sudo mkdir /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension
$ sudo cp app/build/outputs/apk/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension-debug.apk \
    /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension.apk
$ sudo chcon -R --reference=/tmp/system/app/webview /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension
$ sudo umount /tmp/system

android-26 and newer

Starting with android-26, the system.img files have a different format that needs to be unpacked before it can be mounted. It has to be repacked after mounting as well. This requires the simg2img and make_ext4fs utilities.

$ sudo apt-get install android-tools-fsutils
$ ./gradlew assembleDebug
$ simg2img /path/to/system.img system.img.raw
$ mkdir /tmp/system
$ sudo mount -t ext4 -o loop system.img.raw /tmp/system
$ sudo mkdir /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension
$ sudo cp app/build/outputs/apk/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension-debug.apk \
    /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension.apk
$ sudo chcon -R --reference=/tmp/system/app/webview /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension
$ make_ext4fs -s -T -1 -S file_contexts -L system -l 512M -a system system.img.new /tmp/system
$ sudo umount /tmp/system
$ mv system.img.new /path/to/system.img

Upon booting the emulator, it should have the Privileged Extension installed. It is also possible to install the F-Droid app this way, or via the normal methods.

via adb on android-19 and older

On old Android versions (4.4 and older), it is possible using only adb, but then each time the emulator is rebooted, it will lose the changes. Take a snapshot after completing this process to save the state.

$ adb -e root
$ adb -e remount
$ adb -e shell mkdir /system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension
$ sudo cp app/build/outputs/apk/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension-debug.apk \
    /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension.apk
$ sudo chcon -R --reference=/tmp/system/app/webview /tmp/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension