Mobile/Fennec/Android

Setup a Build Environment

Below are instructions for setting up a build environment on Ubuntu. See the build docs here for instructions on setting up a build environment on other OSs.

Quick Script

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk mercurial ccache
sudo apt-get build-dep firefox
wget http://dl.google.com/android/ndk/android-ndk-r6-linux-x86.tar.bz2
tar -xjf android-ndk-r6-linux-x86.tar.bz2
wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r12-linux_x86.tgz
tar -xzf android-sdk_r12-linux_x86.tgz
# go get lunch, this will take a while
./android-sdk-linux_x86/tools/android update sdk -u
./android-sdk-linux_x86/tools/android update adb

If you're using a 64-bit Ubuntu install, you'll need ia32-libs to allow the toolchain binaries to run.

 sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Explained

Install Java

First install the Sun Java jdk6, which the Android SDK depends on If you're on Ubuntu 11.04, you'll need to use an addtional repo (ppa) as its not available in the partners repo yet. Others report success using the Maverick partners repo to get it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

Install Gecko Requirements

Then install the usual stuff needed for a firefox build, you probably already have it

sudo apt-get install mercurial ccache
sudo apt-get build-dep firefox

Install Android NDK

Download and extract the NDK. NDK revs 4, 5 and 6 have been tested and confirmed to work.

wget http://dl.google.com/android/ndk/android-ndk-r6-linux-x86.tar.bz2
tar -xjf android-ndk-r6-linux-x86.tar.bz2

Install Android SDK

You should just install the latest sdk, we set the API level in our manifest files. The sdk download will take a while, make sure you have a decent internet connection and go get coffee, or maybe lunch.

wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r12-linux_x86.tgz
tar -xzf android-sdk_r12-linux_x86.tgz
./android-sdk-linux_x86/tools/android update sdk -u
./android-sdk-linux_x86/tools/android update adb

Build

You build as you normally would (make -f client.mk), just with a differnt mozconfig

mozconfig

Here's an example mozconfig that should get you building, modify it to meet your needs.

# Add the correct paths here:
ac_add_options --with-android-ndk="$HOME/android-ndk-r6"
ac_add_options --with-android-sdk="$HOME/android-sdk-linux_x86/platforms/android-8"
ac_add_options --with-android-version=5
ac_add_options --with-android-tools="$HOME/android-sdk-linux_x86/tools"
ac_add_options --with-android-toolchain="$HOME/android-ndk-r6/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3/prebuilt/linux-x86"
ac_add_options --with-android-platform="$HOME/android-ndk-r6/platforms/android-5/arch-arm"
# android options
ac_add_options --enable-application=mobile
ac_add_options --target=arm-linux-androideabi
ac_add_options --with-endian=little
ac_add_options --with-ccache

mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=./objdir-droid
mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS="-j9 -s"

Increase linking speed (AKA using gold)

On some systems, linking libxul can takes several minutes. Using gold instead of ld can slightly reduce this time (from around 7 minutes to a bit more than 1 minute on my machine ; YMMV, on another machine, it gets from 25 seconds to 10, or from 2 minutes to 1 minute with all system caches dropped).

To use gold, you have to recompile toolchain in the ndk with a newer binutils.

Go to your Android NDK directory then update the toolchain sources:

 ./build/tools/download-toolchain-sources.sh src

Now, you have to download the latest binutils (currently 2.21.53), go there:

 ftp://sourceware.org/pub/binutils/snapshots/

Extract it in src/binutils (in the NDK directory). That should create a new directory named binutils-<VERSION>.

Before building the toolchain, we have to make sure gold is used as the default linker, open build/tools/build-gcc.sh and add:

 --enable-gold=default \

in the configure script options. This should be after this line # configure the toolchain, near the line 200.

You are all set and ready to rebuild the toolchain, run this:

 ./build/tools/build-gcc.sh --binutils-version=<BINUTILS_VERSION> $(pwd)/src $(pwd) arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3

Finally, you can call this command and make sure the first line output is GNU gold (GNU Binutils [...]):

 toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3/prebuilt/linux-x86/arm-linux-androideabi/bin/ld --version

Testing

In general, android testing requires a parallel host build. Below the path to that build is assumed to be "../objdir-x86/dist/bin".

Reftests

 MOZ_HOST_BIN="../objdir-x86/dist/bin/" make reftest-remote

Mochitests

 MOZ_HOST_BIN="../objdir-x86/dist/bin/" make mochitest-remote 

xpcshell

progress being tracked in bug 661282 and bug 668349

Debugging

Using logcat

logcat is a tool that is going to show you some logs prompted by the device. It might be a good help if you don't want to or can't run gdb. You can use it by running this command:

 adb logcat

You can make things appear in logcat using printf_stderr. With debug builds, NS_WARNING, NS_ERROR and NS_ASSERTIONS will show up in logcat.

Using nVidia GDB

Nvidia's gdb is better: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/tegra/files/tegra-gdb-20100902.zip

Using JimDB

• jchen has been working on a better Android gdb ('jimdb'). Prebuilt binaries, source, and build instructions
  • has most fixes from NDK gdb
  • integrates Android libthread_db (fixed dougt's problem debugging threads)
  • has Python scripting support
  • couple of existing Python scripts (or if using prebuilt binaries above, just run 'git pull' under the 'utils' directory)
    • feninit is a tool to initialize the GDB environment (support for multiple devices, multiple object directories; launches Fennec, pulls libraries, sets paths, and attaches gdbserver automatically)
    • tracebt is a WIP stack unwinder that traces instructions to find stack frames
    • idea for another tool to parse and integrate logcat into gdb
    • other ideas welcome!

Using Debug Intent

In order to attach before things get running, launch with:

  adb shell am start -a org.mozilla.gecko.DEBUG -n org.mozilla.fennec_unofficial/.App

and just click launch once gdb is attached. If you need to debug a crash that happens before XRE_Main is called, the patch on bug 572247 may be useful.

this script [1] will attach gdbserver for you

Env Vars

If you need to set an env var at run time, use append --es env# VAR=VAL to your activity manager command where # is the ordered number of variables for example:

 adb shell am start -a android.activity.MAIN -n org.mozilla.fennec_unofficial/.App --es env0 VAR=val --es env1 FOO=bar

You may need bug 578493 if the env var you're using is tested before XRE_Main is called

PR Logging

You can use the env vars as described above to make logging work (along with bug 578493). With just that you can log to a file

 adb shell am start -a android.activity.MAIN -n org.mozilla.fennec/org.mozilla.fennec.App --es env0 NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5 --es env1 NSPR_LOG_FILE=/mnt/sdcard/log.txt

With the patch on bug 578496 you can have the logging directed to the android logs and as such only need:

 adb shell am start -a android.activity.MAIN -n org.mozilla.fennec/org.mozilla.fennec.App --es env0 NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5

debugging without rooting

with Froyo you can debug without rooting your phone. Instructions are below. See also Fennec/Android/GDBNoRoot for another guide on how to do this.

First thing, to make this work with the nvidia gdb (which I found more reliable than the android r3 gdb) you need to modify install.sh and debug.sh.

first, change the location where install.sh copies gdbserver to somewhere writable by a non-root process. I used /data/local. Be sure to update that both in the push command and the chmod command.

second, update debug.sh with the new location of gdbserver.

finally, you'll need to add run-as $2 to the adb shell command that launches gdbserver. In the end you should have: install.sh:

#!/bin/sh
mkdir lib
adb push prebuilt/gdbserver /data/local
adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/gdbserver
for file in $(adb shell ls /system/lib | tr "\n" " " | tr "\r" " "); do
  adb pull /system/lib/$file lib
done
adb pull /system/bin/app_process lib 

debug.sh:

#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
  echo "usage: $0 /path/to/your/library.so packagename.of.your.activity"
  echo "for example:"
  echo "  $0 /code/mydemo/libs/armeabi/libmydemo.so com.nvidia.devtech.mydemo"
  exit
fi

if [ ! -f $1 ]
then
  echo "ERROR: That library file doesn't exist"
  exit
fi

cp $1 lib

p=`adb shell ps | grep $2 | awk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$p" = "" ];
then
  echo "ERROR: That doesn't seem to be a running process. Please make sure your"
  echo "application has been started and that you are using the correct"
  echo "namespace argument."
  exit
fi

adb forward tcp:12345 tcp:12345
adb shell run-as $2 /data/local/gdbserver --attach :12345 $p

Attaching GDB

Assuming you have the nvidia gdb at the top of your home directory and the app_process binary in the current working directory.

 ~/nvidia-gdb/prebuilt/linux-x86/arm-eabi-gdb ./app_process

Other useful tips and tricks

killer script

 #!/bin/sh
if [ $# -ne 1 ]
then
    echo "usage: $0  packagename.of.your.activity"
    echo "for example:"
    echo "  $0 org.mozilla.fennec"
    exit
fi

p=`adb shell ps | grep $1 | awk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$p" = "" ];
then
    echo "ERROR: That doesn't seem to be a running process. Please make sure your"
    echo "application has been started and that you are using the correct"
    echo "namespace argument."
    exit
fi

adb shell run-as $1 kill $p

.gdbinit

This is an example .gdbinit that uses the symbols from a locally built rom and automatically attaches to gdbserver. Note that putting a .gdbinit file inside a directory will make gdb load it thus you will not pollute your regular gdb init with those configurations.

 set solib-search-path /home/blassey/android/system/out/target/product/passion/symbols/system/bin:/home/blassey/android/system/out/target/product/passion/symbols/system/lib/:/home/blassey/src/ndk5-m-c/objdir-droid-dbg/dist/bin
set solib-absolute-prefix /home/blassey/android/system/out/target/product/passion/symbols/system/lib/
target remote localhost:12345