ADB Server

This package contains functionality to track the liveness of the ADB server on the PC and starts a new one as needed. It also tries to kill any competing ADB server to make sure it stays in control.

That probably sounds nuts. Well behaved programs should not go around killing each other, right? Unfortunately...

• The ADB server is unstable, so its liveness needs tracking.
• There is a bug in the ADB server’s daemonization code which prevents it from actually daemonizing under some conditions. When this happens, every client command causes a new ADB server to start and then immediately die when the result has been returned to the client. The unwanted server death causes all ADB connections to all handsets to be closed.
• Any client can intentionally kill the ADB server unless it was started as root, triggering the rolling error condition described above.

As it is, the “only” way to handle the worst effects is to start the ADB server as root from init and then watch that server process closely. The exact behavior can be controlled with a configuration file.

class ave.adb.server.AdbServer(home=None, config=None)

If no parameters are passed, the AdbServer class’ configuration is loaded from <home>/.ave/config/adb_server.json where <home> is the value of "home" in /etc/ave/user.

Parameters:

• home – Use an alternative value of <home>.
• config – Use an explicit set of configuration values (a dictionary). If this is passed, the default configuration file will not be loaded.

classmethod find_server_processes(port=None)

Return a list of PID’s with server processes that listen to a selected TCP port port, or any server if port is omitted.

Parameters:port – An integer or None. Returns:A list of integers (PIDs).

classmethod kill_all_servers(port=None, excepted=None)

Kill all ADB servers that listen to the TCP port port and do not have the same PID as excepted. Kill all ADB servers if both parameters are omitted.

Parameters:

• port – Integer. Only kill servers that listen to this TCP port.
• excepted – Integer. Do not kill a server with this PID.

classmethod load_config(home)

Load the file <home>/.ave/config/adb_server.json and validate its contents.

Parameters:home – String. A valid directory path.

kill_competition()

Kill all ADB servers that were not created by the current instance of the AdbServer class.

start_server()

Start a new ADB server. The call returns immediately.

stop_server()

Stop an ADB server that were previously started with start_server().

run()

Kill all other ADB servers, then start a new one and wait until it dies. Repeat forever if this AdbServer instance was configured to be persistent (see Configuration Files below).

Command Line Interface

A tool called ave-adb-server wraps the functionality desribed above:

ave-adb-server --start   # start a new instance
               --restart # replace a running instance with a new one
               --stop    # stop a running instance

Configuration Files

.ave/config/adb_server.json

If this file exists, it must contain a dictionary. The dictionary may have any of the following fields:

• port: The port number the ADB server should be listening on.
• persist: A boolean. If True, a new ADB server is started if the currently executing one exits.
• demote: A boolean. If True, the tool ave-adb-server tries to demote its own effective user ID to the configured AVE user (see the value of name in /etc/ave/user). This only works if the tool was executed with sufficient privileges (i.e. as root).

This is the default configuration:

{
    "port": 5037,
    "persist": true,
    "demote": false
}