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Install and Configure Update Factory Client packages for Embedded Android

Overview

Kynetics provides the UF Android Client Service and UI example as Android Package files (.apk) for side-load installation. The UF Android Client Service must be installed as a SYSTEM application to work correctly, which is guaranteed by signing it with the platform key. The platform key can either be:

  • the test version included in the Android build system
  • a custom one created for production purposes

Please refer to this Technical Note for more information regarding how to sign system applications. Also, a signing example is provided in section Signing the UF Android Client Service APK.

Note

For a successful installation, this guide assumes that you've powered on your device, have debug/developer mode enabled in Android, and have connected your device to your computer so that the adb utility can be used to side-load (install) APKs and copy the ufConf.conf file to your device.

Download the APKs

The latest version of the UF Android Client applications are available from the Github Releases page

Note

We've pre-signed the UF Android Client Service APK with the:

  • AOSP platform key: use this for development Android OS builds based on AOSP and Android emulator (only variant without Google APIs)
  • NXP platform key: use this for development Android OS builds based on NXP BSP
  • Rockchip platform key: use this for development Android OS builds based on Rockchip BSP

Signing the UF Android Client Service APK

In the case that you need to sign the UF Android Client Service APK with a different platform key, you will need the following standard key files that were also used to sign your Android OS image:

  • platform.pk8
  • platform.x509.pem

You also will need the signapk.jar utility, which can be found in the Android OS build system (out/host/linux-x86/signapk.jar) .

Once you have all the required files, run the following command to sign the UF Android Client Service (adapt paths and file names as needed): 

java -jar signapk.jar platform.x509.pem platform.pk8 uf-client-service-v1.0.0.apk uf-client-service-signed-v1.0.0.apk

Preparing the ufConf.conf configuration files

If you have the ufConf.conf file defined, the UF Android Client UI example will automatically obtain the configuration and not require user input for configuration in the app.

Learn more about the parameters in the ufConf.conf configuration file and its installation path in the Client configuration page.

Side-loading APKs

Proceed to side-load the signed UF Android Client Service APK. In this example, it is called: uf-client-service-signed-v1.0.0.apk. 

adb install uf-client-service-signed-v1.0.0.apk

After installation of the UF Android Client Service, you will need to run the following once to enable the background service:

adb shell am startservice -a com.kynetics.action.BIND_UF_SERVICE

Optionally, you can also install the UF Android Client UI example APK:

adb install uf-client-ui-v1.0.0.apk

Once installed successfully, you can find the UF Android Client UI example in the Android launcher.

Warning

SELinux Security Framework may block operations like installation of updates or read access to configuration files. Please set SELinux to permissive mode or configure it in your Android OS to grant the required permissions to the UF Android Client Service.

For more information about SELinux on Android see the official documentation.