Working With Devices

Flashing the Latest Build

Have ADB installed. You can learn how to install adb on MDN.

Connect your phone to your machine with a USB cable. If you run adb devices you should see a device ID.

Flashing the Flame

There are base builds (codename gonk), which contains the kernel, and there are FirefoxOS builds which are run on top of the base build.

Flames with a base build on an old Android kernel (v123) are no longer supported by us. Make sure to run with the newest build.

Note

You will lose everything on the device when you do this. Once you are running v188, you don’t need to do this step again until we update to a new kernel (probably a year or two)

Then to run with the correct FirefoxOS build for the flame (requires LDAP):

git clone https://github.com/Mozilla-TWQA/B2G-flash-tool
cd B2G-flash-tool
./flash_pvt.py --help
# Shallow flash an engineering build off the master branch onto the
# Flame v188 device.  In theory you won't lose anything...
./flash_pvt.py -d flame-kk -v mozilla-central --eng -g -G --keep_profile

Flashing without LDAP Access

Enabling Dev and Stage Certificates

FxOS version: 2.0

You don’t need to install certificates; the system preference dom.mozApps.use_reviewer_certs just needs to be set to true.

  • Connect the device with a USB cable and install any drivers

  • Open a shell

  • Run adb shell and then the following to set the preference:

    stop b2g
cd /data/b2g/mozilla/\*.default/
echo 'user_pref("dom.mozApps.use_reviewer_certs", true);' >> prefs.js
start b2g

FZOS version: 2.1+

Enable the checkbox: Settings -> Developer -> Use Marketplace reviewer certs

Installing Dev and Stage on Engineering Builds

Note

Some testers have had trouble with this, and flashing user gaia+gecko fails to boot. Proceed with caution.

Engineering builds (as of 16 Oct 2014) have old Dev and Stage Marketplace apps installed, and they cannot be removed.

To work around this, we need root access on the engineering image in order to push custom prefs (e.g., for payments), and the UI and apps from the user build.

To do so, flash a full engineering image (referred to as “images” as opposed to “gaia+gecko”). Then flash a user build of just “gaia+gecko” of the same build. Since this the user build, the developer menu is hidden by default. To remedy this:

  • Go to “Device Information -> More information”
  • Scroll to bottom and enable developer menu
  • Enable USB Debugging in the dev menu
  • Check console enabled
  • Enable Marketplace reviewer certs
  • Reboot

Accessing Your Local Marketplace From Device

If you want to access your local Marketplace Backend on a device, you’ll need to proxy the internal virtual server through a public IP and bind that IP to a host on device.

If you run Apache on port 80 which is the default on many systems, you can add this to your config to proxy. Adjust the internal IP address of the virtual server as necessary.:

Listen 80

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName mp.dev
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyRequests off
    ProxyPass / http://192.168.59.103/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://192.168.59.103/
</VirtualHost>

If you run nginx on port 80 then you can use a config like this. Again, you may need to adjust the proxied IP:

http {
    server {
        listen       80 default;
        server_name  mp.dev;

        location / {
            # Pass public connections to the internal
            # Docker / VirtualBox server.
            proxy_pass http://192.168.59.103/;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
        }
    }
}

When running Docker and serving on your public / network IP (sucha s 10.0.0.1), ensure USB debugging is enabled on your device, plug it in, and use the bind command:

bin/mkt bind

This will edit the /system/etc/hosts file on the device so that you can access http://mp.dev.

If you have multiple network devices, the command will prompt you for the one to bind to. Run bin/mkt bind --help for details.

Prefs File for Payments Testing

Here’s an example prefs file for payments testing: https://gist.github.com/muffinresearch/9a7c3d3d632a9a9922f0

Push this to your device with:

adb push path/to/custom-prefs.js /data/local/user.js

Then reboot for the changes to take effect:

adb reboot

Installing Packaged Marketplaces

Apps such as Dev or Stage or PaymentsAlt, are unlisted on the production Marketplace. Though, Metaplace can be installed which allows you to install the apps from the “jump” menu.

Or you can go directly to the app page from the browser on the device:

Device Not Being Recognized

If your Tarako device is not recognized, add the vendor ID to the ADB USB configuration:

echo "0x1782" > ~/.android/adb_usb.ini
adb kill-server
adb start-server