Two ways on running Android on top of Genode

[Matthias Lange]

Hi Magnus

On 06/14/2011 05:55 PM, Magnus G. Andersson wrote:
> Hi everybody 
> 
> As I can see it there are two ways you can run Android on top of Genode. 
> 
> 1.       Port it, like L4Android, make it a para-virtualized system, or

You can think of L4Android as a variant of L4Linux. So it should be
possible to run it on Genode. However, we haven't tested this yet. But
we are interested if you have any results on that topic.

> 2.       Run Android natively on Genode

If I understood you correctly, you want to run Android apps natively on
Genode? Well, this would involve porting a lot of infrastructure from
Android to Genode as well. Esp. you have to port the DalvikVM. Porting
Dalvik to other platforms has been done before, e.g. ports for Meego and
Windows exist.

> Well, option number two is more of running Android apps not the whole
> Android OS if I have understood it correct?
> 
> But my question about this is, which one do you think is best, with
> regards to security, updates and performance?
> 
> By running Android as para-virtualized, shouldn’t an attack be
> constrained inside the Android OS, because the underlying software
> (Genode) isn’t visible and can’t be reached?

That is one basic idea of virtualization. However, whether parts of the
underlying system can be reached depends on your configuration. If
Android is using services, e.g. virtualized devices, from the underlying
system, then it has to communicate with it.

> Updates on the system might be hard in both cases, or what do you think?

This is to general of a question to be answered here. There are a lot of
aspects to be considered.

Regards,
Matthias.

> 
>  
> 
> The reason for this question is that I’m currently doing my master
> thesis with the aim of implementing Android on a system allowing other
> programs or OSes to be run in parallel with Android and I found that
> Genode looks like a great candidate for doing this
> 
>  
> 
> Regards
> 
> Magnus
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Dipl.-Inf. Matthias Lange <mlange at ...37...>
Security in Telecommunications
TU Berlin / Deutsche Telekom Laboratories
Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 10587 Berlin
Phone: +49 - 30 - 8353 58 553
Mobile: +49 - 160 - 587 28 07
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