Port to Android

[McCITS]

Hay ;)

I really like your cnping on PC,

Would it be possible to port it to Android?
It would be really handy to have it mobile for wireless testing.
Unfortunately i do not have the skills to figure it out on my own,

thanks in advance for your help
McC

[dreua]

I think it would be like writing a new Andrid app with the same functinality as cnping. There would be little to no reusable code from cnping. (Except for the idea and maybe the calculation of "Avg"/"Std"/"Loss".)

Additionaly one had to check if pinging that fast (i.e. without waiting for the previous ping to return or timeout) is possible on Android. Same goes for the "extra size" function if that should be implemented as well. (It is possible to ping like the standard ping tools as there are already Apps for that.)

@cnlohr: If someone wrote an Android app, would you approve of a name like cnping-android or should it have its own name without relation to cnping?

[cnlohr]

I would absolutely approve the name, even moreso if it used the same convention of white bars on a blue-or-black background that turn red when they breach some timeout with horizontal average and/or standard of deviation bars.

I am just SO SICK of people trying to use command-line ping tools to debug wireless problems. Tools like HR-ping help, but they just don't cut it for real-time updates! Any platform, anywhere. I don't care if it's me, people just need to have cnping-like tools available and need to know they're there to be used.

[dreua]

I have done a little bit of research and it seems that my Android knowledge was outdated and my first statement may be wrong (sorry):
It may well be possible to reuse quite some C code using Googles Android Native Development Kit (NDK) and one might have to use native code anyway to get the fast pings!

I really like cnping as well as the idea to port it to Android and I am planing to try this: If anyone want's to join me please get in touch!

[cnlohr]

I have literally zero experience with it. I can only support you emotionally :-p. Also, is there any reason not to make it free? And not require permissions to all your contacts and camera and to send/receive text messages and phone calls?

[dreua]

My Android experience is more than zero, but also very limited so I will just give it a try. Your emotional support is greatly appreciated 😄
A reason not to make it free would be making money but FOSS is just so much cooler, so I'll donate any work and hope for good karma instead.
There won't be any unnecessary permissions, I promise! Let's hope we don't need root to get a fast ping...

[cnlohr]

Not native, but http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3905358/how-to-ping-external-ip-from-java-android

P.S. If you can get RawDraw to work in the Android NDK that would be super cool! Though I do need to update CNPing's RawDraw API. RawDraw has been cookin' along. https://github.com/cnlohr/rawdraw

[hackrid]

From the Android terminal:

2|FulmicsROM:/ $ ping -i 0.1 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
ping: cannot flood; minimal interval, allowed for user, is 200ms

[cnlohr]

That's only because the "ping" program restricts that.

[dreua]

@hackrid What phone are you using? On my devices, HTC One S (not rooted) and Fairphone 1 (root by default), there is no limit. ping -i 0 <IP> pings like crazy!

[cnlohr]

I updated to the newest version of rawdraw. You guys can feel to knock yourselves out now :-D

[cnlohr]

P.S. I would be willing to put $25 of my own $ toward someone making a cnping-type tool for android (provided it works well)

[dreua]

Like on Linux and Windows you need root access to open a socket with SOCK_RAW flag so I'm wondering which way to go:

1. Require CNPing-Users on Android to root their phone and grant root access to the app. (This would have the best performance and will most likely work best and be closest to cnping.)
2. Try abusing the system provided ping. (Like using many instances of it. May be unreliable or run into performance issues.)
3. Ping by TCP (or maybe UDP?) instead of ICMP. This would require cooperation of the destination device, but many devices already have a web server listening on port 80. Edit: This would be quite similar to a SYN flood so maybe not a good idea.
4. Other ideas?

(Using Java's InetAddress#isReachable()method is most likely not a good idea.)

Which one would you guys prefer?

[hackrid]

Hi @dreua,

If I read your last message correctly, there's only one option left how to get a cnping Derivate working on android :)

Or did I miss a point?

[dreua]

The problem is, none of the options is perfect. Number one would be best for my own use, but other potential users might not be able or wiling to root their phones. Additionally I'm not sure if running an executable with su will work the same on different devices.

btw: I was able to compile most of the C-Code for Android, run it as root (with su) from an Android App and do the pinging. (Just ping, no graphics, no user-interface.) So I think its doable with root but currently the summer term is taking all my time. I hope to continue development in a few months (around August) when I'm done with my exams.

[hackrid]

Great! That's a starting point!
Would you like to share your efforts you made so far with the app?

[Viknet]

[hackrid]

:D nice

[hackrid]

Does this mean you ported cnlohrs rawdraw to Android?

[Viknet]

Not exactly :)
I turned it inside out. Rasterizer (in native code) draws on pixel-buffer from android Bitmap.

[cnlohr]

@Viknet that makes me cringe a little inside :-p. But how can I try this?

[Viknet]

It's a little unstable and unfinished at so many levels... And needs rooted android.
If you are brave enough, I can create apk in an hour.

[Viknet]

@cnlohr I have not tried to install it manually (only through adb).
https://github.com/Viknet/cnping-android/releases/tag/0.0.1

[hackrid]

I get some errors regarding the pie checks in Android
According to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30498776/position-independent-executables-and-android-lollipop you need to add to lines to your make file
LOCAL_CFLAGS += -fPIE
LOCAL_LDFLAGS += -fPIE -pie

Edit:
I changed the /system/bin/linker on my phone to ignore the missing pie condition but it still doesn't work. I noticed these log messages:

[ 3176.251686 / 06-08 13:42:45.689] type=1400 audit(1496943765.689:447): avc: denied { connectto } for pid=17076 comm="Binder_4" path="/dev/socket/mpctl" scontext=u:r:zygote:s0 tcontext=u:r:mpdecision:s0 tclass=unix_stream_socket permissive=1
[ 3276.911308 / 06-08 13:44:26.349] type=1400 audit(1496943866.349:451): avc: denied { write } for pid=4914 comm="Binder_1" name="mpctl" dev="tmpfs" ino=25921 scontext=u:r:zygote:s0 tcontext=u:object_r:mpdecision_socket:s0 tclass=sock_file permissive=1

It might be necessary to tweak some permissions for newer Android versions. Until now I could not get it to run on android 6.0

[Viknet]

Thank you for some bad news :)
It is SELinux and I know nothing about it... but I will try to write policies on emulator.

[hackrid]

I tried to disable selinux as good as possible. But as far I found out there is not much more than setting it to permissive mode.

Regarding the PIE problem:
This situation changed with the security policyies introduced in and rid 4.1.

What version so you have on your phone?

[Viknet]

I will create PIE build in an hour. It raises minimal android version to 4.1 (target was 4.0.2).

"su root setenforce 0" in adb shell should be enough for Unix Domain Socket.
Maybe local Inet socket will work without bothering SELinux.

My phone is under 4.4.2 and not have SELinux.

[hackrid]

I tried to setenforce 0.had no luck

[Viknet]

PIE build is ready: https://github.com/Viknet/cnping-android/releases/tag/0.0.1a

[Viknet]

If device rooted with SuperSU, new build should work around SELinux: https://github.com/Viknet/cnping-android/releases/tag/0.0.1b

[Viknet]

@cnlohr You can try last build: cnping-android-0.0.2

[cnlohr]

I don't have a rooted phone, tho. I guess it's time.

[cnlohr]

I know it's been forever, but we've since added support for HTTP Pinging. It would be very cool if this was something someone did want to work on.

[dreua]

Yeah, since Http ping would not require root, that would be the way to go now. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do this...

@ChristianRomberg would you like another Android project? ;)

[cnlohr]

Now, that I have rawdraw as a first class citizen on Android, and cnping supports httpping, this has become much more tenable. @dreua would you be interested in chatting on Discord? I want to get your feelings on if this should be a paid app with more bells and whistles or just a bare bones dead simple app for free.