Introduction

This is the eduVPN / Let's Connect! for Android application.

You can clone this repository by executing the following command (provided you have git installed):

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/eduvpn/android.git

Or if your git version is below 2.13:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/eduvpn/android.git

Download the app

Organizations

A future version of the app will contain automatic organization discovery, where you can select your institute from a wide list. This way you don't have to manually enter discovery URLs. To build this version of the app, build the organization flavor instead of basic.

Running with Android Studio

First install the swig package with your operating system package manager.

Make sure you have the latest stable version of Android Studio installed, you can download it from here. Open the project by opening the build.gradle in the root of this repository with Android Studio. Make sure that you have the following packages installed in the SDK Manager (Tools -> SDK Manager):

• SDK Platforms - Android 10
• SDK Tools - Android SDK Build Tools
• SDK Tools - LLDB
• SDK Tools - CMake
• SDK Tools - Android SDK Platform-Tools
• SDK Tools - Android SDK Tools
• SDK Tools - NDK - 19.2.x version (a later version might work, but is untested)

To find a specific version of a package (for the NDK), check the option 'Show Package Details' in the bottom-lower corner of the SDK Manager.

The app should now build when selecting Run -> Run 'app', or clicking the green play button next to the device selector.

Building

NOTE: building Android applications takes a lot of resources. The VM used to build the Let's Connect! application has 8GB of memory. Anything lower was not tested, but 1GB definitely does not work.

Dependencies

Fedora

$ sudo dnf -y install \
    unzip \
    tar \
    git \
    swig \
    java-1.8.0-openjdk \
    java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel \
    ncurses-compat-libs \
    ninja-build \
    cmake \
    pv

We last tested this (successfully) on 2021-05-11 with Fedora 34.

Debian

$ sudo apt -y install openjdk-8-jdk git curl unzip swig ninja-build cmake pv

Key Store

Generate a key store for signing the Android application:

$ keytool \
    -genkey \
    -keystore ${HOME}/android.jks \
    -keyalg RSA \
    -keysize 4096 \
    -sigalg SHA256withRSA \
    -dname "CN=eduVPN for Android" \
    -validity 10000 \
    -alias eduVPN

Additional documentation here.

Setup

Google SDK

$ ./builder_setup.sh

Android Rebuilds SDK

$ ./ar_builder_setup.sh

Android Rebuilds is a reproducibly built version of the Android SDK. This is possible because the entire SDK is licensed under the Open Source APACHE license. This allows you to compile apps without having to accept Google's license agreement within sdkmanager.

Build

Git

To build the app from git, i.e. tag, branch or commit, use the following after modifying the file if necessary. Use this if you want to build a test or development release.

$ ./build_app_git.sh

If you have set up the Android Rebuilds SDK you can use

$ ./ar_build_app_git.sh

You'll find the signed output APK in ${HOME}/Projects.

Tar

To build the app from tar, i.e. the archive that contains the full source code including all submodules, use the following after modifying the file if necessary. Use this if you want to use an official release.

$ ./build_app_tar.sh

If you have set up the Android Rebuilds SDK you can use

$ ./ar_build_app_tar.sh

You'll find the signed output APK in ${HOME}/Projects.