Android

adb setup

To enable adb in NixOS for unprivileged users add these lines to your configuration.nix. This is mandatory for all further interactions with your android device.

{
  programs.adb.enable = true;
  users.users.<your-user>.extraGroups = ["adbusers"];
}

This will add additional udev rules for unprivileged access as well as add adb to your $PATH.

Alternatively, if you don't want to install adb globally but do want to configure the udev rules, you can:

{
  services.udev.packages = [
    pkgs.android-udev-rules
  ];
}

Interaction with your Android device

adb shell on device

First open a nix-shell with the platform tools and connect your device:

$ # For nixos < 19.03
$ # nix-shell -p androidenv.platformTools
$ nix-shell -p androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.platform-tools
% adb devices
List of devices attached
* daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
* daemon started successfully
BH90272JCU	unauthorized

A popup appears on your phone to allow your computer access to it. After allowing, you can:

% adb devices
List of devices attached
BH90272JCU	device
% adb shell

You can also connect to an already-running adb server:

$ # For nixos < 19.03
$ # nix-shell -p androidenv.platformTools
$ nix-shell -p androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.platform-tools
% adb connect 192.168.1.10
% adb shell

Transferring files from/to an Android device

There are two main methods for newer devices:

• adb push and adb pull: see above.
• via MTP, see the corresponding page

Android Development

Android Studio

To develop apps using Android Studio

$ nix-shell -p android-studio --run android-studio

gradlew

It's possible to create a build environment (shell.nix) to use with gradlew as a FHS environment:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {config.android_sdk.accept_license = true;} }:

(pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
  name = "android-sdk-env";
  targetPkgs = pkgs: (with pkgs;
    [
      androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.androidsdk
      glibc
    ]);
  runScript = "bash";
}).env

As an alternative, it's often enough to override just the aapt2 binary for the gradle build process:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {config.android_sdk.accept_license = true;} }:

let
  androidSdk = pkgs.androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.androidsdk;
in
pkgs.mkShell {
  buildInputs = with pkgs; [
    androidSdk
    glibc
  ];
  # override the aapt2 that gradle uses with the nix-shipped version
  GRADLE_OPTS = "-Dorg.gradle.project.android.aapt2FromMavenOverride=${androidSdk}/libexec/android-sdk/build-tools/28.0.3/aapt2";
}

Building Android on NixOS

It's possible to use nix-shell with buildFHSUserEnv to set up an environment in which it's viable to build Android without huge amounts of editing. This is an example shell.nix file.

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
 
let fhs = pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
  name = "android-env";
  targetPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs;
    [ git
      gitRepo
      gnupg
      python2
      curl
      procps
      openssl
      gnumake
      nettools
      # For nixos < 19.03, use `androidenv.platformTools`
      androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.platform-tools
      jdk
      schedtool
      utillinux
      m4
      gperf
      perl
      libxml2
      zip
      unzip
      bison
      flex
      lzop
    ];
  multiPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs;
    [ zlib
    ];
  runScript = "bash";
  profile = ''
    export USE_CCACHE=1
    export ANDROID_JAVA_HOME=${pkgs.jdk.home}
  '';
};
in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "android-env-shell";
  nativeBuildInputs = [ fhs ];
  shellHook = "exec android-env";

}

1. more information on that snippet
2. A shell.nix to build LineageOS
3. NixDroid, building aosp roms (e.g. LineageOS) with nix. ( not very well documented and requires patches to nix )
4. LineageOS build setup using terranix and hcloud, based on the shell.nix to build LineageOS. Useful if you are in a rush and don't have to much CPU power on your hand.

Using the nixpkgs androidenv

User Sander van der Burg created two awesome blog posts as well as a number of test cases usable as examples on how to use the nixpkgs androidenv and the emulator provideded:

1. Building Android applications with the Nix package manager
2. Reproducing Android app deployments (or playing Angry Birds on NixOS)
3. A set of androidenv test cases