Android Virtualization Product Testing

John Doe — Sat, 26 Nov 2022 10:20:25 +0000

Preface

Nowadays, android virtualization technology has become very popular. There have been a ton of online articles about the principles of virtualization. This article compares the differences between virtualization products from the perspective of real testing.

Terminology

Abbr.	Full Name	Description
Host	Host	The original application, i.e. the application itself
Sub Applications	Sub Applications	The application being run
PMS	PackageManagerService	Package management services in Android
AMS	ActivityManagerService	Activity management services in Android
NMS	NotificationManagerService	Notification management service in Android

How Virtualization Works？

There have been many similar articles on this issue online, here are a few to read

Through the principle analysis, we can see that to achieve virtualization of an application, the most important thing is: when running sub-applications, deceive the system thereby making the system mistakenly believe that the application currently being run is the host application , otherwise the system will not hesitate to kill it!

Entry points for testing

I plan to test the following key aspects of virtualization in order to compare the strengths and weaknesses of each framework.

The products involved in the comparison are:

Name	WebSite
VirtualApp	https://github.com/asLody/VirtualApp/blob/master/README_eng.md
LBE	http://parallelspace-app.com/index_cn.php
SpaceCore	https://spacecore.dev/
360 FenShenDaShi	http://fenshen.360.cn
ShuangKaiZhuShou	https://www.multiopen.cn/

Items for comparison:

Method	Expected Value
Context#mBasePackageName	Package name of the application
Context#mOpPackageName	Package name of the application
ActivityThread.H#mCallback	null
ActivityThread#mInstrumentation	android.app.Instrumentation
PMS testing	android.os.BinderProxy@xxxx

Package name of the sub-application for testing：com.virtualchecker

Testing

ReadValue: Context#mBasePackageName

Product	Expected Value	Actual Value
Android System	com.virtualchecker	com.virtualchecker
VirtualApp	com.virtualchecker	❌ io.busniess.va
LBE	com.virtualchecker	❌ com.lbe.parallel.intl.arm64
SpaceCore	com.virtualchecker	✅ com.virtualchecker
360 FenShenDaShi	com.virtualchecker	✅ com.virtualchecker
ShuangKaiZhuShou	com.virtualchecker	❌ com.exceliance.dualaid

ReadValue: Context#mOpPackageName

Product	Expected Value	Actual Value
Android System	com.virtualchecker	com.virtualchecker
VirtualApp	com.virtualchecker	❌ io.busniess.va
LBE	com.virtualchecker	❌ com.lbe.parallel.intl.arm64
SpaceCore	com.virtualchecker	✅ com.virtualchecker
360 FenShenDaShi	com.virtualchecker	✅ com.virtualchecker
ShuangKaiZhuShou	com.virtualchecker	❌ com.exceliance.dualaid

ReadValue: ActivityThread#mInstrumentation

Product	Expected Value	Actual Value
Android System	android.app.Instrumentation@	android.app.Instrumentation@bfcc1e8
VirtualApp	android.app.Instrumentation@	❌ com.lody.virtual.client.h.a.c@fd146bf
LBE	android.app.Instrumentation@	❌ com.doubleagent.client.e@a0aac44
SpaceCore	android.app.Instrumentation@	✅ android.app.Instrumentation@153bfc9
360 FenShenDaShi	android.app.Instrumentation@	❌ com.morgoo.droidplugin.hook.handle.PluginInstrumentation@8e8d100
ShuangKaiZhuShou	android.app.Instrumentation@	❌ com.exceliance.kxqp.platform.c.b.e.wy@38e16ce

ReadValue: ActivityThread.H#mCallback

Product	Expected Value	Actual Value
Android System	null	null
VirtualApp	null	❌ com.lody.virtual.client.h.d.d.b@800e4de
LBE	null	❌ com.lbe.doubleagent.client.LocalActivityService$ActivityThreadCallback@3f40957
SpaceCore	null	❌ com.fvbox.lib.client.hook.HCallbackHook@aa9ba7e
360 FenShenDaShi	null	❌ com.morgoo.droidplugin.hook.handle.e@91b7b06
ShuangKaiZhuShou	null	❌ com.excelliance.kxqp.platform.c.b.e.wr@153bfc9

PMS Testing

Product	Expected Value	Actual Value
Android System	android.os.BinderProxy@	android.os.BinderProxy@eff05b8
VirtualApp	android.os.BinderProxy@	❌ com.lody.virtual.client.h.a.c@993b1e1
LBE	android.os.BinderProxy@	❌ com.lbe.doubleagent.client.hook.BinderProxy@f54e1fe
SpaceCore	android.os.BinderProxy@	✅ android.os.BinderProxy@c846443
360 FenShenDaShi	android.os.BinderProxy@	❌ com.morgoo.droidplugin.hook.newsolution.BinderHook$BinderWrapper@cf8d1da
ShuangKaiZhuShou	android.os.BinderProxy@	✅ android.os.BinderProxy@eff05b8

Testing Result

Product	mBasePackageName	mOpPackageName	mInstrumentation	PMS	H#mCallback
VirtualApp	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
LBE	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
SpaceCore	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
360 FenShenDaShi	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
ShuangKaiZhuShou	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌

Conclusion

The test above shows that SpaceCore's invasion of the application is more conservative, reflecting sideways that the internal processing logic is better, but the specific implementation details are unknown.

Keywords：Android Virtualization, App Clone, VirtualApp, LBE, SpaceCore, 360 DroidPlugin, VMOS, Android Sandbox

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