ISTRATII_TECH SENSES - QEMU source distribution
This repository exists to satisfy the GNU GPL version 2 obligations that come with distributing a modified QEMU.
The SENSES Android application runs an ARM32 Android system on
an ARM64 phone by translating its individual processes — there is no guest
kernel. The translator is a modified QEMU, and that is what this repository
contains: our patches, our added source files, and the script that builds it.
MADE WITH CLAUDE CODE
Repository: https://github.com/Istratii-tech/Senses.
Requests for sources: issues of this repository
(https://github.com/Istratii-tech/Senses/issues) or https://t.me/istratii_tech.
Instructions
Инструкция как использовать SENSES Emulator
- Скачать прошивку которую хотите запустить
- Положить файл прошивки в папку ISTRATII_TECH_SENSES в корне вашего телефона
- Запустить эмулятор (он сам может предложить распаковку) и нажать на нижней панели SENSES -> Fimware -> нажать плюс -> выбрать файл вашей прошивки -> нажать распаковать
- После распаковки нажимаете SENSES -> Start
- Для остановки нажимаете SENSES -> Stop
How to Use SENSES Emulator: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Download the firmware you want to run
- Place the firmware file into the ISTRATII_TECH_SENSES folder in the root directory of your phone
- Launch the emulator (it may automatically prompt you to extract the files) and follow these steps on the bottom panel: Tap SENSES -> Firmware -> tap the plus (+) icon Select your firmware file and tap Extract
- Once extracted, tap SENSES -> Start to begin
- To stop the emulator, tap SENSES -> Stop
What is not here
- No firmware. The application ships none, and neither does this repository. The user supplies their own archive; the application unpacks it on the device.
- No links to download firmware. Deliberately.
- Not the application's own source. The application is a separate program:
it starts QEMU as a separate process and talks to it over sockets, arguments
and files. No QEMU code is loaded into its process. See
NOTICE, section 4.
Your firmware
You are responsible for having the right to use the firmware you supply, and to
have a modified copy of it made on your own device. The application changes
that copy on the device (patched code, re-signed packages with a key generated
on the device, removed vendor modules) and runs a local TLS proxy whose root
certificate is generated on the device and added to the trust store of the copy.
When the firmware's own installer has a menu, the application answers its
screens with the default choices, as a person pressing "Next" would — except the
agreement screen: the application shows you that agreement in full before
unpacking, and you accept it or not (the application never accepts it for you; if
you do not, nothing is unpacked and nothing is created, and the application says
before the first start where it finds such a screen). Your acceptance is recorded
in the container on your device; unpacking the same firmware again in place asks
again unless it is recorded. The first-run wizard of the firmware is not skipped
either: you go through it, and its agreements, yourself; it can be turned off only
by hand, after you confirm that you have studied the agreements of the firmware
and accept them. By starting a firmware in the application you confirm that you
have read and accept the terms of that firmware and of the software inside it.
These changes are made for compatibility only; they do not remove copy
protection, DRM, licence checks of applications or account protection.
Nothing is sent anywhere. Details: NOTICE, section 5.
Building
Requires an aarch64 Linux host with root. The script mounts /proc and
/dev, unpacks a minimal Alpine root into a chroot and builds there — Alpine
is used because it ships a static glib, which QEMU needs and most other
distributions do not provide.
sudo ./qemu/build-android.sh
Output: qemu/build/qemu-arm-android — a fully static aarch64 binary. It has
to be static: Android's linker will not load a foreign dynamic loader, so a
dynamically linked build simply would not start on the phone.
The build is pinned; the script refuses to continue if a download does not match:
| input | pinned to | sha256 |
|---|---|---|
| QEMU source | qemu-8.2.4.tar.xz (132694904 bytes), from https://download.qemu.org/ |
ecf5537feab92641b99d7482f551f2195d3a5bd34acef9d52bfbff353a607397 |
| Alpine root | alpine-minirootfs-3.20.10-aarch64.tar.gz (branch v3.20) |
61ac877fdbcee6914731bc22a4ed5668ea3470f201f97a7078931c48b71bbeec |
The packages installed into that root are the ones Alpine v3.20 serves on the
day of the build, so the script records exactly what it used. When it finishes
it writes qemu/build/BUILD-MANIFEST.txt: the QEMU version and archive sum, the
Alpine root and its sum, the output of apk info -v in the chroot, the compiler
version, the number of patches with the sha256 of each, the sha256 of every file
of ours and of the build script itself, and the sha256 of the resulting binary.
Keep that file together with the binary you distribute.
To build another QEMU version or another Alpine root you must give its checksum
as well (VER, QEMU_SHA256, BR, ALPINE_ROOTFS, ALPINE_SHA256); the
patches in this repository are written for QEMU 8.2.4.
Layout
COPYING GNU GPL version 2, full text
NOTICE what is third-party, under which licence, where its source is
licenses/ licence texts of the other third-party components
qemu/build-android.sh downloads upstream QEMU, applies patches, builds
qemu/patches/ 99 patches against QEMU 8.2.4
qemu/src/ 43 files we added to linux-user/, GPL-2.0-or-later
Each patch starts with a description of the symptom it exists for — that is usually more useful than the diff itself.
Licences
- QEMU and our changes to it — GNU GPL version 2 or later.
COPYING. QEMU's own statement on the licences of its files:licenses/QEMU-LICENSE.txt. - Libraries linked statically into the binary — GLib and GNU gettext
(LGPL-2.1 or later,
licenses/LGPL-2.1.txt), musl libc (MIT,licenses/musl-COPYRIGHT.txt), zlib (licenses/zlib.txt), libgcc (GPL-3.0 or later with the GCC Runtime Library Exception). Versions and where to get their sources:NOTICE, section 1.3. - libarchive, liblzma and libbz2 (linked statically into the helper
libunarc.so, a separate process) — libarchive: BSD-2-Clause with the notices of a few individual files,licenses/libarchive-COPYING.txt; liblzma: BSD Zero Clause License,licenses/liblzma-0BSD.txt; libbz2:licenses/bzip2-LICENSE.txt. Versions, source archives and their sums:NOTICE, section 2.3. - Start-up code of the C library of the Android NDK (in the programs of the
phone side) — BSD licence of The Android Open Source Project.
licenses/AndroidNDK-BSD.txt. - Bouncy Castle 1.70 — Bouncy Castle Licence.
licenses/BouncyCastle.txt. - Kotlin standard library and JetBrains annotations — Apache License 2.0.
licenses/Apache-2.0.txt. - Android Open Source Project headers — Apache License 2.0.
licenses/Apache-2.0.txt.
Modification notices required by GPLv2 §2(a) are written into each changed QEMU file at build time, not in the patches themselves: a notice inside a patch would shift the start of the file and break the context of the next patch.
Trademarks
Android is a trademark of Google LLC. All other product names, logos and brands are property of their respective owners. This project is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of them.
Contact
https://github.com/Istratii-tech/Senses (issues: https://github.com/Istratii-tech/Senses/issues),
https://t.me/istratii_tech