mc_adbfs/README.rst

This is Midnight Commander extfs plugin for browsing Android device through adb interface written in Python.

Rquirements

• Python 2.7 or 3.x (tested on 3.5.4)

• adb installed and in $PATH or provided via the config file

• An Android device or emulator preferably rooted

• busybox (toolbox, toybox) installed and available in the path on the device

Make sure, that issuing from command line:

$ adb shell busybox ls
$ # or in case of no PATH adb placement
$ /path/to/adb shell busybox ls

it should display files from root directory on the device.

Features

• Listing the directory with (default), or without skipping system dirs (acct, dev, proc, etc)

• Copying files from and to the device

• Creating directories

• Removing files and directories

• Symbolic links in lists are corrected to be relative to the file system

• Symbolic links also point to the right target, skipping intermediate links

Installation

Copy adbfs into ~/.local/share/mc/extfs.d/ directory and make it executable if needed.

Usage

To use it, just issue:

cd adbfs://

under MC - after some time you should see the files and directories on your device. For convenience you can add a bookmark (accessible under CTRL+) for fast access. The time is depended on how many files and directories you have on your device and how fast it is :)

Configuration

You can configure behaviour of this plugin using .ini file located under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mc/adbfs.ini (which usually is located under ~/.config/mc/adbfs.ini), and have default values, like:

[adbfs]
debug = false
skip_dirs = true
dirs_to_skip = ["acct", "charger", "d", "dev", "proc", "sys"]
suppress_colors = false
root =
adb_command = adb
adb_connect =

where:

• debug will provide a little bit more verbose information, useful for debugging

• dirs_to_skip list of paths to directories which will be skipped during reading. If leaved empty, or setted to empty list ([]) will read everything (slow!)

• suppress_colors this option will make busybox not to display colors, helpful, if busybox ls is configured to display colors by default. Does not affect toolbox or toybox.

• root root directory to read. Everything outside of that directory will be omitted. That would be the fastest way to access certain location on the device. Note, that dirs_to_skip still apply inside this directory.

• adb_command absolute or relative path to adb command. ~/ or environment variables are allowed.

• adb_connect specifies if connection to specific device needs to be performed before accessing shell. It is useful for adb over network feature. Typical value here is a device IP address with optional port, which defaults to 5555.

Limitations

• Initial listing might be slow. Depending on how fast the device is, how many files are on the device and so on

• Some filenames might be still inaccessible for operating

• All files operations which needs root privileges will fail (for now)

• The implementation is experimental and it's by now working with mine device; while it might not work with yours

License

This software is licensed under 3-clause BSD license. See LICENSE file for details.