Thanks for the response, Dianne, but that doesn't tally with my observation about ownership and permissions for 'forward lock' applications. These appear to be stored in /data/app-private, uid=system, gid=app_XX (that is, whatever uid/gid the app has been assigned) with mode=0640 (that is, read-write for uid=system, read- only for gid=app_XX, and no access for world).
Is my observation about 'forward lock' applications incorrect? Or are there some caveats to applications needing to be world readable? Thanks. On Aug 24, 8:10 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: > Sorry, there isn't any way to do this. Applications need to be world > readable so that other applications can access their resources -- for > example for a home app to display its icon and label, for intent resolvers > to display icon and label, for an app widget host to inflate the widget from > its resources, for a status bar to display its icon and inflated details > layout, etc. > > > > On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 2:04 AM, Scytmo <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi, > > > Is there any way for an OEM to give the same level of protection to > > packages loaded into /system/app as is given to 'forward locked' > > downloaded packages (which are placed in /data/app-private without > > world read permission)? > > > I understand that the packages in /system/app should have had dexopt > > run, so the APKs do not contain classes.dex, and there is a > > separate .odex file alongside. However, for a package that does not > > require any 'signature' or 'signatureOrSystem' permissions, it seems > > possible to extract the APK and odex, and create a new self-signed > > package. This would appear to need an 'undexopt' step, to get > > classes.dex back from the .odex file - and, while I can't see any > > tools available that would do this at the moment, it doesn't seem > > intractible. > > > Is there any particular reason why the files in /system/app are world- > > readable? Could a permission scheme like that used in /data/app- > > private be used, uid=system, gid=app_XX, mode=0640? I guess one issue > > would be determining the correct gid. Any other issues with doing > > this? > > > Scytmo > > -- > Dianne Hackborn > Android framework engineer > [email protected] > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such > questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and > answer them.
