vmConsole is an application for Android OS that provides a virtual machine running Alpine Linux distribution. It utilizes QEMU x86_64 emulator as its core and does not require device to be rooted or a custom kernel flashed. Access to the operating system is performed through a text-based console.
It worth to note that this application is not a terminal emulator for Android OS, unlike Termux, ConnectBot or UserLAnd. The environment is isolated, which means will not have a direct access to device hardware or various file system parts: vmConsole is not usable for automating device functionality, exploring hidden Android OS paths with root, etc. Neither usable as a rooting tool. Root permissions are same virtual as hardware on which the Alpine Linux is running.
Typical use-cases of vmConsole application:
- Exploring the world of Linux =)
- Programming
- Testing software
- Hacking
- Running TOR hidden services
- Crawling / archiving web sites
Obviously, you can do more on Linux distribution, but remember that VM performance is not high.
This application requires proper Linux distribution administrator skills, understanding the concept of emulators and virtual machines, what is a "serial console", etc. Author will not be your mentor and no, author will not teach you hacking.
Application is available on Google Play Store.
Optimal device properties for running this app:
- 64-bit CPU
- 8+ GB of RAM
- 8+ GB of disk space (if planning on-disk Alpine installation)
Visit the Wiki for learning about application usage.
| VM property | Details |
|---|---|
| OS | Alpine Linux, edge branch, diskless mode |
| Accelerator | QEMU TCG |
| CPU architecture | x86_64 |
| CPU type | max |
| RAM size | host-specific, 2047 MiB max |
| Disk I size | R/W, dynamic, up to 32 GiB, /dev/sda |
| Disk II size | R/W, dynamic, up to 32 GiB, /dev/sdb |
| Network type | User mode, emulated by SLiRP |
| Graphical adapter | disabled |
| Parallel port | disabled |
| QEMU monitor | disabled |
| Android host storage | 9P, mount tag host_storage |
Let's begin from why vmConsole has been created. This project has been created for my needs of sane Linux environment on Android OS. I know various apps implementing QEMU, e.g. Limbo PC, but all of them are either not developed anymore, have serious stability issues or just too flaky from design side. In other words: totally unusable. On other hand, there is Termux which also provides QEMU. In fact, vmConsole is even based on Termux project. But anyway, Termux has own issues: lack of professional software packagers in developer team, rejected Android developer guidelines which resulted in issues with SELinux. Termux is not a production-ready distribution.
vmConsole could be seen as a composition of terminal emulator library and few UI elements from Termux and standalone QEMU package, which resulted in a completely different application.
This project is not community driven. As stated before, it has been created for the personal needs of author and will continue to be developed according to his point of view. The application is not guaranteed to be useful for you or implement features that you request.
Here is a list of features that very unlikely to be implemented:
- Support of Android below version 7.0.
- Any kind of features that require rooted device.
- KVM support.
- TUN/TAP device support.
- USB support.
- Hardware passthrough.
Remember that author does not owe anything for you.
Yes and in fact vmConsole is made by same developer (me).
Note that Alpine Term and vShell projects are gone and should not be used anymore — I usually shut down various experimental things before their community will get too large.
Not for now. The main issues are build systems of Alpine Linux ISO and native libraries. Both have heavy dependency on Docker with custom environment.
It is planned to publish APK on GitHub, in addition to Play Store distribution.
Localizing just few labels of UI elements is pointless. The main part, i.e operating system image, can't be localized. I'd like to avoid any incosistencies.
Therefore the answer is no and I will not accept the pull requests for this.
You can't, as application emulates PC-like hardware. Running even a such simple application as one printing "hello world" takes significantly more power than running it on bare metal host. Obviously, the only way to make it faster is to eliminate the emulator layer between host and your program.
vmConsole is not about speed. If speed is your priority, please use Termux.
Because it is perfectly suitable for use in virtual machines, especially emulators.
- Very small comparing to other distributions.
- Simple by design.
- No systemd.
I don't have any plans to change the Alpine Linux to something else unless there would be a good reason for this.
Yes, you can. With a little effort of course. vmConsole provides several disks:
/dev/cdrom: read-only ISO image with Alpine Linux./dev/sda: read-write user disk 1./dev/sdb: read-write user disk 2.
So, you should be able to install a custom operating system on either
/dev/sda or /dev/sdb. Don't forget that your OS must do output over
serial console (/dev/ttyS0).
Because I need x86_64 and there no particular reason to use other architecture. vmConsole emulates hardware (no KVM), no matter which target CPU is used. Use of same architecture will not disable the emulation. Therefore even if AArch64 will give you some better performance (say +30%), that will be related solely to emulator implementation differences.
Currently not, I generally against implementing any feature that would require customizing firmware of device or at least rooting. In general, the virtualization is not possible on the most of modern Android devices because HYP mode (EL2) is already acquired and locked by ARM TrustZone. Modifying bootloader to disable the latter may cause issues with fingerprint sensor, HW keystore or even render device unbootable. That's for ARM 32/64 bit devices. Not sure about the situation with x86 ones.
If Android will officially provide /dev/kvm accessible by regular apps,
then I will look into implementing KVM support. But remember that it would
be available only for x86_64 devices, since system image is for that CPU.
vmConsole literally means: Virtual Machine Console. So main focus is the text based terminal interface to the operating system. There no graphics support. However in future versions I probably will look into adding VNC.
It is disabled for security reasons. For example you shared the device with someone. Without QEMU monitor, that person will not be able to dump the contents of disk or RAM. As soon as your device is not rooted, it will not be possible to extract the data if vmConsole OS login is password-protected.
You will need a custom build of vmConsole in order to use the QEMU monitor.
This application does not provide any way to configure QEMU by design. All configuration is hardcoded (see this) and part (such as RAM allocation) is determined automatically at runtime.
I want to keep the application as simple as possible, as I am not skilled at Android application development. It has only necessary UI elements, without any optional dialogs, screens, tabs, etc.
See answer about custom QEMU arguments.
Currently vmConsole will have only fixed forwardings for 22 and 80
ports. In future may add more fixed forwardings for common ports. As a
workaround, use external SSH client (e.g. in Termux) to forward your
ports.
- Alpine Linux: the operating system used in vmConsole.
- ConnectBot: the recommended SSH client for use with vmConsole.
- QEMU: the emulator and virtualizer, a core of vmConsole.
- Termux: the famous terminal emulator for Android OS, vmConsole uses certain parts of it.