Cuttlefish Getting Started

Try Cuttlefish

1. Make sure virtualization with KVM is available.

   grep -c -w "vmx\|svm" /proc/cpuinfo
   

   This should return a non-zero value. If running on a cloud machine, this may take cloud-vendor-specific steps to enable. For Google Compute Engine specifically, see the GCE guide.

*** promo ARM specific steps:

• When running on an ARM machine, the most direct way is to check for the existence of /dev/kvm. Note that this method can also be used to confirm support of KVM on any environment.

2. Download, build, and install the host debian packages:

   sudo apt install -y git devscripts config-package-dev debhelper-compat golang curl
   git clone https://github.com/google/android-cuttlefish
   cd android-cuttlefish
   sudo apt install devscripts equivs
   for dir in base frontend; do
     pushd $dir
     sudo mk-build-deps -i
     dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us
     popd
   done
   sudo dpkg -i ./cuttlefish-base_*_*64.deb || sudo apt-get install -f
   sudo dpkg -i ./cuttlefish-user_*_*64.deb || sudo apt-get install -f
   sudo usermod -aG kvm,cvdnetwork,render $USER
   sudo reboot
   

   The reboot will trigger installing additional kernel modules and applying udev rules.

3. Go to http://ci.android.com/

4. Enter a branch name. Start with aosp-main if you don't know what you're looking for

5. Navigate to aosp_cf_x86_64_phone and click on userdebug for the latest build

*** promo For ARM, use branch aosp-main-throttled and device target aosp_cf_arm64_only_phone-trunk_staging-userdebug

6. Click on Artifacts

7. Scroll down to the OTA images. These packages look like aosp_cf_x86_64_phone-img-xxxxxx.zip -- it will always have img in the name. Download this file

8. Scroll down to cvd-host_package.tar.gz. You should always download a host package from the same build as your images.

9. On your local system, combine the packages:

   mkdir cf
   cd cf
   tar xvf /path/to/cvd-host_package.tar.gz
   unzip /path/to/aosp_cf_x86_64_phone-img-xxxxxx.zip
   

10. Launch cuttlefish with:

$ HOME=$PWD ./bin/launch_cvd

Debug Cuttlefish

You can use adb to debug it, just like a physical device:

$ ./bin/adb -e shell

Launch Viewer (WebRTC)

When launching with ---start_webrtc (the default), you can see a list of all available devices at https://localhost:8443 . For more information, see the WebRTC on Cuttlefish documentation.

Stop Cuttlefish

You will need to stop the virtual device within the same directory as you used to launch the device.

$ HOME=$PWD ./bin/stop_cvd