android - changing the system settings of a rooted device from inside the app

Question

I am trying to change the sms limit described here from inside the app. The app is assumed to be running on a rooted device. I\'m using the RootTools to check if the device

Answer 1

Yes, You can do this if you have root access. Its a lengthy process but you can do this :

Step : 1 copy settings.db from /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/ using RootBrowser from the device and than change the value using sqliteBrowser which you want to update than update settings.db and put in assets package of your project

Step 2 : Copy this file into your application folder (anywhere where you can access) using asset manager for that you need

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" /> <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

this function will copy file from assets

public static void copyAssets(Context context, String assetPath, String outFilename) {
        AssetManager assetManager = context.getAssets();
        InputStream in = null;
        OutputStream out = null;
        try {
            in = assetManager.open(assetPath);
            File outFile = new File(context.getExternalFilesDir(null), outFilename);

            out = new FileOutputStream(outFile);
            copyFile(in, out);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(TAG, "Failed to copy asset: " + outFilename, e);
        } finally {
            if (in != null) {
                try {
                    in.close();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                }
            }
            if (out != null) {
                try {
                    out.close();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                }
            }
        }
    }

public static void copyFile(InputStream in, OutputStream out) throws IOException {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
        int read;
        while ((read = in.read(buffer)) != -1) {
            out.write(buffer, 0, read);
        }
    }

Step 3 : overwrite the system settings.db file system path (destPath) is /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/

public static void copyToSystem(final String sourceFilePath, final String destPath) {
        Thread background = new Thread(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("su");
                    DataOutputStream os = new DataOutputStream(process.getOutputStream());
//                    
                    os.writeBytes("cp -f " + sourceFilePath + " " + destPath + "\n");
                    os.flush();
                    os.writeBytes("exit\n");
                    os.flush();
                    process.waitFor();
                    process.waitFor();
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    Log.e(TAG, e.toString());
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    Log.e(TAG, e.toString());
                }
            }
        });
        background.start();
    }

Step 4 : Reboot device

That's all done.

Answer 2

I got this solved by doing this:

• copy the /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db to my application folder /data/data/my_app_directory/.
• update the table in the database using the SQLiteDatabase class.
• copy back the database from /data/data/my_app_directory/settings.db to /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/

The copy operations were done by using RootTools.sendShell

Answer 3

Late answer, but you don't need to copy settings.db, you can update it with RootTools like

CommandCapture commandLogcat = new CommandCapture(0, "sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db \"UPDATE secure SET value = '192.168.2.140' WHERE name = 'eth_ip';\"");
RootTools.getShell(true).add(commandLogcat).getExitCode();