Android Debug Bridge
Introduction
- A client, which sends commands. The client runs on your development machine. You can invoke a client from a shell by issuing an adb command. Other Android tools such as DDMS also create adb clients.
- A daemon, which runs commands on a device. The daemon runs as a background process on each emulator or device instance.
- A server, which manages communication between the client and the daemon. The server runs as a background process on your development machine.
How adb Works
Emulator 1, console: 5554
Emulator 1, adb: 5555
Emulator 2, console: 5556
Emulator 2, adb: 5557
and so on...
Enabling adb Debugging
Note: When you connect a device running Android 4.2.2 or higher to your computer, the system shows a dialog asking whether to accept an RSA key that allows debugging through this computer. This security mechanism protects user devices because it ensures that USB debugging and other adb commands cannot be executed unless you're able to unlock the device and acknowledge the dialog. This requires that you have adb version 1.0.31 (available with SDK Platform-tools r16.0.1 and higher) in order to debug on a device running Android 4.2.2 or higher.
Syntax
adb [-d|-e|-s <serialNumber>] <command>
Commands
Category | Command | Description | Comments |
Target
Device
|
-d | Direct an adb command to the only attached USB device. | Returns an error if more than one USB device is attached. |
-e | Direct an adb command to the only running emulator instance. | Returns an error if more than one emulator instance is running. | |
-s <serialNumber> | Direct an adb command a specific emulator/device instance, referred to by its adb-assigned serial number (such as "emulator-5556"). | See Directing Commands to a Specific Emulator/Device Instance. | |
General | devices | Prints a list of all attached emulator/device instances. | See Querying for Emulator/Device Instances for more information. |
help | Prints a list of supported adb commands. | ||
version | Prints the adb version number. | ||
Debug | logcat [option] [filter-specs] | Prints log data to the screen. | |
bugreport | Prints dumpsys, dumpstate, and logcat data to the screen, for the purposes of bug reporting. | ||
jdwp | Prints a list of available JDWP processes on a given device. | You can use the forward jdwp:<pid> port-forwarding specification to connect to a specific JDWP process. For example: adb forward tcp:8000 jdwp:472 |
|
Data | install <path-to-apk> | Pushes an Android application (specified as a full path to an .apk file) to an emulator/device. | |
pull <remote> <local> | Copies a specified file from an emulator/device instance to your development computer. | ||
push <local> <remote> | Copies a specified file from your development computer to an emulator/device instance. | ||
Ports and Networking |
forward <local> <remote> | Forwards socket connections from a specified local port to a specified remote port on the emulator/device instance. | Port specifications can use these schemes:
|
ppp <tty> [parm]... | Run PPP over USB.
Note that you should not automatically start a PPP connection. |
||
Scripting | get-serialno | Prints the adb instance serial number string. | See Querying for Emulator/Device Instances for more information. |
get-state | Prints the adb state of an emulator/device instance. | ||
wait-for-device | Blocks execution until the device is online — that is, until the instance state is device. | You can prepend this command to other adb commands, in which case adb will wait until the emulator/device instance is connected before issuing the other commands. Here's an example:adb wait-for-device shell getprop Note that this command does not cause adb to wait until the entire system is fully booted. For that reason, you should not prepend it to other commands that require a fully booted system. As an example, the install requires the Android package manager, which is available only after the system is fully booted. A command such as adb wait-for-device install <app>.apk would issue the install command as soon as the emulator or device instance connected to the adb server, but before the Android system was fully booted, so it would result in an error. |
|
Server | start-server | Checks whether the adb server process is running and starts it, if not. | |
kill-server | Terminates the adb server process. | ||
Shell | shell | Starts a remote shell in the target emulator/device instance. | See ADB Shell Commands for more information. |
shell [shellCommand] | Issues a shell command in the target emulator/device instance and then exits the remote shell. |
Querying for Emulator/Device Instances
adb devices
- Serial number — A string created by adb to uniquely identify an emulator/device instance by its console port number. The format of the serial number is <type>-<consolePort>. Here's an example serial number: emulator-5554
- State — The connection state of the instance may be one of the following:
- offline — the instance is not connected to adb or is not responding.
- device — the instance is now connected to the adb server. Note that this state does not imply that the Android system is fully booted and operational, since the instance connects to adb while the system is still booting. However, after boot-up, this is the normal operational state of an emulator/device instance.
- no device — there is no emulator/device connected.
[serialNumber] [state]
adb devices
List of devices attached
emulator-5554 device
emulator-5556 device
emulator-5558 device
Directing Commands to a Specific Emulator/Device Instance
adb -s <serialNumber> <command>
adb -s emulator-5556 install helloWorld.apk
Installing an Application
adb install <path_to_apk>
Forwarding Ports
adb forward tcp:6100 tcp:7100
adb forward tcp:6100 local:logd
Copying Files to or from an Emulator/Device Instance
adb pull <remote> <local>
adb push <local> <remote>
adb push foo.txt /sdcard/foo.txt