Push my apk to /system/app

How can I push my application package to Android emulator "/system/app" folder?

I've already tried to use:
"adb push myApk.apk /system/app"
and it gives me this:

"failed to copy: ... No space left on device"

Although from settings -> sdCard & Phone Storage, I get 37Mb of internal free space.

The whole point of this need is
related to permissions.

I need to have INSTALL_PACKAGES permission
and I know that by puting my application there,
in /system/app, I get that permission.

Asked by: Melissa722 | Posted: 25-01-2022

Answer 1

I can install an APK to /system/app with following steps.

Push APK to SD card.

$ adb push SecureSetting.apk /sdcard/

Enter the console and get the shell
```
$ adb shell
```
Switch to superuser. If your device is not rooted, get it rooted first. (If you don't know how to do that, just Google.)
```
$ su 
```

Remount the system partition with WRITE permission.

$ mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

Cat your APK from /sdcard/ to /system/ , some guys get a fail with cp command due to cp is not supported. So use cat instead.
```
$ cat /sdcard/SecureSetting.apk > /system/app/SecureSetting.apk 
```

Remout /system partition back to READ-ONLY, and exit

$ mount -o remount,ro -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
$ exit

Then reboot your device, the APK should have been installed on /system/app.

Answered by: Connie153 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 2

Normally, the only way to get access to the "/system/" directory is to have a device rooted. I don't exactly know if that is required for the emulator though. That could be your issue.

Answered by: John400 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 3

These are the steps if you are installing a system apk for Android 5.0 or later devices. For older versions use posaidong's answer

Rename your apk file to base.apk

$ adb push base.apk /sdcard/

Enter the console and get the shell

$ adb shell

Switch to superuser. If your device is not rooted, get it rooted first. (If you don't know how to do that, just Google.)

$ su

Remount the system partition with WRITE permission.

$ mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

Create a Test directory inside /system/app folder. (or can use /system/priv-app as well). Ideally this folder name should be application name. For now, lets use Test

$ mkdir /system/app/Test

Requires 755 permission for this dir

$ chmod 755 /system/app/Test

Copy your base.apk inside

$ cat /sdcard/base.apk > /system/app/Test/Base.apk

Remout /system partition back to READ-ONLY, and exit

$chmod 644 /system/app/Test/Base.apk

Requires 644 permission for this dir

$ mount -o remount,ro -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

$ exit

Reboot your device. When boot completes you should see a system message like Android updating ...

Answered by: Nicole938 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 4

settings -> sdCard & phone storage says about /data folder.

/system is mounted separately and I guess there is no way of writing there unless you make your own Android build.

See mounts by running

adb shell

# df

Answered by: Julian780 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 5

I have come across this situation multiple times while copying apk files to /system partition and could finally resolve it using the following steps:

Check the Free space in /system partition using df from adb shell. Most probably the Free space would be less than size of apk file.

Filesystem               Size     Used     Free   Blksize
/dev                         1.3G    80.0K     1.3G      4.0K
/sys/fs/cgroup               1.3G    12.0K     1.3G      4.0K
/mnt/secure                  1.3G     0.0K     1.3G      4.0K
/mnt/asec                    1.3G     0.0K     1.3G      4.0K
/mnt/obb                     1.3G     0.0K     1.3G      4.0K
/system                      3.5G     3.5G    10.0M      4.0K
/efs                        15.7M     2.8M    12.9M      4.0K
/cache                     192.8M   736.0K   192.1M      4.0K
/data                       25.5G    12.7G    12.8G      4.0K
/persdata/absolute           4.9M   120.0K     4.8M      4.0K
/sbfs                       10.8M     8.0K    10.7M      4.0K
/mnt/shell/knox-emulated    25.5G    12.7G    12.8G      4.0K
/mnt/shell/privatemode      25.4G    12.7G    12.7G      4.0K
/mnt/shell/emulated         25.4G    12.7G    12.7G      4.0K
/preload                     5.8M     3.3M     2.5M      4.0K

Use du /system to get sizes of each folder & file in /system partition. Arrange the output in descending order of size(s) to get (something similar):

4091840 /system/
1199416 /system/app
964064  /system/priv-app
558616  /system/lib64
373320  /system/lib
206624  /system/vendor
170952  /system/app/WebViewGoogle
148824  /system/app/WebViewGoogle/lib
125488  /system/voice
125480  /system/voice/embedded
122880  /system/app/Chrome
106520  /system/framework
102224  /system/priv-app/Velvet
96552   /system/app/SBrowser_3.0.38
93936   /system/vendor/lib64
93792   /system/vendor/lib64/egl
92552   /system/tts
92512   /system/tts/lang_SMT
...

Delete unnecessary files from /system/voice/embedded, /system/tts/lang_SMT (for language/locale support) and/or other folders to free enough space in /system partition to accommodate the new apk file. Deleting files in partitions other than /system may not help in this scenario. (N.B.: This step may require ROOT privileges and remounting /system partition in read-write mode using mount -o rw,remount /system)

Answered by: Daryl936 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 6

You need to run adb remount first, then it should let you adb pushto /system folders

Answered by: Cherry190 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 7

The following batch file will install any apk files in the folder to the /system/app directory. It mounts the system drive as rw, then copies the files over.

To use it, put the following code into a text editor and save it as install.bat on a Windows machine. Then double-click on the batch file to install any APK files that are in the same folder as the batch file.

NOTE: You can't remount the system partition unless you have root on the device. I've mostly used this on the emulator which defaults to root (And was the original question), but the concept should be the same on a physical device.

@ECHO OFF
%~d0
CD %~dp0
adb root
adb shell mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
adb shell rm /system/app/SdkSetup.apk
for /f %%a IN ('dir /b *.apk') do adb push %%a /system/app/.

Answered by: Kevin157 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 8

Use below commands from your super user ADB shell. Copy the APK of your APP into your SD card or Internal Storage.

$ adb shell
$ su
$ mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system 
$ cp /sdcard/<Your_APK_PATH> /system/app/file_name_comes_here.apk
$ chmod 644 /system/app/<YourAPK>.apk

Then reboot the device

Answered by: Adelaide99 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 9

You have to mount system as read/write and then push the application.

This is answered in this question: Push .apk to /system/app/ in HTC HERO

Answered by: Lyndon392 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 10

Even before adb remount you should change the permissions for the /system in the adb shell. you can use chmod to change the permissions.

Answered by: Sophia469 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 11

If your apk is smaller enough to push in, then try some times again. I met the same problem and tried twice to push the apks to /system/app/

Answered by: Arnold441 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 12

Apparently, there is not enough space for your application in "/system" mount. You can check that with "adb shell df" command.

To solve this issue, you need to set partition-size parameter adequately while starting your AVD like this:

emulator.exe -avd <your avd name> -partition-size 512

Answered by: Haris363 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 13

Check that you have enough inodes, you may have enough memory but not enough inode i.e. file placeholder.

Answered by: Roland658 | Posted: 26-02-2022

Answer 14

If you're simply looking to install it, you can always do: adb install myApk.apk.

Answered by: Blake845 | Posted: 26-02-2022

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