If you are new to adb source code, you should start by reading overview.md which describes the three components of adb pipeline.
This document gives the "big picture" which should allow you to build a mental map to help navigate the code.
As described in the overview, this codebase generates three components (Client, Server (a.k.a Host), and Daemon (a.k.a adbd)).
The central part is the Server which runs on the Host computer. On one side the Server exposes a connection to Clients such as adb or DDMLIB.
On the other side, the Server continuously monitors for connecting Daemons (such as USB devices or TCP emulator). Communication with a device is done with a Transport.
+----------+ +------------------------+
| ADB +----------+ | ADB SERVER | +----------+
| CLIENT | | | | (USB)| ADBD |
+----------+ | | Transport+-------------+ (DEVICE) |
| | | +----------+
+----------- | | |
| ADB | v + | +----------+
| CLIENT +--------->SmartSocket | (USB)| ADBD |
+----------+ ^ | (TCP/IP) Transport+-------------+ (DEVICE) |
| | | +----------+
+----------+ | | |
| DDMLIB | | | Transport+--+ +----------+
| CLIENT +----------+ | | | (TCP/IP)| ADBD |
+----------+ +------------------------+ +----------|(EMULATOR)|
+----------+
The Client and the Server are contained in the same executable and both run on the Host machine. Code sections specific to the Host are enclosed within ADB_HOST guard. adbd runs on the Android Device. Daemon specific code is enclosed in !ADB_HOST but also sometimes within __ANDROID__ guards.
A smart socket is a simple TCP socket with a smart protocol built on top of it which allows to target a device after the connection is initalized (see services.md families of host:transport- services for more information). This is what Clients connect onto from the Host side. The Client must always initiate communication via a human readable request but the response format varies. The smart protocol is documented in services.md.
On the other side, the Server communicates with a device via a Transport. adb initially targeted devices connecting over USB, which is restricted to a fixed number of data streams. Therefore, adb multiplexes multiple byte streams over a single pipe via Transport. When devices connecting over other mechanisms (e.g. emulators over TCP) were introduced, the existing transport protocol was maintained.
At the heart of both the Server and Daemon is a main thread running an fdevent loop, which is a platform-independent abstraction over poll/epoll/WSAPoll monitoring file descriptors events. Requests and services are usually served from the main thread but some service requests result in new threads being spawned.
To allow for operations to run on the Main thread, fdevent features a RunQueue combined with an interrupt fd to force polling to return.
+------------+ +-------------------------^
| RUNQUEUE | | |
+------------+ | POLLING (Main thread) |
| Function<> | | |
+------------+ | |
| Function<> | ^-^-------^-------^------^^
+------------+ | | | |
| ... | | | | |
+------------+ | | | |
| | | | | |
|============| | | | |
|Interrupt fd+------+ +----+ +----+ +----+
+------------+ fd Socket Pipe
The asocket, apacket, and amessage constructs exist only to wrap data while it transits on a Transport. An asocket handles a stream of apackets. An apacket consists of an amessage header featuring a command (A_SYNC, A_OPEN, A_CLSE, A_WRTE, A_OKAY, ...) followed by a payload (find more documentation in protocol.md. There is no A_READ command because an asocket is unidirectional. To model a bi-directional stream, asocket have peers which go in the opposite direction.
An asocket features a buffer containing apackets. If traffic is inbound, the buffer stores the apacket until it is consumed. If the traffic is oubound, the buffer stores apackets until they are sent down the wire (with A_WRTE commands).
+---------------------ASocket------------------------+
| |
| +----------------APacket Queue------------------+ |
| | | |
| | APacket APacket APacket | |
| | +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ | |
| | |AMessage| |AMessage| |AMessage| | |
| | +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | ..... | | | | | | | |
| | | Data | | Data | | Data | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ | |
| | | |
| +-----------------------------------------------+ |
+---------------------------------------------------+
This system allows adb to multiplex data streams on an unique byte stream. Without going into too much detail, the amessage arg1 and arg2 fields are similar to the TCP local and remote ports, where the combination uniquely identifies a particular stream. Note that unlike TCP which features an unacknowledged-send window, an apacket is sent only after the previous one has been confirmed to be received. This is more of an historical accident than a design decision.
The two types of asocket (Remote and Local) differentiate between outbound and inbound traffic.
This pipeline is detailed in daemon/jdwp_service.cpp with ASCII drawings! The JDWP extension implemented by Dalvik/ART are documented in:
- platform/dalvik/+/main/docs/debugmon.html
- platform/dalvik/+/main/docs/debugger.html
To transfer files and directories, ADB places a smart-socket in SYNC mode and then issues SYNC commands. The SYNC protocol is documented in sync.md.
Despite its name the sync protocol is also what powers operations such as pull and push.
$ ./benchmark_device.py
sink 100MiB (write RAM) : 10 runs: median 128.07 MiB/s, mean 126.90 MiB/s, stddev: 19.37 MiB/s
source 100MiB (read RAM) : 10 runs: median 233.73 MiB/s, mean 250.81 MiB/s, stddev: 47.45 MiB/s
push 100MiB (write flash): 10 runs: median 142.82 MiB/s, mean 145.49 MiB/s, stddev: 16.57 MiB/s
pull 100MiB (read flash) : 10 runs: median 190.37 MiB/s, mean 189.08 MiB/s, stddev: 51.24 MiB/s
dd 100MiB (write flash): 10 runs: median 121.57 MiB/s, mean 125.60 MiB/s, stddev: 15.81 MiB/s
Run integration tests as follows.
$ atest adb_integration_test_device
$ atest adb_integration_test_adb
You can use a filter to run only a class of test.
atest adb_integration_test_device --test-filter=FileOperationsTest
You can also use the filter to run a single test in a class.
atest adb_integration_test_device --test-filter=FileOperationsTest#test_push_sync
The list of all the units tests can be found in TEST_MAPPING
socket-activation.md: ADB socket control protocol.