How can I sign my application with the system signature key?

Question

I need to create a Robotium application that would use Settings application to turn ON/OFF WIFi from menu Settings->Wireless & networks->Wi-Fi. I managed to find some sample code here that demonstrates how to launch application by having apk file only. The problem is that my Robotium application should have the same signature with the (system) Settings application. While trying to run application I get the error message:

Test run failed: Permission Denial: starting instrumentation ComponentInfo{com.jayway.test/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner} from pid=354, uid=354 not allowed because package com.jayway.test does not have a signature matching the target com.android.settings

1. Can I somehow make it work with the Android Emulator?
2. If I compile an Android phone image, how can I use the Android system signature with my application?

Answer 1

I was having the same problem.. There are some permissions that only system apps are allowed to have . I was trying to access the adb shell dumpsys commands from my application with the permissions android.permission.DUMP .

The solution to this is ...

In the Android manifest file of your project add the following line in the manifest tag

android:sharedUserId="android.uid.system"

You need to have two signature keys present in the code that is used to build the binary.

platform.x509.pem

platform.pk8

that is present in the

android/build/target/product/security

Download a tool from the net i.e.

signapk.jar

From the eclipse export your unsigned apk. by right click on the project from the android tools. Keep all the things i.e. keys , unsigned apk, and signapk.jar in a folder. Run the following Command

java -jar signapk.jar platform.x509.pem platform.pk8 unsigned.apk signed.apk

unsigned apk is the name of your apk and signed apk is the new name you want . After this just install your signed app in the phone with the command

adb shell install signed.apk