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I have two Android 4.x devices, one 4.0.2 and another 4.4.2. On both, I have installed SSHelper to push data to and from the device using rsync. It worked, but the new environment does not even have a usable rm. I would like to switch over to something that works better and possibly faster.

My next attempt was to use MTP over USB with mtpfs, but that does not work, it freezes. simple-mtpfs is not packaged for Ubuntu 13.10. KDE KIO is able to read from the device over MTP, but that does not help me at all, since I want to write my own script using rsync, and it is not able to write to it.

Then I tried sshfs, I do not get any errors mounting it, but I get IO-errors whenever I even try to cd into the mountpoint. I guess the environment with SSHelper lacks something. It does not work with HTTPS and FTPS Server either. The SFTP provided with the latter works with Filezilla, though.

So how can I get /sdcard to be mounted somewhere on my Linux machine and copy and delete files from it like I want?

Martin Ueding
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    You might wish to try adbfs or adb push/adb pull (see my answers here and here). I use the former for quite a while now. Mounts like a normal "drive". Should be usable for rsync, though I didn't try. Of course, adb push/pull are not really suitable for "sync", but adbfs should be :) – Izzy Dec 11 '13 at 17:13
  • adbfs does not sound bad. I guess that requires to install gigabytes of Android SDK? I just have tried to install a SFTP server on the 4.0.2 device. It works fine with Filezilla, but not with sshfs. – Martin Ueding Dec 11 '13 at 17:24
  • No, you don't need to install the entire Android SDK. You only need to apt-get install android-tools-adb. ADB itself is tiny and doesn't depend on the SDK. In turn, the only dependencies for adbfs are adb and fuse. – dotVezz Dec 11 '13 at 17:48
  • I tried adbFS and adbfs-rootless, both did not work. I wrote an email to both developers, let's see what comes around. By the way: I understand that “normal” people just use Google Drive or Dropbox and do not care about accessing the real file system, but is there no usable way to mount the /sdcard? From the Nexus 10, I cannot even get it out the device … – Martin Ueding Dec 11 '13 at 18:24
  • I can mount a few Android devices (including a Nexus 10) just fine from an Ubuntu 13.04 desktop via MTP. It worked out of the box. It might be easier asking our sister site Ask Ubuntu to help get MTP working on your desktop than trying to work around it on several Android devices. – Dan Hulme Dec 11 '13 at 18:41
  • How do you mount it exacly? Using mtpfs? Or do you use Nautilus or Dolphin? – Martin Ueding Dec 11 '13 at 18:43
  • @queueoverflow No full ADK needed, as dotVezz already noted: see Is there a minimal installation of ADB?. As for adbfs, you might wish to take a look at Tools for Android (my site), I did some corrections to make things work with Ubuntu 12.04. Guess that should do for 13.04/13.10 as well, but I didn't test. (PS: Ooops, I didn't put adbfs there for some reason? Need to check that... Ah! Watchout 4 adbfs-rootless, that's the working one. The other didn't work for me either) – Izzy Dec 11 '13 at 19:44

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If you want to give adbfs a try, here are some instructions. You need to take care to grab the right one, as there are two projects around: one is simply called adbfs, I couldn't get that to work correctly. The other is adbfs-rootless:

  1. go to the projects github page
  2. on that page, at the right-hand side in about the middle of the page, you find a button labeled Download ZIP. Click that to download the sources.
  3. create a new directory, e.g. mkdir ~/adbfs-rootless, and extract the .zip to it
  4. now first install the dependencies: sudo apt-get install libfuse-dev
  5. change to the directory (cd ~/adbfs-rootless), and build the binaries by simply running make
  6. copy the resulting adbfs binary into your $PATH, where your adb binary is located (for ADB, see Is there a minimal installation of ADB?)

Now you're ready to go. Another one-time job is to create a mountpoint, e.g. mkdir ~/droid. After that, connect your Android device via ADB (after having enabled USB debugging, of course). Then mount it using adb ~/droid, and do whatever you wanted to do (e.g. running rsync, copying stuff, whatever). When you're done, don't forget to disconnect: fusermount -u ~/droid.

To make things easier, I created two aliases:

alias mdroid="adb ~/droid"
alias udroid="fusermount -u ~/droid"

So I only need to type mdroid to mount, and udroid to unmount the device.

Enjoy the fun!

Community
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Izzy
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  • I did all that, however adb devices does not list any devices. It does not work with either the Nexus 10, nor with the Xperia Mini Pro. They are recognized by mtpfs, but that fails for other reasons, apparently. I have not checked whether USB debugging is enabled, though. – Martin Ueding Dec 11 '13 at 20:10
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    OK, that's not the fault of adbfs. But I might have something helpful for that as well: please see my answer here to get ADB running with Ubuntu and the Nexus :) – Izzy Dec 11 '13 at 20:20
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    Once I enabled USB debugging, this kind works on the Xperia Mini Pro with Android 4.0.2. I have yet to find out how to enable USB debugging on the Nexus 10 with Android 4.4.2. It does not really seem too stable, and rsync complains about a lot of missing functions in the file system. – Martin Ueding Dec 11 '13 at 20:23
  • I cannot help you with that, unfortunately: Neither I have a Nexus, nor Android 4.2+. I'm using that successfully with multiple devices running 2.3/4.0/4.1 (of course not simultaneously, but always only with one of them connected at a time). – Izzy Dec 11 '13 at 20:29
  • So mu rsync -avhE --delete --progress --whole-file --inplace copies the files, complains about chgrp being not implemented, which is fine. However, it copies the files every time, which is dead slow. So far, it is not a viable replacement for rsync over SSH (if it was not broken). -rvh does not make it better, either. – Martin Ueding Dec 11 '13 at 20:32
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    @queueoverflow, Sorry if I'm asking an obvious question or giving obvious advice, but have you enabled the "Developer Options" menu? (Go to "Settings"->"About Phone" and tap "Build number" 7 times). USB Debugging mode can be enabled from Developer Options. – dotVezz Dec 11 '13 at 20:34
  • @dotVezz probably yes, or it wouldn't work at all, as adb wouldn't even recognize the device :) queue: I do all my sync stuff using FolderSync via WiFi. Works like a charm. Sync events I trigger via Tasker. adbfs I mainly use for manual work (investigation, copying some files, etc.). – Izzy Dec 11 '13 at 20:38
  • @Izzy, I was actually asking because he said adb does not recognize the device in his first comment and then said that he doesn't know how to enable Debugging on the Nexus 10 in his second comment. Or.. wait, am I missing something? – dotVezz Dec 11 '13 at 21:08
  • @dotVezz Yeah, the OP's last comment maybe? :) "[...] is dead slow [...] no viable replacement for rsync via SSH [...]" to me implies it's at least working ;) – Izzy Dec 11 '13 at 22:38
  • @Izzy I'm so confused. Is he referring to adb in that comment? does rsync only work with debugging enabled or something? O_o As far as I can see, he hasn't said anything to indicate that he's got a working debugging mode... but I might just be crazy. Educate me! – dotVezz Dec 12 '13 at 03:47
  • @dotVezz He's used rsync via ssh before. I've recommended trying the same via adbfs. My answer doesn't mention mtpfs. So I don't see what else could be meant. (feel free (both of you) dropping into chat for details, before we "overload" the comments. Ya know I'm always there – though sometimes a little delayed, but I always "copy" :) – Izzy Dec 12 '13 at 06:56