Notes for Installing Anbox on Arch Linux

An installation guide for Anbox based on the Arch Wiki: Wiki link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Anbox

Installing Kernel Modules

You will need to switch to the linux-tls kernel:

sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Install the kernel modules:

yay -S anbox-modules-dkms

Load the kernel modules:

sudo modprobe binder_linux devices=binder,hwbinder,vndbinder,anbox-binder,anbox-hwbinder,anbox-vndbinder
sudo modprobe ashmem_linux
sudo mkdir -p /dev/binderfs
sudo mount -t binder binder /dev/binderfs

Edit /etc/modules-load.d/anbox.conf to enable the kernel modules at boot time:

ashmem_linux
binder_linux

Edit /etc/tmpfiles.d/anbox.conf and add the following line to mount binderfs at boot:

# /etc/tmpfiles.d/anbox.conf
d! /dev/binderfs 0755 root root

Add the following line to the end of /etc/fstab:

none                         /dev/binderfs binder   nofail  0      0

Anbox Installation

Install Anbox using the ArchlinuxCN repository:

sudo pacman -S anbox-git anbox-image

Set up the network. Since I use NetworkManager as my network manager, I only need to configure Anbox’s network like this:

nmcli con add type bridge ifname anbox0 -- connection.id anbox-net ipv4.method shared ipv4.addresses 192.168.250.1/24

You only need to do this once. NetworkManger will automatically configure the network at startup. Refer to Arch Wiki for other ways to configure the network.

Enable the service:

sudo systemctl start anbox-container-manager.service  # start
sudo systemctl enable anbox-container-manager.service # set to start at boot

Check the Anbox status. If it is displayed as running, there should be no major issues:

sudo systemctl status anbox-container-manager.service

Now you can see the Anbox interface by clicking on the Anbox icon on the desktop.

Application Installation

Make sure the adb command exists:

sudo pacman -S android-tools

Then use adb install to install the app:

adb install /path/to/app.apk

ARM Support

Currently, it doesn’t seem to be very useful. Some APKs of ARM architecture can be installed, but cannot be started.

Pre-installation Preparation

First, install some dependencies:

sudo pacman -S squashfs-tools tar unzip curl wget lzip 

The following content may become outdated in the future, it is recommended to refer to the original project address: https://github.com/geeks-r-us/anbox-playstore-installer

The installation script for ARM cannot be used directly on Arch, manual intervention is required before that. You need to manually modify the /usr/lib/systemd/system/anbox-container-manager.service file and add --use-rootfs-overlay at the end of the ExecStart line. The modified file looks like this:

[Unit]
Description=Anbox Container Manager

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/anbox container-manager --daemon --privileged --data-path=/var/lib/anbox --use-rootfs-overlay

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then, restart the Anbox service:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart anbox-container-manager.service

Installation

Next, you only need to download the script and run it. This process requires downloading some files, which may require crossing the GFW:

mkdir a
cd a
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geeks-r-us/anbox-playstore-installer/master/install-playstore.sh
chmod +x install-playstore.sh
./install-playstore.sh

If everything goes well, when you open Anbox, you should be able to find an additional Google Play Store, and APKs of ARM architecture can also be installed successfully.

Proxy settings

Setting up proxy

The host is using Qv2ray for proxy, which by default listens on 127.0.0.1. At this point, Anbox cannot access the proxy server on the computer. The solution is simple: click Preferences on the main interface and change the Listening address in Inbound settings to 0.0.0.0:

Now, setting up the proxy through adb should work:

adb shell settings put global http_proxy <ip>:<port>

Cancelling the proxy

adb shell settings put global http_proxy :0