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AMT

Android Merge Tool

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AMT

The Android Merge Tool (AMT) does what the name suggests: it merges arbitrary Android apps into a single merged app. As input it takes a number of Android packages (.apk files) and outputs the merged app as one Android package. Along with this primary output, a report is generated optionally. It contains information about the properties (e.g. taint-flows) changed.

An overview of the whole approach is illustrated in the figure above. On the one hand, the first five steps (1 - 5) represent Phase I, the app merging process. Multiple input apps are merged into a single merged app. On the other hand, Step 6 and 7 stand for Phase II. During this phase it is evaluated how accurately the merged app represents the input apps. In order to guarantee accurately merged benchmarks Phase II becomes indispensable. For more information please take a look at the associated paper (see Publications).

Usage

Two steps have to be completed in order to use AMT:

Step 1: Configuration
The file amt.properties holds the AMT’s configuration. The following options can be configured:

Parameter	Meaning
`androidPlatforms=/path/to/Android/sdks/platforms`	The path to the Android platforms directory
`apktoolPath=/path/to/apktool`	ApkTool must be installed and this path has to point to the directory containing ApkTool’s JAR file
`apktoolJar=apktool_2.6.0.jar`	Mostly dependent on ApkTool’s version, the JAR’s filename should be adapted here.
`aqlQuery=Flows IN App('%APP_APK%') USES 'FlowDroid' ?`	When run in check or comparison mode, an AQL-Query to execute must be defined here.
`comparisonAqlQuery=Flows IN App('%APP_APK%' \\| 'COMBINE') USES 'FlowDroid' ?`	The query used for the comparison must be defined here.
`outputFolder=output`	Any output is stored in the specified directory
`defaultExcludes=android.support., com.google., androidx., kotlin.`	Packages or classes that are excluded while merging.

Step 2: Launch
AMT can be accessed from the command-line as follows:
```
java -jar AMT-2.0.0.jar [optional launch parameters] [list of .apk files]
```
for example:
```
java -jar AMT-2.0.0.jar -comparison -d verbose -cfg myConfig.xml A.apk B.apk
```
This will launch AMT in comparison mode, shorten its output and use myConfig.xml as configuration for the underlying AQL-System. All launch parameters are listed in the following table:

Parameter	Meaning
`-check`	Turns on the optional check mode
`-comparison`	Turns on the optional comparison mode
`-c %FILE%`, `-cfg %FILE%`, `-config %FILE%`	This parameter can be used to specify a different config file for the underlying AQL-System (By default: config.xml is used)
`-debug "X"`, `-d "X"`, `-l "X"`, `-loglevel "X"`	The output generated during the execution of this tool can be set to different levels. `X` may be set to: `error`, `warning`, `debug`, `detailed`, `verbose` (ascending precision from left to right).

Publications

App Merging for Benchmark Speed-Up and Analysis Lift-Up (Felix Pauck, Shikun Zhang)
A-Mobile@ASE 2018 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8967423

License

AMT is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 (see LICENSE).

Contact

Felix Pauck (FoelliX)
Paderborn University
fpauck@mail.uni-paderborn.de
http://www.FelixPauck.de

Links

AMT requires ApkTool: https://github.com/iBotPeaches/Apktool
AMT uses the AQL and its system: https://foellix.github.io/AQL-System
ApkCombiner is a very similar tool: https://github.com/lilicoding/ApkCombiner