Bash on Android

A makefile that patches & cross-compiles bash 4.4-beta to Android (on ARM, but that's configurable).

This is not a "port" or a fork. We simply produce a cross-compiled stand-alone executable. bash itself is kept pristine w/o behavioral modifications.

Prerequisites

• Android NDK (tested w/ r10e)
• Linux (tested on Fedora 23)
• GNU Make

Compile

$ git clone ...
$ mkdir tmp && cd tmp
$ wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-4.4-beta.tar.gz

The arm target:

$ ../bash-on-android/bash-on-android compile

This presumes that the NDK was installed in /opt/s/android-ndk-r10e. If not, set the correct path via a command line override:

$ ../bash-on-android/bash-on-android compile NDK=my/android-ndk/installation

If the cross-compilation succeeds, build-arm-bash-4.4-beta/bash appears:

$ file build-arm-bash-4.4-beta/bash
build-arm-bash-4.4-beta/bash: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, not stripped

Installation

$ adb push build-arm-bash-4.4-beta/bash /system/bin

Don't put it in /sdcard; the 1st partition of the card is usually formatted w/ FAT32 & your ROM may mount it w/o execute access.

License

MIT.