androidrootairplane-mode

How to toggle Airplane Mode on Android 4.2 and above using root?


As is known, on Android 4.2 only system applications can toggle Airplane Mode. But I think it must be available for rooted devices. And I want to impliment it in my application for rooted devices with Build.VERSION.SDK_INT>=17. How to toggle Airplane Mode on rooted devices with Android 4.2?


Solution

  • There is a new "settings" binary in Android 4.2 You can also use it without su, then your app needs the permission required to change this setting declared in your app's manifest (which would be WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS for flight mode in 4.2 - which is only granted to apps installed on system partition).

    Activate

    su 
    settings put global airplane_mode_on 1
    am broadcast -a android.intent.action.AIRPLANE_MODE --ez state true
    

    Deactivate

    su
    settings put global airplane_mode_on 0
    am broadcast -a android.intent.action.AIRPLANE_MODE --ez state false
    

    For other android versions and other settings (flight mode can be activated without root before 4.2) you can use sql injects in settings.db

    su
    sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
    insert into global values(null, 'airplane_mode_on', 1);
    

    Replace "global" with "system" or "secure" and 'airplane_mode_on' with the key of your desired table entry. For some settings you need to send certain broadcasts afterwards, see example above for flight mode.

    To explore your settings.db run this in a terminal app:

    su
    sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
    .tables
    select * from global
    select * from secure
    select * from system