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Android tmpfs writable by user


On a rooted Android 6.0.1 device, I would like to have a tmpfs writable by the user. I do:

mkdir /sdcard/test
su
mount -t tmpfs -o size=512m tmpfs /sdcard/test
#Note that the permissions of /sdcard/test have changed
chmod 0771 /sdcard/test
chown root:sdcard_rw /sdcard/test
exit
touch /sdcard/test/aa

mount reports:

tmpfs /storage/emulated/0/test tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,size=524288k 0 0

But I get:

touch: '/sdcard/test/aa': Permission denied

So I can't write to /sdcard/test as the standard user (through shell or an application). What am I doing wrong? I have also tried to create the mount in /data/ and it's the same problem.

EDIT 1:

I have tried on an Android 4.4 device and it's working. So, something has changed and has been restricted on a later version. I'm wondering if 5.x is impacted too.

EDIT 2:

Strangely, mount reports the mount point twice:

tmpfs /mnt/runtime/default/emulated/0/test tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,size=524288k 0 0
tmpfs /storage/emulated/0/test tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,size=524288k 0 0

EDIT 3:

When I do the file touch as a user, the kernel reports the following:

[54484.588865] type=1400 audit(1452975001.917:150): avc: denied { write } for pid=30781 comm="touch" name="/" dev="tmpfs" ino=398770 scontext=u:r:shell:s0 tcontext=u:object_r:tmpfs:s0 tclass=dir permissive=0

Solution

  • "su -c setenforce 0" fixes the problem. See https://source.android.com/security/selinux/validate.html