Make a custom Setup Wizard for System Android Application running on an Emulator

Question

I need to build a custom Setup Wizard to provision another app as a device owner. The setup wizard will then run on our hardware as a privileged app (residing in the priv-app folder)

I have spent a lot of time trying to get this to work in an emulator. unfortunately, without result.

I am trying to verify that the setup wizard runs correctly and got permission ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_DEVICE to be able to set device owner by the following check: devicePolicyManager.isProvisioningAllowed(DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_DEVICE)

It always returns false. I think this is indicating that the device is not either in setup wizard mode or the setup wizard app is not allowed to do provisioning?

When I try this on an emulator I do the following:

$ emulator -avd View711 -writable-system
$ adb root
$ adb remount
$ adb shell rm -rf /system/priv-app/SetupWizard
$ adb push app-debug.apk  /system/priv-app/SetupWizard/SetupWizard.apk

This makes the emulator writable and pushes the apk to the priv-app folder.

At this stage, I shut off the emulator and make a “wipe data” from the AVD Manager in Android Studio (to try to get it into setup wizard state again). Im not sure if that is the exact same thing as a normal factory reset. The factory reset option in Android's settings menu do not do anything in the emulator. (I do not know why)

When I boot up the device again my app starts but devicePolicyManager.isProvisioningAllowed returns false indicating that I cannot set my app as device owner.

I test this with a really small SetupWizard app to try to isolate the issues I’m having:

It got one activity that checks if provisioning is allowed:

class SetupWizardActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    private lateinit var devicePolicyManager: DevicePolicyManager

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        devicePolicyManager = getSystemService(Context.DEVICE_POLICY_SERVICE) as DevicePolicyManager

        Log.d(
            "test",
            "Is provisioning allowed: " + devicePolicyManager.isProvisioningAllowed(
                DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_DEVICE
            )
        )
    }
} 

And my manifest:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.setupwizard">

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.DISPATCH_PROVISIONING_MESSAGE" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">

        <activity
            android:name=".SetupWizardActivity"
            android:excludeFromRecents="true"
            android:immersive="true"
            android:label="Test"
            android:launchMode="singleTask"
            android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysHidden">

            <intent-filter android:priority="10">
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.SETUP_WIZARD" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

I tried to manually reset the emulator to setup wizard state by:

$ adb root
$ adb remount

$ adb shell settings put global setup_wizard_has_run 0
$ adb shell settings put global device_provisioned 0
$ adb shell settings put secure user_setup_complete 0

$ adb shell pm enable com.example.setupwizard/.SetupWizardActivity 
$ adb shell am start -n com.example.setupwizard/.SetupWizardActivity 

But devicePolicyManager.isProvisioningAllowed does still returns false after the app opens.

My emulator runs Android 7.1.1 without google APIs.

I found a person having very similar issues to me without any answer: Android: Emulator factory data reset menu option not working

I found the reset wizard adb commands from here: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/137324/trigger-setup-wizard-at-next-boot-using-command-line

If I could get this to work I could eventually set device owner on my application by something like this:

public Intent createProvisionManagedDeviceIntent() {
    ComponentName adminComponent = new ComponentName(getPackageName(), DeviceOwnerReceiver.class.getName());

    if (!devicePolicyManager.isProvisioningAllowed(DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_DEVICE)) {
        return null;

    }

    String action = DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_DEVICE;
    try {
        if (checkSelfPermission("android.permission.DISPATCH_PROVISIONING_MESSAGE") == PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
            action = (String) DevicePolicyManager.class.getField("ACTION_PROVISION_MANAGED_DEVICE_FROM_TRUSTED_SOURCE").get(null);
        }
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        ex.printStackTrace();
        return null;
    }

    return new Intent(action)
            .putExtra(DevicePolicyManager.EXTRA_PROVISIONING_DEVICE_ADMIN_COMPONENT_NAME, adminComponent)
            .putExtra(DevicePolicyManager.EXTRA_PROVISIONING_SKIP_ENCRYPTION, true)
            .putExtra(DevicePolicyManager.EXTRA_PROVISIONING_LEAVE_ALL_SYSTEM_APPS_ENABLED, true);
}

I am out of ideas. Its a pretty cumbersome way of developing and hard to debug. Im having problems finding good documentation on this as well. Our application needs device owner perimissions to function well as a kiosk mode app.