Usage - Redex — ContextQMD

Basic Usage

To use ReDex, first build your app and find the APK for it. Then the simplest invocation is:

[python3] redex.py path/to/your.apk -o path/to/output.apk

A more complete invocation with:

the default configuration setting config/default.config
access to the Android SDK tools

[python3] redex.py -c default.config \
  --android-sdk-path path/to/android/sdk \
  path/to/your.apk -o path/to/output.apk

The full set of options can be found with

[python3] redex.py --help

and at the time of writing is

usage: redex.py [-h] [-o [OUT]] [-j JARPATHS] [--redex-binary [REDEX_BINARY]]
                [-c CONFIG] [--sign] [-s [KEYSTORE]] [-a [KEYALIAS]]
                [-p [KEYPASS]] [-u] [--unpack-dest UNPACK_DEST] [-w [WARN]]
                [-d] [--dev] [-m [PROGUARD_MAP]] [--printseeds [PRINTSEEDS]]
                [--used-js-assets USED_JS_ASSETS] [-P PROGUARD_CONFIGS]
                [-k [KEEP]] [-A [ARCH]] [-S PASSTHRU] [-J PASSTHRU_JSON]
                [--lldb] [--gdb] [--ignore-zipalign] [--verify-none-mode]
                [--enable-instrument-pass] [--is-art-build] [--enable-pgi]
                [--post-lowering] [--disable-dex-hasher] [--page-align-libs]
                [--side-effect-summaries SIDE_EFFECT_SUMMARIES]
                [--escape-summaries ESCAPE_SUMMARIES] [--stop-pass STOP_PASS]
                [--output-ir OUTPUT_IR]
                [--debug-source-root [DEBUG_SOURCE_ROOT]] [--always-clean-up]
                [--cmd-prefix CMD_PREFIX] [--reset-zip-timestamps] [-q]
                [--android-sdk-path ANDROID_SDK_PATH]
                input_apk

Given an APK, produce a better APK!

positional arguments:
  input_apk             Input APK file

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -o [OUT], --out [OUT]
                        Output APK file name (defaults to redex-out.apk)
  -j JARPATHS, --jarpath JARPATHS
                        Path to dependent library jar file
  --redex-binary [REDEX_BINARY]
                        Path to redex binary
  -c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
                        Configuration file
  --sign, --no-sign     Sign the apk after optimizing it
  -s [KEYSTORE], --keystore [KEYSTORE]
  -a [KEYALIAS], --keyalias [KEYALIAS]
  -p [KEYPASS], --keypass [KEYPASS]
  -u, --unpack-only     Unpack the apk and print the unpacked directories,
                        don't run any redex passes or repack the apk
  --unpack-dest UNPACK_DEST
                        Specify the base name of the destination directories;
                        works with -u
  -w [WARN], --warn [WARN]
                        Control verbosity of warnings
  -d, --debug           Unpack the apk and print the redex command line to run
  --dev                 Optimize for development speed
  -m [PROGUARD_MAP], --proguard-map [PROGUARD_MAP]
                        Path to proguard mapping.txt for deobfuscating names
  --printseeds [PRINTSEEDS]
                        File to print seeds to
  --used-js-assets USED_JS_ASSETS
                        A JSON file (or files) containing a list of resources
                        used by JS
  -P PROGUARD_CONFIGS, --proguard-config PROGUARD_CONFIGS
                        Path to proguard config
  -k [KEEP], --keep [KEEP]
                        [deprecated] Path to file containing classes to keep
  -A [ARCH], --arch [ARCH]
                        Architecture; one of arm/armv7/arm64/x86_64/x86"
  -S PASSTHRU           Arguments passed through to redex
  -J PASSTHRU_JSON      JSON-formatted arguments passed through to redex
  --lldb                Run redex binary in lldb
  --gdb                 Run redex binary in gdb
  --ignore-zipalign     Ignore if zipalign is not found
  --verify-none-mode    Enable verify-none mode on redex
  --enable-instrument-pass
                        Enable InstrumentPass if any
  --is-art-build        States that this is an art only build
  --enable-pgi          If not passed, Profile Guided Inlining is disabled
  --post-lowering       Specifies whether post lowering steps should be run
  --disable-dex-hasher  Disable DexHasher
  --page-align-libs     Preserve 4k page alignment for uncompressed libs
  --side-effect-summaries SIDE_EFFECT_SUMMARIES
                        Side effect information for external methods
  --escape-summaries ESCAPE_SUMMARIES
                        Escape information for external methods
  --stop-pass STOP_PASS
                        Stop before a pass and dump intermediate dex and IR
                        meta data to a directory
  --output-ir OUTPUT_IR
                        Stop before stop_pass and dump intermediate dex and IR
                        meta data to output_ir folder
  --debug-source-root [DEBUG_SOURCE_ROOT]
                        Root directory that all references to source files in
                        debug information is given relative to.
  --always-clean-up     Clean up temporaries even under failure
  --cmd-prefix CMD_PREFIX
                        Prefix redex-all with
  --reset-zip-timestamps
                        Reset zip timestamps for deterministic output
  -q, --quiet           Do not be verbose, and override TRACE.
  --android-sdk-path ANDROID_SDK_PATH
                        Path to Android SDK

From here, you may want to read the configuration guide and details about the passes.

The result output.apk should be smaller and faster than the input.

Tracing

If you want some statistics about each pass, you can turn on tracing:

export TRACE=1

More specifically, tracing has categories and levels. For a TRACE(X, Y, msg) statement in the code to be logged, category X must have level Y or higher:

export TRACE=X:1,Y:2,Z:3

The output of tracing can also be redirected to a file with the TRACEFILE variable:

export TRACEFILE=/path/to/trace.txt