Setting up a New Phone for Use with intaQt

After completing this tutorial, you'll have walked through the process required for setting up a new phone with a system image that allows full permissions for use with intaQt.

1. Prerequesites

The intaQt app communicates with intaQt and allows functions such as making/answering calls, sending SMSs, and other, low-level telephony operations.

intaQt app can be run in two ways:

• As a normal Android app.

• Alternatively, as a system app, which allows access to a larger set of permissions and provides richer functionality.

Note
To allow installation of a system app, the operating system must be changed slightly so that certificates match. The intaQt app can only be used as a system app on phones that are supported for flashing with a custom intaQt ROM.

2. Flash a Nexus 5X

The following steps are the same for the other phones. However, the forms of the commands will be different depending on your computer OS and the type of phone you are using.

3. Install Android SDK

Open the QiTASC Cockpit. If you have not downloaded the Cockpit, you may download it here.

Choose the Install Android SDK... link from the Cockpit More Items menu, if it has not been installed:

4. Obtain OS Image Files for Your Device from QiTASC

The OS image files will be available to you either as files directly, or via your customer portal.

There are three files required for each device:

• The bootloader image (.img)

• The radio image (.img)

• The OS image (.zip)

Note
The image names should contain the codename or actual name of your device. For example, the codename for Nexus 5X is bullhead.

The files used in this tutorial for Nexus5X are called:

• bootloader-bullhead-bhz10m.img

• radio-bullhead-m8994f-2.6.32.1.13.img

• android-6.0.1-nexus-5x.zip

You also need the appropriate script files for your computer operating system. These will also be provided by QiTASC to you.

Important!
You must use the correct files for all steps. Using an incorrect file could lead to your device being irreparably damaged.

For this tutorial, we are using Linux, and will use the file:

• flash-nexus-5x.sh

For Windows, you should use the appropriate .bat file.

Put all the files in the same directory on your computer.

5. Prepare the Phone by Enabling OEM Unlocking If Required

Nexus 5X phones require OEM Unlocking to be enabled before the bootloader can be flashed. The following steps are used to unlock your Nexus phone:

Select Settings on your phone.

Enable Developer Mode (if not already enabled), by going to About Phone and touching Build Number seven times.

Find Developer Options menu item in Settings.

Open Developer Options and ensure that OEM Unlocking is checked. It will grayed out if the bootloader is already unlocked.

Enable USB Debugging mode, also in the Developer Options menu.

6. Connect the Phone to your Computer

Use the correct cable for your device (Nexus 5X requires a USB-C cable) and connect it to a port - either on your computer or a powered USB hub.

7. Restart the Phone in Fastboot Mode

Do the following to restart the phone in fastboot mode:

• Turn off the phone.

• Hold both volume buttons down and switch the phone back on (release the power button after power-on, but keep the volume buttons pressed).

• Release all buttons once you see the fastboot menu.

Note
If the above steps do not work, you can also issue the command adb reboot bootloader.

8. Set up Your Environment to Allow Running Android Commands

Add the platform-tools directory to your PATH variable. If you have already used intaQt, the environment variables may already be set up. If not, we have included platform-specific instructions here.

9. Confirm Fastboot Mode

Run the command fastboot devices on Windows and sudo fastboot devices on Linux and Mac OS.

Run the command above, and it will produce the output:

013ade32ef58752 fastboot

This indicates that the device is booted into fastboot mode, and is connected correctly to your computer.

Note
If, on Linux, you encounter the issue sudo: fastboot: command not found, even after adding platform-tools to your PATH, it means sudo is changing the PATH (this is a security feature on some versions of Linux). Instead of sudo, use sudo env PATH=$PATH fastboot devices. You can change this behavior permanently by adding alias sudo='sudo env PATH=$PATH' into your .bash_profile.

10. Unlock the Bootloader

Run the command fastboot oem unlock on Windows and sudo fastboot oem unlock on Linux and Mac OS. You will either see Failed (if already unlocked) or Success if it was unlocked correctly.

Verify this result by running fastboot oem device-info on Windows and sudo fastboot oem device-info on Linux and Mac OS. Within the result, you should see a line like this:

(bootloader)     Device unlocked: true

11. Flash the Phone

The final step for setting up your phone is to send the images and ROM to the phone, to update its firmware. This is called flashing the phone.

Change to the directory where you placed the image files in Step 4. Execute the flash script. Run flash-nexus-5x.bat for Windows and sudo flash-nexus-5x.sh and flash-nexus-5x.bat. for Linux and Mac OS.

Note
If, on Linux you get an error like flash-nexus-5x.sh: Permission Denied, then you may need to make the script file executable. To do this, run the command chmod 744 flash-nexus-5x.sh.

Execute the flash script successfully and it will produce an output like:

target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending 'bootloader' (4387 KB)...
OKAY [  0.238s]
writing 'bootloader'...
OKAY [  0.138s]
finished. total time: 0.376s
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [  0.020s]
finished. total time: 0.248s
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending 'radio' (56758 KB)...
OKAY [  1.895s]
writing 'radio'...
OKAY [  0.524s]
finished. total time: 2.419s
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [  0.020s]
finished. total time: 0.071s
extracting android-info.txt (0 MB) to RAM...
extracting boot.img (11 MB) to disk... took 0.186s
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
archive does not contain 'boot.sig'
archive does not contain 'dtbo.img'
archive does not contain 'dt.img'
extracting recovery.img (12 MB) to disk... took 0.058s
archive does not contain 'recovery.sig'
extracting system.img (800 MB) to disk... took 4.700s
archive does not contain 'system.sig'
archive does not contain 'vbmeta.img'
extracting vendor.img (186 MB) to disk... took 1.369s
archive does not contain 'vendor.sig'
wiping userdata...
mke2fs 1.43.3 (04-Sep-2016)
Creating filesystem with 6661115 4k blocks and 1667904 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 11425297-67d5-48d7-ac17-88f96a770742
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
    32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
    4096000

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

wiping cache...
mke2fs 1.43.3 (04-Sep-2016)
Creating filesystem with 24576 4k blocks and 24576 inodes

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (1024 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

--------------------------------------------
Bootloader Version...: BHZ10m
Baseband Version.....: M8994F-2.6.32.1.13
Serial Number........: 0233e0f5cebd1a22
--------------------------------------------
checking product...
OKAY [  0.020s]
sending 'boot' (11505 KB)...
OKAY [  0.448s]
writing 'boot'...
OKAY [  0.103s]
sending 'recovery' (12557 KB)...
OKAY [  0.493s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [  0.123s]
erasing 'system'...
OKAY [  0.603s]
sending sparse 'system' 1/2 (524091 KB)...
OKAY [ 17.347s]
writing 'system' 1/2...
OKAY [  6.128s]
sending sparse 'system' 2/2 (295749 KB)...
OKAY [  9.833s]
writing 'system' 2/2...
OKAY [  3.422s]
erasing 'vendor'...
OKAY [  0.112s]
sending 'vendor' (190693 KB)...
OKAY [  6.312s]
writing 'vendor'...
OKAY [  2.355s]
erasing 'userdata'...
OKAY [  1.941s]
sending 'userdata' (4412 KB)...
OKAY [  0.229s]
writing 'userdata'...
OKAY [  0.069s]
erasing 'cache'...
OKAY [  0.080s]
sending 'cache' (92 KB)...
OKAY [  0.083s]
writing 'cache'...
OKAY [  0.017s]
rebooting...

finished. total time: 49.861s

12. Finish Configuring the Phone

Follow the next steps after flashing the phone to ensure that the phones are secure and in a consistent state.

Disable OEM Unlock: Following similar steps as described in Step 5, enable the Developer Options menu and ensure that OEM Unlock is Off. Enable USB Debugging.

Remove certain apps that are known to cause issues: * Display all the apps on the phone - go to Settings -> Apps. * Deactivate the following apps, by selecting the app -> Disable: * Email * Exchange Services

Conclusion

Now that you have finished the "Phone Setup" tutorial, you should have a working phone, flashed with a QiTASC Android image that is ready for use in tests with intaQt Studio. The next time you connect the phone to intaQt, or an RPO, the intaQt Autotest APK will be automatically installed onto the device.

Note
When executing intaQt test cases with phones, you run ADM from the QiTASC Cockpit and run intaQt from the command line with the -a argument. For more infomation, see Using the Cockpit from the Command Line.