Is it possible to build an isolated, multi-process Android container without root on modern Android 15 devices?
Most people assume that running an isolated guest environment requires physical root (CAP_SYS_ADMIN), unlocked bootloaders, or custom kernel drivers. In this devlog, we break down how we built the foundational execution engine for VPortable — an open-source (GPLv3) user-space container framework that intercepts openat, newfstatat, chdir, and execve across Android 13, 14, and 15.
Key Takeaways:
- Handling the Android 10+ W^X executable restrictions without root.
- Managing multi-process trees and avoiding ptrace deadlocks with
waitpid(-1). - Safe in-memory path rewriting using scratch stack space.
Check out the full repository and architecture specs:
https://github.com/M5Devs/VPortable
