Enable/Disable (or Block/Unblock network access) apps based on some rules

monozygote

Hey all, I've a (noob) question: Is there something in GOS that can help with what is asked in the title?

Eg. Say I've app foo (could be sandboxed play services) in owner profile.

I want to have it disabled when not connected to a certain wifi-ssid - bar. When I'm connected to bar, the app foo is (re-)enabled.
I want to have it have no network access/permission based on the same conditions as (1) above.
For (1) and (2) I gave the condition as network-ssid. In general is this possible with other conditions, like say time of the day?

Is any of this achievable (either through something in GOS or some safe/popular/recommended 3rd party app)? If "yes" is it on all profiles or just the owner profile? Finally, how to do it?

If the answer is "no" to everything above, is it possible to write a personal app to do this without needing root access that could work in all profiles? Or is that going to be fool's errand?

other8026

monozygote not that I know of. I don't know exactly which permissions would be required for some of the things you want, but I get the feeling an app would have to have permissions that regular apps cannot get. I could be wrong. You'd want to figure out which permissions are necessary before starting anything.

It may not be possible without building your own fork of the OS with a privileged app to manage that stuff, root, or adb access somehow. Root and giving apps access to adb are both discouraged and we cannot provide support for those things. If you want to make your own build, there's a development room on Discord/Matrix/Telegram you can find here.

monozygote

other8026 Oh I see, thank you! Building my own fork sounds a bit scary, I doubt I have the caliber to take it up (and then make sure I didn't mess anything or the machine where I was building it is not already infected etc)!

Could there be a workaround using some firewall app for eg? Like say I put a set of such apps in a owner/user profile (or private space there), and configure a firewall for that profile/pvt-space such that when not connected to a wifi with a given ssid (or the opposite), all outgoing IP packets are dropped. Maybe such a firewall can sit on a VPN slot for that profile/private-space, not sure.

other8026

monozygote I don't know. I can't think of an app that allows rules based on the network's name. I remember that NetGuard has some options to block or enable depending on what kind of network you're on, but NetGuard has to be the active VPN to work, so if you already have a VPN you can't use both at the same time. I haven't used NetGuard for a long time so I could be remembering some things wrong. Hopefully someone else here knows of an app that might be useful for you.

RobotChickens

I've previously messed around with an app called Automate which I believe is open source with a paid version to support the devs. From what I've done with it, you can give it as much or as little control over your phone as you want and can basically automate anything you from there on using their easy flowchart editor.

It can change system settings if you set it up that way, but I'm not sure how deep that integration goes or if it's even able to touch the permissions. I'd say it's worth checking out!