Pushing apps from owner

lawman

Does pushing apps from owner to secondary profile, double the app space required or is the single app space used with different data?

As opposed to just installing in the secondary profile.

What is the advantage of pushing?

thanks

Mystified3527

lawman
It only uses the space for a single app, and has different app data. The use owner for pushing is often used with many profiles instead of having apps managed separately in each one, and it keeps the Google Play Store and Services isolated if you use these. Also see https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/21487-seprand-articles-and-guides-about-grapheneos-by-the-community

de0u

lawman Does pushing apps from owner to secondary profile, double the app space required or is the single app space used with different data?

At present, the APK (and compiled object code) are shared, not duplicated (this is why only one version of any app can be installed on a device, no matter how many profiles there are). This behavior might potentially change in the future.

Many apps create and maintain some minimal amount of data when run for the first time; if so, that might end up duplicated.

lawman

de0u I thought that each profile was completely sandboxed from each other? how do they share files ie. apps if sandboxed? thx

Bimmy

lawman

Very abridged reply: There can be a single instance of installed executables (hence no duplicates), but multiple execution contexts with accordingly different rights, separated files for distinct configurations, user transactions etc.

de0u

lawman I thought that each profile was completely sandboxed from each other?

Apps in the same profile are sandboxed, because apps run in the Android app sandbox. The isolation provided by user profiles is not the Android app sandbox.

User profiles provide further isolation, because apps in different profiles can't discover each other or communicate via IPC, use separate VPN connections, etc. However, apps in different profiles share many things. A single device has only one GPU, for example, only one battery (thus one reported battery level), etc.

Apps running in one profile are isolated in some ways and not in other ways. Apps running in different profiles are isolated in more ways but not all ways. Using the term "sandbox" to refer to anything other than the Android app sandbox generally does not clarify the situation.

mmobder

de0u apps in different profiles can't discover each other

aren't they sharing the same network? so they can easily discover each other if coded so

de0u

mmobder This is complicated. Apps in two profiles could each transmit their IP address to the same server, but that won't get too far if either profile is using a VPN. There are many other cases. At present I think the loopback interface is a potential leakage mechanism, but I believe that is expected to be fixed (perhaps even upstream).