GitHub - coderredlab/proroot: Rootless Linux runtime for Android. Drop-in proot replacement with zero ptrace overhead.

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Rootless Linux runtime for Android.

Run full glibc Linux userspace — Node.js, Python, Git, Chromium — inside Android apps. No root required.

A drop-in replacement for proot with zero ptrace overhead.

Why proroot?

proot intercepts every syscall via ptrace — 2 context switches each time. On a phone running a Node.js server with Chromium, that's millions of wasted cycles.

proroot takes a different approach:

proot:    App ──ptrace──▶ Kernel ──ptrace──▶ Handler ──ptrace──▶ Kernel ──▶ Done
                 ↑ 2 context switches per syscall

proroot:  App ──LD_PRELOAD──▶ translate() ──SVC──▶ Kernel ──▶ Done
                 ↑ 0 context switches, in-process path translation

How it works

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Guest Process (Node.js / Chromium / Python / Git)   │
│                                                      │
│  ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │  libproroot-runtime.so  (LD_PRELOAD)           │  │
│  │                                                │  │
│  │  ┌─────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────────┐ │  │
│  │  │ PLT Wrapper  │  │ Binary Patching          │ │  │
│  │  │              │  │                          │ │  │
│  │  │ openat()     │  │ svc #0 → bl trampoline   │ │  │
│  │  │ stat()       │  │ (catches glibc-internal   │ │  │
│  │  │ execve()     │  │  raw syscalls too)        │ │  │
│  │  │ dlopen()     │  │                          │ │  │
│  │  │ connect()    │  └──────────────────────────┘ │  │
│  │  └──────┬──────┘                                │  │
│  │         ▼                                       │  │
│  │  translate_path(guest → host)                   │  │
│  │         ▼                                       │  │
│  │  raw_syscall6(SVC #0)  ─────────────────────▶ Kernel
│  │                                                 │  │
│  │  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐   │  │
│  │  │ Signal Handlers                          │   │  │
│  │  │  SIGSYS  → seccomp accept→accept4        │   │  │
│  │  │  SIGTRAP → Chrome BRK → NOP patch        │   │  │
│  │  │  SIGILL  → NOP fallback → LR return      │   │  │
│  │  └──────────────────────────────────────────┘   │  │
│  └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Components

jniLibs/arm64-v8a/
├── libproroot.so           Launcher (NDK/bionic)
├── libproroot-runtime.so   LD_PRELOAD runtime (glibc)
├── libproroot-bridge.so    Child exec trampoline (NDK static)
└── libldlinux.so           glibc dynamic linker (LGPL-2.1)

Installation

Download all 4 .so files from Releases and place them in jniLibs/arm64-v8a/.

Requirements

Android 8.0+ (API 26)
arm64-v8a
Ubuntu arm64 rootfs with glibc

Usage

libproroot.so -r <rootfs> -w /root --link2symlink /usr/local/bin/node server.js

Environment variables

Variable	Description
`PROROOT_LIB_PATH`	Path to runtime .so (auto-detected)
`PROROOT_LINKER_PATH`	Path to glibc ld.so (auto-detected)
`PROROOT_TRAMPOLINE_PATH`	Path to bridge binary (auto-detected)
`PROROOT_VERBOSE=1`	Debug logging
`PROROOT_GUEST_EXE`	Guest path for /proc/self/exe emulation
`PROROOT_TMP_DIR`	Writable directory for runtime config files (use app `filesDir` in Android app processes)

Tested with

Node.js 22 + npm
Python 3.12
Git 2.43
Chromium headless_shell 147 (Playwright)
curl, wget, OpenSSL 3.0

Recent app-process smoke coverage:

NodeSource apt setup and apt-get install -y nodejs
node --version -> v22.22.2
npm --version -> 10.9.7
python3 --version -> Python 3.12.3
git ls-remote https://github.com/git/git.git HEAD
npm install openclaw
openclaw --version -> OpenClaw 2026.4.9 (0512059)
npm install @openai/codex
codex --version -> codex-cli 0.118.0
npm install playwright
npx playwright install chromium
Playwright Chromium navigation and screenshot of https://www.naver.com

Source code

The source is not public yet because I'm still stabilizing the implementation and don't want to publish something half-broken.

For now I'm sharing binaries for testing and feedback while I validate compatibility across real workloads.

License

Proprietary. Free to use in your projects. Redistribution of modified binaries is not permitted.

libldlinux.so is derived from GNU C Library and is licensed under LGPL-2.1.