Forum Discussion
Device Owner Provisioning
Howdy,
Do your boxes have GMS - Google services? If so you can use any open market MDM solution to enrol and manage devices.
If you don't have GMS, the Android Management API won't be supported, but you can either use an MDM on the market supporting AOSP (no Google services), or build yourself a DPC, device policy controller.
Capabilities you're after are supported by many platforms, there's nothing complex there.
Note the suggestion to just use the Android management API directly (if you have GMS) goes against permissible usage unless you also plan to sell your platform to the ecosystem.
Jason, you are correct on the AMAPI and it goes against the googles policy if you are not planning to sell to the ecosystem .
If you're working without GMS, I looked into some open-source options that support AOSP:
- Headwind MDM – It’s open-source, supports AOSP, and has features like kiosk mode and remote app management. Pretty straightforward to set up.
GitHub: https://github.com/headwind-mdm/headwind-mdm - Flyve MDM – Another open-source option built on GLPI. It’s a bit more complex but has good features for device management. GitHub: https://github.com/flyve-mdm
- Headwind MDM – It’s open-source, supports AOSP, and has features like kiosk mode and remote app management. Pretty straightforward to set up.
We have access to Google Play Store, but it seems to be severely limited and doesn't look like we can enter the setup wizard after a factory reset which leans me into thinking that it is AOSP in the end.
Is building our own DPC agnostic to having access to Android Enterprise and Android Management API?
All Android devices have integrated management APIs, solutions like AMAPI offer a layer over this to manage devices via their own DPC, but nothing stops you building your own.
The only note is access to the APIs needed to pull an app from the play store have been removed for custom DPCs, so in your use case you'd deliver your APK(s) directly, and then leverage the on-Device APIs to set kiosk and related policies yourself.
You'll be responsible for the device communication between your servers and the DPC, but otherwise you should be able to build something that achieves your goals without using a 3rd party.. though as I said AOSP MDMs exist with APK deployment if you don't want to roll your own.
