termux-generator

This script builds a termux/termux-app or termux-play-store/termux-apps/termux-app from source, but allows changing the package name from com.termux to anything else with a single command.

Building Termux in GitHub Actions

1. Fork the repository:

2. Click the "Actions" tab and enable GitHub Actions:

3. Click the "Generate Termux application" workflow, then click the "Run workflow" button and type your desired settings:

4. Click the "Run workflow" button, then wait for your build to complete. If the build is successful, there will be an artifact available to download containing all possible Termux APKs for the combination of settings you selected:

Building Termux locally

Building bootstraps natively without Docker

Bootstrap archives can be built directly on a dedicated Debian- or Ubuntu-family x86_64 host or CI runner, including derivatives such as Pop!_OS when their base version is compatible. This path builds Termux packages from source and does not build the Android applications:

./build-bootstraps-native.sh \
    --name com.example.termux \
    --architectures aarch64 \
    --add python

The script pins a compatible termux-packages revision, installs the upstream Debian/Ubuntu and Android SDK/NDK build environments, applies the generator's shared bootstrap patches, and writes results to native-bootstrap-output/. Debian/F-Droid host-compatibility patches are applied only on Debian-family hosts; Ubuntu retains the upstream package build behavior. Native target binaries omit debug information, host build paths, and GNU build IDs so checkout and home-directory differences do not change their contents. The pinned revision requires Ubuntu 26.04 (resolute) on Ubuntu-family hosts; Debian-family hosts are accepted independently of Ubuntu codenames. Host setup uses sudo, installs a large set of build dependencies, and creates paths under /data/data, so use a disposable machine or VM rather than a workstation.

Use --reuse to continue with the previously prepared checkout. Run ./build-bootstraps-native.sh --help for all options.

On an unprivileged F-Droid runner where sudo is unavailable, host setup is skipped automatically and the runner-provided build tools are validated before the checkout is prepared. Missing Debian packages must be installed by the recipe's privileged sudo: phase. Build caches remain inside the writable checkout, including architecture state and per-package build markers; the script does not require write access to /data. Inherited runner SDK/NDK paths are ignored in this mode, allowing the exact pinned Android tools to be installed under the build user's writable home directory. Java 17 is used from the host when available. On Debian releases such as Trixie, where OpenJDK 17 is no longer packaged, the script downloads the pinned OpenJDK 17.0.2 archive from download.java.net and verifies its SHA-256 checksum. The host LLVM path and major version are detected from the runner's clang executable.

A minimal F-Droid recipe setup for Debian runners is:

sudo:
  - apt-get update
  - apt-get install -y 7zip autoconf autoconf-archive autogen automake autopoint bison
    build-essential clang curl docbook-xml docbook-xsl doxygen flex gawk gettext
    git gperf groff-base gtk-doc-tools help2man intltool jq libtool-bin lld llvm lz4 lzip lrzip lzop m4
    libbz2-dev libffi-dev libgdbm-dev liblzma-dev libncurses-dev libreadline-dev
    libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev libxml2-utils libzstd-dev pandoc perl pkg-config po4a
    python-is-python3 python3 tcl texinfo tk-dev triehash unzip uuid-dev xsltproc xz-utils
    zip zlib1g-dev zstd
  - install -d -m 0777 /data/data/com.example.termux

Replace com.example.termux with the package name passed to --name. This writable build prefix is necessary because compiled Termux packages embed their final Android /data/data/<package-name>/files/usr runtime path.

The Build native Termux bootstraps GitHub Actions workflow runs the same script on GitHub's Ubuntu 26.04 runner. Open the repository's Actions tab, select that workflow, and enter the package name, architectures, and additional packages. For example, use com.autopi, aarch64, and python-pip,openssh,sshpass to reproduce the equivalent local command.

Dependencies

• Docker
• Android SDK
• OpenJDK 17
• git
• patch
• bash

Common Dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y git patch

The native builder installs its pinned Java 17 fallback automatically. Docker users should continue to provide OpenJDK 17 in their image.

Android SDK (Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04)

sudo apt install -y android-sdk sdkmanager

Android SDK (Ubuntu 24.04 and 24.10)

sudo apt install -y google-android-cmdline-tools-13.0-installer

Android SDK common setup

echo "export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=/usr/lib/android-sdk" >> ~/.bashrc && . ~/.bashrc
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT
yes | sdkmanager --licenses

Docker

Note

docker.io by Debian/Ubuntu or docker-ce by https://docker.com are both acceptable here. This example shows installing docker.io - to use Docker CE instead, visit the docker.com docs for Docker CE

sudo apt install -y docker.io
sudo usermod -aG docker $(whoami)

Note

Restart your computer or otherwise apply the group change. For me, logging out and logging in was insufficient

sudo reboot

Using termux-generator locally

Example: build Termux with the location changed and some popular packages preinstalled

Important

Best-case typical time to compile the below example with added packages and only the aarch64 bootstrap: 3 hours

git clone https://github.com/robertkirkman/termux-generator.git
cd termux-generator
./build-termux.sh --name a.copy.of.termux.with.the.location.changed \
    --add clang,make,pkg-config,autoconf,automake,bc,bison,cmake,flex,libtool,m4,git,python-pip,proot-distro \
    --architectures aarch64

Important

Running the command a second time will delete all the modified files and start over. Use --dirty if you are troubleshooting.

Example: build Termux with SSH server enabled by default and install it through ADB

Note

• This technique can be used to bootstrap from ADB access into full SSH access through Termux, without any access to a display or touchscreen.
• This might be useful on devices that have no screen or a broken screen.
• If you install Termux:Boot or build with --type play-store (which comes with Termux:Boot already built into the same APK as the main Google Play Termux APK), then the SSH server will also autolaunch every time the device is first unlocked after rebooting.
• adb forward tcp:8022 tcp:8022 is only necessary for:
  • If you prefer to use SSH through USB connection and/or ADB connection
  • If your device doesn't have network connectivity other than ADB
  • If your ADB connection is itself being forwarded through a tunnel or firewall that you don't have set up for SSH

git clone https://github.com/robertkirkman/termux-generator.git
cd termux-generator
./build-termux.sh --enable-ssh-server
adb install com.termux-f-droid-termux-app_apt-android-7-debug_universal.apk
adb install com.termux-f-droid-termux-boot-app_v0.8.1+debug.apk
adb shell am start -n com.termux.boot/.BootActivity
adb shell am start -n com.termux/.app.TermuxActivity
adb forward tcp:8022 tcp:8022 # use only if needed
ssh -p 8022 localhost # if not using 'adb forward', replace 'localhost' with device's LAN IP
# default password is 'changeme'
passwd # change the default password

Example: build Termux with the location changed and XFCE preinstalled

Tip

--type play-store is compatible with Termux:X11, but unlike --type f-droid, it doesn't currently have a second-stage bootstrap, so if using --type play-store with XFCE, it might be necessary to run some commands to grant executable permission manually before launching XFCE, like these:

chmod +x $PREFIX/lib/xfce4/xfconf/xfconfd
chmod +x $PREFIX/lib/xfce4/session/xfsm-shutdown-helper
chmod +x $PREFIX/lib/xfce4/panel/migrate
chmod +x $PREFIX/lib/xfce4/notifyd/xfce4-notifyd

git clone https://github.com/robertkirkman/termux-generator.git
cd termux-generator
./build-termux.sh  --add valac,thunar,xfce4-panel,xfce4-session,xfce4-settings,xfconf,xfwm4,xfce4-notifyd,xfce4-terminal,xfdesktop,xfce4 \
                   --architectures aarch64,x86_64 \
                   --name two.termux

• After installing both the main app and the X11 app that appear after building, use this command to launch XFCE:

termux-x11 -xstartup xfce4-session &