What is wlan logs in android?

Many MIUI have been having a strange issue where the system would start populating the internal storage with a pile of WiFi logs whenever the device connected to a WiFi network. WiFi logs have the notorious behavior of filling up phone space. There are several applications available that will read the log. Inspect the bugreport zip file and verify that /lshal-debug/android.

Logging network activity can help enterprises detect and track the spread of malware on their devices. Your DPC can call network logging APIs to report TCP connections and DNS lookups from system networking calls.

Typically, your DPC delivers logs to a server for presentation to an IT admin. You might want to process the logs further on your server or locally on the device. For example, you could set up DNS denylists to detect and alert IT admins about suspicious behavior.

The admin component of a fully managed device (sometimes called a device owner) can log network activity. You can't use this feature from a work profile. Because network logging records activity device-wide, it's only available when the same organization manages all the users and profiles on the device. If the device has more than a single user, your DPC should affiliate the users and profiles to enable network logging.

To learn more, read Affiliated users.

When network logging is active, Android records each event from apps using the system networking libraries. Network logging records two types of events:

Network logging records an event for DNS lookups that are part of system network requests. The logs capture each DNS request that resolves a hostname to an IP address. Other supporting DNS queries, such as name server discovery, aren't recorded.

Network activity logging APIs present each DNS lookup as a DnsEvent instance. Table 1 below describes the fields and typical values recorded into a DnsEvent.

Table 1. DNS event fields

While DNS lookups can help IT admins track network connections (see below), network logging isn't a general-purpose DNS recording solution. Here are some DNS tasks an app might do that aren't logged:

Network logging records an event for each attempted connection that's part of a system network request. The logs capture successful and failed TCP connections—UDP transfers aren't recorded.

Network activity logging APIs present each connection as a ConnectEvent instance. Table 2 below describes the fields and typical values recorded into a ConnectEvent.

Table 2. Connect event fields

Network logging records an event when an app calls standard network libraries, such as Android’s built-in APIs or popular third-party libraries, to connect to a host. Apps issuing system calls directly to communicate aren't logged. Remember, UDP networking isn't logged so some media streaming, messaging, and gaming apps might not appear in the logs.

The system alerts device users that network activity logging is active. Users see the following warnings in the interface:

To help IT admins review network logs, your DPC needs to be able to complete the following tasks:

Network logging is available in Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher. Before logging network activity, your DPC should check it's running in device owner mode.

To start logging network activity, call the DevicePolicyManager method setNetworkLoggingEnabled() and pass true as the enabled argument. Your DPC can call isNetworkLoggingEnabled() to check if network activity is currently logged.

After your DPC enables network logging, it might be some time before it the first batch of logs is ready. You might want to set delivery expectations for IT admins in your user interface.

To stop logging network activity, call setNetworkLoggingEnabled() and pass false. When an IT admin turns off network logging, the system deletes any collected and unreported logs.

Your DPC can retrieve logs in batches—the network logging APIs don't provide random access to past individual entries. When a new batch of logs is available, your DPC's DeviceAdminReceiver subclass receives the onNetworkLogsAvailable() callback. The callback includes a batch token your DPC can use to retrieve the logs. Your DPC calls the DevicePolicyManager method retrieveNetworkLogs() to get a list of network events.

The following example shows you could retrieve the logs in your DeviceAdminReceiver subclass:

Your DPC should retrieve the logs straightaway because the system deletes the logs to make room for new batches. You might want to keep your local copy of the logs until you’re sure your DPC has processed them all without problems.

A batch of logs typically contain a mix of DnsEvent and ConnectEvent instances. To learn more about the data fields of DNS lookups and network connections, see Event logs above. Events are in chronological order and each batch contains no more than 1200 events.

After your call to retrieve the logs, check the return value isn't null. The value might be null if one of the following happens:

The following simplified example shows how DPC might extract the DNS hostnames resolved. In your DPC, you'll need more sophisticated processing and reporting.

The previous example also shows how you can get the numeric ID for events that are included in Android 9.0 (API level 28) or higher. Because the ID monotonically increases for each event, you can help IT admins spot gaps in their logs. The system resets the ID whenever a DPC enables logging or when the device restarts.

Your DPC can send the entire collection to a server or you might decide to filter the events on the device. For example, you might offer allowlisted reporting for IT admins.

While you’re developing and testing, you might want to receive onNetworkLogsAvailable() callbacks without having to browse hundreds of web pages. In Android 9.0 (API level 28) or higher, you can make a few sample network requests and force the system to send a logs-available callback. Run the following Android Debug Bridge (adb) command in your terminal:

It seems the developers of both MIUI 8 and 9 did not find excessive WiFi logging to be a nuisance. They left that option enabled by default.

Xiaomi users have even reported the same issue with other MIUI-based ROMs.

Remember, logging is not a bad thing per se. The Android system relies on this technique for recording debugging data.

Some of the functions that use logging include Bluetooth, Navigation, WiFi, just to mention a few.

Whereas a large number of logs could occupy internal memory unnecessarily, there’s another significant risk involved. These files may also record sensitive information.

For example, WiFi logs contain the MAC and SSID addresses of WLAN networks. And that’s in clear text, mark you. So that means; if your phone has root access, malware could know precisely where to strike.

It’s settled then. We need a way to stop MIUIs from creating these logs. Here’s how.

One, as with any process that changes system files, disabling WiFi logging first needs root access.

If you’ve not rooted your Xiaomi phone, there are excellent guides in previous posts.

See, for example:

Two, install a file explorer capable of navigating system folders. You could use apps like MiXplorer, ES File Explorer, or Solid Explorer for this.

Finally, install a text editor like QuickEdit. We will be changing some values in a text file, after all.

We’ve seen how WiFi debug logs can take up space and what you can do about it.

If that alone doesn’t seem to work, you could also do these things.

A cache is where an app stores the data a user tends to access frequently. It could contain stuff like images or text that an app may usually have to get from remote services – say, the Internet.

Over time, however, a cache uses up more internal memory. It could even cause an app to misbehave.

So the next time your phone slows down or starts to fill up, clear some apps’ cache files.

Just go to Settings then Apps. Select the suspected app and click the “Clear cache” button.

If an app seems overly problematic, you could even press “Clear data.” That would make the app start as if it is a fresh installation.

You know, those image and video files that sit in your Downloads folder may not even interest you anymore.

Go ahead and delete them. It will free up some space for you.

The best thing about Google Photos is that it provides unlimited cloud storage for your image files.

Just make sure that you choose the option to only backup “high quality” photos.

You could then set the app to sync automatically. With that, no photos will use up your phone’s memory again.

These are only a few ways of freeing up space. Do you have any other ideas that work just as well? Please share them in the comments section.

A verbose log is a detailed record of what any system process is doing at the moment, and Wi-Fi verbose logging is the verbose log of your network connections. This feature is used by developers to troubleshoot any errors or issues within your system.

You can also review Wi-Fi verbose logs to see if any public network performs a harmful activity on your device.

Enabling the Wi-Fi verbose logging feature is as simple as a few taps. You can simply go to the developer’s options and toggle on the feature.

Here’s how you can do it:

After Wi-Fi verbose logging is enabled on your device, you should see some extra information beneath every available internet connection in Wi-Fi settings.

The extra text beneath the Wi-fi connection displays several network information. The incomprehensible string of letters and numbers is the mac address of your device. The RSSI means Received Signal Strength Indicator, which displays the Wi-Fi connection’s signal strength.

The “tx” represents the signal latency, and the “rx” text displays the total amount of data your device has received.

While enabling the Wi-Fi verbose logs does display extra information in the Wi-Fi setting, it does not directly let you view the Wi-Fi verbose log files. Furthermore, Android has no setting that lets you natively view your Wi-Fi verbose logs.

However, if your Android device is rooted, you can view the verbose logs in /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf. If your device is not rooted, you can use third-party applications to view them, or you can also use the Android studio application.

While using third-party applications to view verbose files may carry some risks, Android Studio is open-source software provided by Google. However, you will need to install the Android Studio software on a computer.

Follow the methods below step-by-step to view your Wi-Fi verbose files in Android Studio:

Here’re the steps to create a project:

Here’re the steps for a USB connection:

Here’re the steps to connect Wirelessly:

Follow these steps to view the Wi-Fi log files: