Pidcat Android Script - Colored logcat script to show entries only for the Specified App

Pidcat android script is an android app logging script alternative script of android ADB Logcat, but with lots of new features like filtering with specific apps or packages, colored output, etc.

When I was working with one of my android application testings projects, I faced many types of issues like logcat throws many system-level error messages, stack traces that don’t matter to me. Moreover, I didn’t need all messages, I want to observe only logs from only one app on which I am testing. Unfortunately, because the process ID changes every time for the apps so, it becomes a challenge to grep the right thing.

So when I was trying to find such a tool that solves my problem, I found pidcat script from Github that developed by Jeff Sharkey.

Using pidcat script we can filter the logs for some specific app. Pidcat script can also make this output colorful for our better convenience. The logs will be colored by their adb logcat filter tags.

Pidcat Installation

I am using kali Linux for my security testing work, so I will install this script in Kali Linux, but you can choose a method for your specific OS and distribution from its pidcat Github repository.

Download Pidcat Android Script

Requirements

Python
Android SDK platform-tools
ADB

pidcat for Ubuntu & Kali Linux

Just navigate to the pidcat github repository and clone it.

git clone https://github.com/JakeWharton/pidcat.git

Now we can directly run pidcat.py file or you can place this file on your environment path variable to globally access it.

Arch Linux

Install the package called pidcat-git from the AUR.

OS X

Use Homebrew.

brew install pidcat

If you need to install the latest development version

brew unlink pidcat
brew install --HEAD pidcat

Note: Make sure that adb from the Android SDK is on your PATH. This script will not work unless this is the case. That means when you type adb and press enter into your terminal something actually happens.

To include adb and other android tools on your path:

export PATH=$PATH:/platform-tools
export PATH=$PATH:/tools

Using pidcat Script

To get the help command use --help option with pidcat.py.

pidcat Help Manual

# Use python2.7 to run pidcat.py
# python2.7 pidcat.py [options]

$ ./pidcat.py --help
usage: pidcat.py [-h] [-w N] [-l {V,D,I,W,E,F,v,d,i,w,e,f}] [--color-gc] [--always-display-tags] [--current] [-s DEVICE_SERIAL] [-d] [-e] [-c] [-t TAG]
                 [-i IGNORED_TAG] [-v] [-a]
                 [package [package ...]]

Filter logcat by package name

positional arguments:
  package               Application package name(s)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -w N, --tag-width N   Width of log tag
  -l {V,D,I,W,E,F,v,d,i,w,e,f}, --min-level {V,D,I,W,E,F,v,d,i,w,e,f}
                        Minimum level to be displayed
  --color-gc            Color garbage collection
  --always-display-tags
                        Always display the tag name
  --current             Filter logcat by current running app
  -s DEVICE_SERIAL, --serial DEVICE_SERIAL
                        Device serial number (adb -s option)
  -d, --device          Use first device for log input (adb -d option)
  -e, --emulator        Use first emulator for log input (adb -e option)
  -c, --clear           Clear the entire log before running
  -t TAG, --tag TAG     Filter output by specified tag(s)
  -i IGNORED_TAG, --ignore-tag IGNORED_TAG
                        Filter output by ignoring specified tag(s)
  -v, --version         Print the version number and exit
  -a, --all             Print all log messages

Note: Use python2.7 to run pidcat.py script. It throws error for me when I used python3 .

pidcat Verbose System Logs

To start monitoring with pidcat, just enter the following command to capture the full system logs verbosely.

$ ./pidcat.py               #if you are using python2.7 on system
 or
$ python2.7 pidcat.py

Filtering Logs for Specific Package in pidcat.

To filter the logs for specific package, we need to specify the application package name,

we can get the package name with the help of adb command,

Use the following command to get all the apps or packages installed on the android device or emulator.

$ adb shell pm list packages

 package:com.example.android.livecubes
 package:com.android.providers.telephony
 package:com.android.providers.calendar
 package:com.android.providers.media
 package:com.android.wallpapercropper
 package:com.android.documentsui
 package:jakhar.aseem.diva

Here I am testing with Diva application, so selecting jakhar.aseem.diva.

To start monitoring with diva application use pidcat with the package name.

$ python2.7 pidcat.py jakhar.aseem.diva

As we can observe, pidcat is showing the colorful logging for the Diva app.

pidcat Logging for Current running app

To monitor logs for current running app use --current option.

$ python2.7 pidcat.py --current

Specify pidcat Android device

If you are using multiple devices with your PC, then you have to specify one specific device from multiple devices. Use -s with the serial number of the specific android device or emulator.

$ python2.7 pidcat.py -s 192.168.56.115:5555

You can use other filters with this command from help menu to get targeted results.

pidcat Minimum level to be displayed

Use an option with -l {V,D,I,W,E,F,v,d,i,w,e,f} to show minimum level to be displayed

$ python2.7 pidcat.py jakhar.aseem.diva -l V

Save pidcat Output

To store pidcat android logs, we have multiple methods,

One method is, we can use the bash redirection operator to store the output of pidcat android script.

$ python pidcat.py jakhar.aseem.diva > pidcat_output.txt

Another method is you can use the bash tee command to continuously monitor and save the pidcat output.

$ python pidcat.py jakhar.aseem.diva | tee pidcat_output.txt

Hope!! this script will help you in your android security testing work. Thanks!!!!

Pidcat Android Script – Colored logcat script to show entries only for the Specified App

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