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I was going through a question about how to find a saved password in a rooted phone and while doing this I found a file in data/misc/wifi/softap.conf. What is the content of this file?

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    please consider posting a comment before downvoting....(I am not against downvoting but i should know the reason so that i will not repeat the mistake if any).
    – Jasser
    Jul 7, 2015 at 6:28

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A .conf file is usually readable by any text file reader as long as permissions are correct.

The said file contains SSID and password of your portable Wi-Fi hotspot. E.g.:

Android.SE  #$#$ANDROID

where Android.SE is the SSID which other users would see when trying to locate Wi-Fi network and #$#$ANDROID is the password they need to enter to connect to your hotspot.

As for the name is concerned, I never researched for it because I know ap → Access point, and I've seen softap term in logcat's output when enabling hotspot.

There are other ways to see the content of this file. In my Android 4.2.1, I can do:

adb shell su -c 'service call wifi 30'

As for the Android 5.0 (CM12), it would be:

adb shell service call wifi 36

The output isn't very human-friendly but it's not unreadable, and you can easily see SSID and password of hotspot.

Edit: For those who might wonder what those adb shell .. commands actually does in bits and pieces, here is a missing piece:

  • adb shell: you get a remote shell (access to device)
  • su: to attain root privileges, use if only necessary; -c: is to pass the following command which would be executed with root privileges
  • service: it allows you to read and manipulate services running in your system. Enter adb shell service list to see a list of running ones, and adb shell service to see the command's usage.
  • call connectivity: to call a particular service (connectivity here). Name of services can be found using service list.
  • 36 is the number assigned to a function of the connectivity service amongst many of it, which we're calling here. You can also pass an integer or a string to the function like adb shell service call connectivity 36 i32 1, but it would take effect only if the function has provision to accept such value. Take a look here to see such functions.
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  • Correct! it consists of SSID and password(I couldn't recognize it). Bieng a noob in android development i would like to know about "logcat" and the commandline thing "adb shell ....". By the way thankyou for your response.
    – Jasser
    Jul 5, 2015 at 12:43
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    @Jasser A quick note: This site is for end-users only, which means all development/programming questions would be off-topic. That said, "logcat" and "adb" is for end-users too, so try How can I get a LogCat?, and as for adb shell: it opens a remote shell on your PC where you can send commands to Android device. More Q/A only on a new question please. :) And do search since your question might be asked before.
    – Firelord ♦
    Jul 5, 2015 at 13:01

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