Build, deploy and run a Flutter app for iOS from Android Studio on a Linux computer using a remote Mac with an Xcode server or an SSH server?

Question

I use a Debian Linux computer as my main development computer for Flutter apps for Android with Android Studio. When I want to test an app on iOS, I need to pull the Flutter app source code from my source control system (GitLab) on my Apple macOS computer, build, deploy and run from there using Android Studio.

What I would like to do, is avoid the source control pull step in the process and initiate the iOS build, deploy and run on the Apple computer from the Android Studio on the Linux computer.

I consider the build, deploy and execute steps in Android studio as commands. I believe that those commands can be configured maybe through Gradle configuration files. If so, it should be possible to configure Android Studio and Gradle so that my Android Studio on Linux makes use of a remote Apple computer for the build, deploy and run either through an Xcode server or through an SSH server installed on the Mac.

At the moment, when I try a flutter build ios on my Linux machine, I get this expected error message:

Building for iOS is only supported on the Mac.

Does anyone have a solution to make this remote?

Answer 1

I know that Appollo does this for building apps. It's a python CLI tool that lets you connect to remote Macs. The CLI tool is open source so maybe you can find how they connect to the MacOS machines in their source code: https://github.com/Appollo-CLI/Appollo