How to build and deploy iOS application in a cloud? - macos

I have an iOS application, which I can build and deploy with my MacBook.
Now I would like to automate this for CI/CD.
Is it possible?
I found following ways:
MacOS under Oracle Virtual box on non Mac machine. Works but in gray legal zone.
AWS mac.metal instance. Too expensive, since they require to rent instance for at least 24 hours.
CircleCI. Problems with 2-factor authorization.
Is there any common, clean and accepted way to do this?

Github Actions (documentation) supports building on macOS. That's probably going to be the easiest method for many people, because it's all built into Github, which is what almost everyone is using.

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How to disable SIP on macOS VMs for macOS UI testing in CI/CD environment?

I have been trying to run my macOS UI tests on a remote machine(VM), and it does not work. On a local machine, it works after giving the permissions related to accessibility. After digging through, I realised that you need to have SIP disabled and add the relevant permission.
So, how can I disable SIP on a headless machine in a CI/CD?
Unfortunately, it is not possible to disable SIP on a remote machine. You have to boot in safe mode and disable it from the terminal. And that requires direct access to the machine.
You can ask your provider if they can disable SIP for a specific machine for you, or you can look for providers that do.
There are a few out there, with Codemagic being one of them.
We released SIP disabled macOS images with the latest and beta Xcode versions so you can run macOS UI tests without any extra configuration.
It was frustrating not being able to test the UI of a Mac app, but I’m happy with what we managed to release.
I also wrote a blog post if you are interested in getting started with macOS UI testing.
Full disclosure - I’m a DevRel at Codemagic CI/CD, focusing on helping the community build for Apple platforms.

Converting Online Express App to an Offline App for distribution

I have been trying to convert my express app with a backend that requires specific dependencies that users need to access to be an offline app on Windows, which is currently distributed online by building a docker image out of it and deploying it to Google Cloud Run.
My plan was to use electron and let the installer force the users to install Docker Desktop since the application requires dependencies that are only available in Ubuntu (and in this way, I only need to use my Docker image to distribute it).
I know that it is a bad idea to let users install Docker. And I am here, after researching for a week, to sincerely ask for your help on what would be the right direction to convert it offline.
Do I really need to refactor my application to be Windows compatible, or is there a way where I can use my existing implementation without using Docker? **
*Edit: Specified that my app has a backend that requires specific dependencies that users need to access. Credits to #super.

Deploy ruby on rails application built on windows

I'm looking on ways to deploy a ruby on rails 4 app built on windows 7 box. I'm looking to use Heroku at the moment.
Can you please provide any pointers regarding heroku or any other easier and cheaper deployment options available out there..
Any issues That I may face due to the difference in OS in the dev environment (windows) and the deployment environment (linux on heroku)?
This is my first professional app, so any pointers will be helpful for now and also for future applications that I may work on.
Also what is the more preferred OS for ruby on rails development ?
Thanks in Advance!
You probably won't face any issues with deployment on Heroku. Heroku is the easiest option out there (albeit one of the priciest once you're off the free tier)
What's more likely to happen on Windows is that you'll find it hard to build certain gems for development, and cutting edge releases will probably not work well.
Much better to pick up a Linux distro for this.
You can also check out bluemix , which is also free for small projects. I know Heroku is not particularly windows friendly, not sure if bluemix is any better in that reguard, but it is extremely easy to deploy to.
Heroku has set of tools called heroku toolbelt, that makes easy to deploy apps to heroku. you can download heroku tool belt for windows from here
Generally you should be able to port any rails app you develop in windows to Linux/Mac, how ever since the ruby/rails community is largely built around Linux/Mac, responses/options to your issues regarding the rails apps will be low. and there are some gems which doesn't work on windows at all. So its best to move to either Mac/Linux if you are planing to continue on rails.
Once you come to Linux/mac world there are lots of providers much cheaper than heroku like DigitelOcean, however heroku would be the easiest for a beginner I believe.
HTH
One strategy you could try is to do the following:
Set up a VirtualBox or VMWare VM running Linux (Ubuntu would be a good candidate if you are not used to Linux).
Get your project into the VM and get the bundle install and everything working in Linux, you will probably find you need to make some changes in your Gemfile if you have anything windows specific there.
Install the Heroku tool-belt on the Linux VM and install to Heroku from there.
Taking the Windows / Linux transition pain on your local machine will make it much easier than Windows direct to Heroku.

IDE/Hosting issues w/ Meteor/WebStorm/Cloud9

My next work project is going to be using the Meteor framework. Our team recently got licensed to use WebStorm IDE, which has been our favorite up until this point. so we were planning on continuing the project with it.
That is, until it was time to install it. Then we found out that the Windows version of Meteor is only partially finished, and all of our development PC's are windows based.
So we were considering as a work-around for this, we may use Cloud9 as our development IDE, as it supports Meteor. The sharing functions may help our team productivity a bit as well.
But this has some problems...
First, we just invested in WebStorm, so we would ideally like to use it as our primary IDE. But I do not know how we would be able to work with WebStorm if we can not run an up to date version of Meteor on our windows systems?
Second, I'm not sure if it's even possible to use Cloud9 as the development IDE, but then move the C9 project over to our Ubuntu server for hosting when it is time to go live?
Third, even if we could deploy to our Ubuntu server after C9, we plan on many updates to our live application after deployment. I'm not sure if there would be issues with this if our development is on C9 and deployment on a completely different server.
So I'm wondering if anyone has a potential solution for these issues? Is there any way for us to work with Meteor on our live Ubuntu server, or Cloud9, from WebStorm on our Windows systems? Or any way we could integrate Cloud9 and WebStorm together for the best of both worlds? Or any way we could use a Linux emulator or something to allow us to use Meteor on our local windows system, without making it difficult for multiple developers to work on the project at the same time?
Thanks in advance!
The Windows port of Meteor actually is working quite well; the only major issue is that mobile development doesn't work. That is going to be fixed in Meteor 1.1 anyway, whose primary goal is to get Windows support up to that of Linux and Mac OS X.
As the user who initially pushed for Webstorm to add Meteor support back in October 2012, I'd recommend starting with Webstorm and Meteor on Windows right away, unless you need mobile development. In that case, you need native *nix machine (an Ubuntu VM on Windows won't be able to run the Android emulator, for example).
WebStorm also supports server-side Meteor debugging, and they're pretty responsive when it comes to fixing bugs you report on YouTrack. See for example https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WEB-13490
With Cloud9, you cannot currently SSH into a workspace you have, so a hybrid Webstorm/Cloud9 situation might not be doable at this point.
As for deploying your stuff from Cloud9, that is very doable. There's some documentation here about that: https://docs.c9.io/v1.0/docs/deploying-via-the-command-line

Is there an online application simulator somewhere?

I've developed some Java applications and wrapped them in exe files, some of them require JDIC files, the apps run on Windows systems, since my PC is all setup for development, it has all the necessary parts, but if a user downloads and runs my apps, they may not work as I thought. So I wonder if there is any place online that I can upload my apps and try to run them in a Windows environment and see if they work in the simulation ?
Frank
Consider using VirtualPC. You can get licensing for free.
Also you can get images from MS site for various versions of Windows to test with - supposedly for browser compatibility but you can use them for other things (which may or may not violate the EULA).
Consider using VMWare Workstation. You can get licensing for free.
You could use Amazon's EC2 instances to get easy access to virtual Windows machines. There is a bit of set up involved, but once you've done that you can spin up new machines easily enough. There are a number of tutorials online.
However, doing it locally with virtual windows instances is going to be even easier. I'd second VMware workstation or player.
You can download trial Windows server images directly from Microsoft for free.

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