AndroidRemoteBuildWithDocker

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Some people building large Android projects on laptops may got depressed in building costs such as time and battery usage. So some people have the need of a powerful and portable workstation. It is impossible but you can build on remote desktop.

The trouble was on me as well, however, I fixed it. I used to establish a remote-builder on my powerful desktop. I control the remote-builder by not only terminal but also Android studio. A problem is that remote-builder configuring with Android will spend lots time. In building it on a cloud service or new desktop, tremendous steps of configuration make me tired. So I made this repo integrate with a couple of technologies: virtualization technolgy and a remote-builder tool.

Mainframer, the remote-builder tool is can do two things: syncing files and executing build commands. Its official explain:

A tool that executes a command on a remote machine while syncing files back and forth. The process is known as remote execution (in general) and remote build (in particular cases). It works via pushing files to the remote machine, executing the command there and pulling results to the local machine.

And I have to tell you that it work not only temrinal but also Android studio.

Before I said that remote-builder configuring with Android will spend lots time but we have virtualization technology, such as Docker and Kubernetes, which I've used in everywhere is high-performance and easy to use and backup. In this repo, I make a docker image that contains Android develop environment and Mainframer. You can run it on a powerful/high-performance desktop which can be a server. It is not required that the desktop/server and your laptop under one LAN. In case the desktop/server you can connect from anywhere, it can be set the docker image. Furthermore, you can put the docker image on a cloud service, such as, google or amazon cloud server, for your remote and powerful building. Cloud services are elastic in performance and price. Besides, you may think cloud server is high-latency. I have to explain that latency won't affect your build experience because the host does not communicate with your laptop multiple times during the build process, except during the first build. Copying files only in before and after buiding build. And the full-file-copying task only once.

To sum up, I explained that the repo works for remote-building and it solve troubles about laptop's performance and battery. So after you establish a remote-builder, you can bring you laptop to coffee shop, grass and sunshine without electric charging.

Below I explain how to set up it.

Server configuration

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First step is building docker image. In your terminal, run this command docker build -t mainframer-docker .

Last step is starting it: run docker run --restart always -d -p 23:22 mainframer-docker.

Now, if there is no error, run docker container ls | grep mainframer-docker to detect if it is started. May everything is very well.

Client configuration

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Beside the project specific setup we need 2 more things, an ssh-key that is used to easily communicate between client and server. And a ssh configuration for our server.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/remote-builder -q -N ""
# for mac, you may need to  run: brew install ssh-copy-id
# At the next command, you must input the password:root for ssh-copy
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/remote-builder  -p 23 root@127.0.0.1

echo -e "Host remote_builder
          User root 
          HostName 127.0.0.1 
          Port 23 
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/remote-builder 
          PreferredAuthentications publickey 
          ControlMaster auto 
          ControlPath /tmp/%r@%h:%p 
          ControlPersist 1h" >> ~/.ssh/config

DONT FORGET TO REPLACE IP ADDRESS

To verify the SSH configuration of the docker works very well, you can run: ssh remote_builder. If there is no error, the ssh-conf must be correct.

For Android you can now copy the folder .mainframer and file ./mainframer.sh into your project folder. Then you can run bash ./mainframer.sh ./gradlew assembleDebug to make sure it works ok.

And now enjoy faster builds

Btw, you might like to run this within your Android Studio or Jetbrian IDEA. Please follow steps below:

Build with Android Studio

1. open Android Studio to open your project.

2. click Run → Edit Configuration → +.

3. select your Android App.

4. name a new name, e.g. remote-build.

5. in Module, select submodule name, may be app.

6. in Before Launch, click - to delete Gradle-aware Make

7. in Before Launch, click +, add Run External Tool, input a new name，like remote assembleDebug.

8. in Program, input bash.

9. in Parameters input mainframer.sh ./gradlew :app:assembleDebug -Pandroid.enableBuildCache=true

10. The last step, in Working directory , input $ProjectFileDir$.

In addition

How to install another SDK?

In most circumstances, you don't need to do it. SDK downloading will automatically execute。

Modify Dockerfile to rebuild. Or follow these steps:

1. start your docker.

2. run ssh remote_builder to enter your docker container. Or use the docker command to enter it.

3. by the time you entered the bash on your docker container, run:

   /sdk/tools/bin/sdkmanager--install "ndk;21.0.6113669" --channel=3.

Mainframer also can build other kinds of projects You can fork this project to edit Dockerfile to make it work for your project.

More features of Mainframer: mainframer/v2.1.0 doc