There are multiple ways to do this, this guide assumes that Xcode, Git and Homebrew are already installed.
The biggest challenge is probably to find versions of all the tools that work together, especially since parts of the toolchain like Xcode and LLVM are dictated by your macOS version. The versions used in this guide probably aren’t what you should use. As a start to figure what versions to use is to look in the GitHub build workflow for the RustDesk version you want to build. Choose the tag for which to see the file in the upper left of the page. But that won’t necessarily work because the macOS tools that comes with the GitHub runner might not be the same versions as those on your local system.
export is used to set various environmental variables. When you run export, that variable is set for the current terminal session only, and these must therefore be repeated for every new terminal window you want to use to build RustDesk, now or in the future. Generally, it’s preferable to add all exports to a script that is executed automatically for every terminal that is opened, for example ~/.bash_profile. The full export commands listed here can simply be appended to the file, but must also be run in the current terminal because the file isn’t read until a new terminal is opened.
brew install python3 create-dmg nasm cmake gcc wget ninja pkg-config wget rustup
Some of the installations might fail because some of the target folders don’t exist on our system. In that case, create the folder, set owner and permissions and run the brew command again. Example if /usr/local/include doesn’t exist:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/include
sudo chown <username>:admin /usr/local/include
sudo chmod 775 /usr/local/include
Vcpkg is used to manage the C/C++ dependencies used by RustDesk. Decide where you want the installation and run the following from the folder in which you want the vcpkg folder to reside. In this example /Users/<username>/repos/ is used as the location, and the tag 2023.04.15 is used as the version.
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
cd vcpkg
git checkout 2023.04.15
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh -disableMetrics
./vcpkg install libvpx libyuv opus aom
export VCPKG_ROOT=~/repos/vcpkg
We use rustup to manage Rust, which was already installed above using Homebrew. But, it still needs to be configured. Follow the instructions and make sure both rustup and rustc are on the PATH. In this example we use Rust version 1.75.0, but you might need to use a different version. You can install and manage multiple versions of Rust with rustup.
rustup-init
rustup default 1.75.0
rustup component add rustfmt
For an overview over installed and default Rust toolchains, run rustup show.
Decide where you want the RustDesk source files and run the following from the folder in which you want the rustdesk folder to reside. In this example /Users/<username>/repos/ is used as the location.
git clone https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk
cd rustdesk/libs/portable/
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
If python3 or pip is unknown, add them to the PATH with something like (use your actual folder names):
export PATH=~/Library/Python/3.9/bin:$PATH
Once that’s done, run the failed command(s) again. Remember to also edit ~/.bash_profile.
RustDesk can be built both using Sciter and Flutter. Both of these need additional components, so follow the steps for the relevant version, or both.
From the rustdesk folder, run:
wget https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-sdk/raw/master/bin.osx/libsciter.dylib
FVM lets you manage which version of Flutter is used, and is probably the easiest way to be able to easily try different Flutter versions.
brew tap leoafarias/fvm
brew install fvm cocoapods
Install and use, for example Flutter 3.16.9, with:
fvm global 3.16.9
FVM is meant to use a more complex setup where it can provide different Flutter versions for different projects, but that’s beyond the scope of this guide. Instead, simply add the location of the default Flutter provided by FVM to your PATH manually, which means that you must use fvm global to switch Flutter version:
export PATH=$HOME/fvm/default/bin:$PATH
Once that is done, you should disable telemetry and check if everything is OK:
flutter --disable-analytics
dart --disable-analytics
flutter doctor -v
It doesn’t matter if some of the checks fail, they usually will, what’s important is that the check for the environment you intend to use is OK, namely Xcode. If there are problems reported, address them before moving forward.
Once Flutter is up and running, it’s time to install the “bridge” that binds Rust and Flutter together. Here is another one of the versions that much work together with everything else, in this example we use 1.80.1:
cargo install flutter_rust_bridge_codegen --version "1.80.1" --features "uuid"
Build from the rustdesk folder. Build the Sciter version with:
python3 ./build.py
Build the Flutter version with:
flutter_rust_bridge_codegen --rust-input ./src/flutter_ffi.rs --dart-output ./flutter/lib/generated_bridge.dart --c-output ./flutter/macos/Runner/bridge_generated.h
python3 ./build.py --flutter
If everything goes well, you should now have a dmg file ready to install in your rustdesk folder.