Continuous Test Integration

Continuous Test Integration (CTI) is the combination of Continuous Integration (CI) and Test Automation. Here is a strategy I developed for a client to enable CTI on both the developer's machines and the Hudson CI build machine.

(update: added Selenium launching post to carry this one more step forward)

This approach uses Ant and Tomcat to automate the launching of servers. (If you can use it, I highly recommend Jetty over Tomcat for this purpose, much more direct API.) Here's one way that I've gotten Tomcat to work within Ant.

Here's the launching code, I'll explain some of it below:

<target name="start.tomcat" depends="init, stop.tomcat" description="Start the embedded tomcat server">

<!-- The parameterized server.xml file changes the Connector with port "8080" to port "${catalina.port}". -->

<!-- An alternative approach would be to perform an XSL transform on the server.xml file. -->

<copy file="${ivy.downloaded.lib}/tomcat/parameterized-server-6.0.26.1.xml" tofile="${tomcat.dir}/conf/server.xml"/>

<!-- Launch Tomcat -->

<echot message="Launching Tomcat Server"/>

<java classname="org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap" dir="${tomcat.dir}" fork="true" spawn="true">

<jvmarg value="-Xmx256m"/>

<!-- Debugging support

<jvmarg value="-Xdebug"/>

<jvmarg value="-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8123,server=y,suspend=n"/>

-->

<jvmarg value="-Djava.util.logging.config.file=${tomcat.dir}/conf/logging.properties"/>

<jvmarg value="-Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager"/>

<jvmarg value="-Djava.endorsed.dirs=${tomcat.dir}/endorsed"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.base=${tomcat.dir}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.home=${tomcat.dir}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Djava.io.tmpdir=${tomcat.dir}/temp"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.port=${catalina.port}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.shutdown.port=${catalina.shutdown.port}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.ajp.port=${catalina.ajp.port}"/>

<classpath>

<pathelement location="${tomcat.dir}/bin/bootstrap.jar"/>

</classpath>

<arg line="start"/>

</java>

<!-- Confirm is running -->

<waitfor checkevery="1" checkeveryunit="second" maxwait="${max.wait}"  maxwaitunit="second" timeoutproperty="tomcat.failure">

<http url="${tomcat.url}"/>

</waitfor>

<fail if="${tomcat.failure}" message="Could not start ${tomcat.url}."/>

<echot message="Launched Tomcat Server ${tomcat.url}"/>

</target>

The java task is the main one to launch tomcat. This is, at least what worked for me, the right set of parameters to launch tomcat 6. The following defines most of the ant properties used here. The tomcat.dir is us to you (we used Ivy to get a tomcat zip).

<property name="env.CATALINA_PORT" value="8322"/>

<property name="catalina.port" value="${env.CATALINA_PORT}"/>

<property name="env.CATALINA_SHUTDOWN_PORT" value="8323"/>

<property name="catalina.shutdown.port" value="${env.CATALINA_SHUTDOWN_PORT}"/>

<property name="env.CATALINA_AJP_PORT" value="8324"/>

<property name="catalina.ajp.port" value="${env.CATALINA_AJP_PORT}"/>

<property name="tomcat.host" value="http://localhost"/>

<property name="tomcat.url" value="${tomcat.host}:${catalina.port}/"/>

This has the advantage the it provides default values, but enables either environment variables or ant properties to override them (we used the Hudson Port Allocator Plugin to accomplish this in a multi-build environment).

Finally, here is how to shutdown Tomcat. The only disadvantage I've seen with this is if Tomcat isn't actually running then it leaves a failure message in the tomcat logs. We've ignored that.

<target name="stop.tomcat" description="Stop the embedded tomcat server">

<!-- this is a little different, no depends and the mkdir. It's this way to still suceed when ivy.clean must occur -->

<mkdir dir="${tomcat.dir}"/>

<java classname="org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap" dir="${tomcat.dir}" fork="true" spawn="true">

<jvmarg value="-Djava.util.logging.config.file=${tomcat.dir}/conf/logging.properties"/>

<jvmarg value="-Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager"/>

<jvmarg value="-Djava.endorsed.dirs=${tomcat.dir}/endorsed"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.base=${tomcat.dir}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.home=${tomcat.dir}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Djava.io.tmpdir=${tomcat.dir}/temp"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.port=${catalina.port}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.shutdown.port=${catalina.shutdown.port}"/>

<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.ajp.port=${catalina.ajp.port}"/>

<classpath>

<pathelement location="${tomcat.dir}/bin/bootstrap.jar"/>

</classpath>

<arg line="stop"/>

</java>

<waitfor maxwait="60" maxwaitunit="second" checkevery="1" checkeveryunit="second" timeoutproperty="${stop.timeout.property}">

<not>

<http url="${tomcat.url}"/>

</not>

</waitfor>

<fail if="${stop.timeout.property}" message="Still running ${tomcat.url}."/>

</target>

I hope this helps others get more out of their Continuous Test Integration efforts. Please use this code for your own purposes without any warranty.