If you wanted to a platform or framework upon which to build modular software that could be deployed and configured without full server bounces/reboots and works with continuous integration, what solution would you select, and why?
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My team is developing a desktop application (mixed C++/Tcl) that is used in a client-server setup. Currently it is Windows-only, but soon we will need to port it to Linux. CruiseControl.NET builds it every night from the source code in SVN and packages it into NSIS installer, but we have no automated tests to run.
It is nearly impossible to add any unit tests, but integration testing of the application is easy, because it is already heavily script-based.
The main task is to install the app into 3 PCs, configure it (that involves copying some files around), run it, monitor a possible crash, wait till integration testing is done, collect a summary, send emails. It could be done with a bunch of custom PowerShell scripts, but
In future we will want to add more features and more testing, and
what used to be a simple script soon blows up (as usual), so I want
to minimize custom scripting, and if I need to script something, I
prefer bash/cygwin (I am not familiar with Python or Ruby).
I want a web dashboard that will report current progress, and if
something failed - show logs
I need some supervisor that will monitor the app under test and
report if it hangs or crashes
we will need to test it also on Linux
ideally I would like to orchestrate some test steps between the PCs
(e.g. run test X on PC1 and test Y on PC2 in parallel, wait till they
both finish, then run test Z on PC1, while monitoring that nothing
crashes on PC2 etc)
So, I am looking for a COTS tool/set of tools that will help me to do it and don't have a steep learning curve. Ideally, for free, but if it is really good and has fair pricing, my company may purchase a license.
The process should be triggered from CruiseControl.NET when the NSIS installer is ready, and then perform everything described above. Basically, it should allow at least remote installation of software, running custom scripts and have a web dashboard.
Apparently, SCCM tools like Chef could be used, but so far neither of them supports a Windows server, only nodes. I would like to avoid setting up a Linux VM just for that, although I can do it, if I have no other choice. Also, Chef seems to be a bit overkill - good for 10k machines, but I have only 3... maybe 5 in future. And I am particularly curious about chances to orchestrate a distributed test.
Most of the similar questions here on StackOverflow and in internets are about web apps, Java containers, Maven etc, and there are just so many tools and plugins for these tools to evaluate.
Thanks in advance.
Install ccnet on your test machines. Have those ccnet projects listen to a file that gets edited when a new installer is ready. Have the test machines install that new installer and run tests. There you go. ccnet sends emails so there's your basic reporting.
Have the test results get reported into a database via web services using gSOAP(that's what we did). For linux you can run java cruisecontrol if you must. Write a gSOAP enabled test controller program to report the test results from the test machines. A little c++ app will do. Then write a website(we use ASP.NET) to query the database(Postgresql) and show results. Have the test machines auto update themselves via SVN to get the latest changes to the configuration. Use Nant. Nant is far superior to just using ccnet to run tasks. Nant works through ccnet. Use XML, XSL and CSS with ccnet to make test emails have the information you want(new passes, new failures, SVN differences to code bases, etc...)
Our latest development is putting a big TV in the kitchen with a summary of test results so people can know more readily what they broke!
The first thing I'd get working is a test machine listening for the new installer, installing it, running some basic tests and emailing the results back. Put the ccnet and nant configuration in version control and get that auto updating on the test machine so you don't have to log into every test machine and do an update every time you make a change.
This is hugely broad and pretty close to opinion based. Chef can handle steps like deploying the application to the test machines but it isn't a GUI test framework so you would need something else to handle that. Jenkins supports distributing tests to windows hosts so that seems like a good choice on that side of things but it isn't that great at multi-node tests or orchestration between them. I suspect you'll need to write most of this yourself given the requirements.
I am from Performance Engineering background, we have a workflow application developed using PEGA.Is it possible to Profile that application using JProfiler or is there any tool available exclusively to Profile the applications developed using PEGA
A long as it's running on the JVM, you can profile it with JProfiler.
In the JProfiler GUI, invoke
Session->Integration Wizards->New Remote Integration
and follow the steps in the wizard. Basically, you will have to insert a VM parameter that enabled profiling.
Alternatively, you can use Session->Quick Attach to profile any running JVM on your system.
I'm developing a Ruby-on-Rails app which uses MS SQL Server db. I will need to automate the deployment to Windows servers because it will be distributed through different channels and the setup needs to be as automatic as possible. I have read that IIS is not a good solution so the setup process would need to install a web server (apache, Nginx or thin). I haven't used JRuby but I have heard it might make matters simpler on Windows.
Is there any good resources, software packages or suggestions on how this can be solved?
Johann
Has anyone any experience of setting up a CI server (team city for preference) to manage the creation of a virtual machine, deploying a package to the machine, getting the database to a known configuration then running integration tests. Tearing down the whole thing and reporting back to Team city the test status?
We do something like this, we have three types of tests. Unit tests which I am sure you are aware of but we also run a number of Acceptance Tests and Integration Tests and it is the latter to that are relevant.
In our integration tests we run a series of WatiN tests against our QA environment which is known to have an environment already running on it, these are usually run after TeamCity runs a deployment build to the QA environment. These tests do a full integration against all our external third parties.
What you might be more interested in is our Acceptance Tests but point to note we do not spin up a virtual environment (more on that later). We have a series of acceptance tests that spin up all the services in their own application domains and deploy database using visual studio database projects. Because these are acceptance tests all third party interfaces are mocked. Since the services are spun up in process the only thing to clean up at the end are the databases.
This works for us but I have been considering taking it to the next level with out integration tests and spinning up a virtual environment that looks exactly like our live environment down to domain names and IP addresses and this is entirely feasible but will be time consuming to do but will depend on the flavor of virtual environment you plan on using.
Here is an answered SO question on how to spin up Hyper-V servers using MSBuild but I am sure there are other examples using Ant/Nant/Rake for Hyper-V/VMWare etc.
How can I create virtual machines as part of a build process using MSBuild and MS Virtual Server and/or Hyper-V Server Virtualization?
can anyone help?
I have a solution in vs 2010 which contains a WCF Service application and a class library which has a number of Nunit test.
The nunit tests the service. Problem is that there is no Asp.net Development server running - is it possible to force it to run under debug mode..
I can press F5 but then i can't run my tests.
Maybe i am doing this all wrong, should i host them under IIS 7 ? rather than the built in development server.
That way the server is ALWAYS available rather then loading on demand
See http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/test-with-vs-devserver-2.aspx for a very lightweight and, in my biased opinion, elegant way to integrate webdev/cassini into your testing environment.
NOTE: the first example of controlling the .exe is for edutainment purposes only. Read through to the second, very brief, code sample for the money shot.
Update:
I use the technique listed above with nunit and most every unit test runner around, including continuous integration on servers that I do not control, extensively with great results.
When I need to simulate a real server with a host name and non-loopback ip address, which WebDev.WebServer and WebDev.WebHost cannot do,
I add the host name to my hosts file, e.g. localhost.skysanders.net 192.168.0.10
use the CassiniDev .dll in almost exactly the same way
it is so simple and bullet proof it should be illegal. ;-)
CassiniDev is also a perfect replacement for the WebDev.WebServer.exe for VS 2008/2010. It has integrated traffic monitoring and is quick a bit faster, both at startup and at processing.
I haven't tried this but since you haven't gotten any other responses:
http://xneuron.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/launch-cassini-using-command-line/
This looks like a command you could add as a pre-build step to your NUnit tests. Hopefully Resharper honors those commands and ensures they're run before doing its own test-specific builds.
I have a solution with exactly the same layout. I would much rather test them in IIS since that is where they will be deployed, and it's nice to know that the code definitely runs under the restricted IIS account rather than my domain account. I run the unit tests as follows:
Make sure IIS is running.
Right-click on the WCF Service project and Publish to IIS.
Fire up NUnit on the client test project and run the tests.
If all tests pass, then great, Otherwise...
Leaving NUnit open, switch back to Visual Studio, and attach the debugger to the IIS worker process (aspnet_wp.exe on my dev machine).
Switch back to NUnit and re-run the failed tests. Any exceptions and breakpoints will break into the debugger as normal.
Rinse and repeat as many times as you like.