Gui tests on xvfb, initialisation and cleanup

Robert Trevetha1

Hello,

I'm investigating Bamboo to build a standalone java desktop application, where I'm struggling is we have some component tests that test the GUI via Junit and FEST as part of the standard maven cycle.

When running on a server / build machine there is obviously no screen so we use Xvfb / a virtual frame buffer to provide a virtual one.  This needs to be brought up and killed for each build run.

Is there an easy way of doing this in bamboo? and having the cleanup on builds failing, stopping, completing etc?

Currently we use Jenkins and a plugin called Xvfb Plugin that manages everything. I cant see anything similar in bamboo, nor any plugins to help.

At the moment I am thinking starting Xvfb via a command defined in a job but cleanup is a little more tricky, especially as I read if the build stops/fails before an attempted cleanup stages later on.  

I see a HungBuildKiller that may help but thats more of a last resort / would be nice for the builds to clean up cleanly.

So any established / easy ways of doing this?

Thanks,

Robert

 

 

AddteqS

You could run the gui tests and the build itself with a Docker container with support for Xvfb, eg: http://linuxmeerkat.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/running-a-gui-application-in-a-docker-container/

Bamboo 5.7 announced support for Docker support as build agent so you can use that for the build which should be an option for you requirements to be auto-managed on build completion: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BAMBOO/Getting+started+with+Docker+and+Bamboo