[dtf-issues] [JBoss JIRA] (DTF-4) add local test node support

add local test node support --------------------------- Key: DTF-4 URL: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/DTF-4 Project: Distributed Test Framework Issue Type: Feature Request Affects Versions: 4_0_0_GA Reporter: Jonathan Halliday Assignee: Jonathan Halliday Fix For: 4_1_0 We (JBossTS) have a substantial investment in DTF tests. However, running these is a complex process, involving building and deploying to a pre-configured DTF instance or installing the DTF locally on the developer's workstation, including tomcat, mysql etc. This makes running DTF tests a non-trivial task usually performed only as part of a product release cycle. It is desirable to make executing DTF tests as easy as running unit tests, to encourage their use for smoke testing and to facilitate running them as part of a nightly build / continuous integration environment such as hudson. Although DTF has substantial capability to run cross platform tests, we use only a fraction of this in practice. For smoke testing on a developer's workstation it is necessary only to run each task in its own JVM and to detect and skip any tests that would require more than one physical node. For nightly builds, hudson's axes function may be used to run tests across all supported O/S. Other combinatorial possibilities e.g. client and server elements of the same test on different O/S are currently unutilised anyhow. By using modified versions of TestManager and TestNode, it is feasible to construct a Java class which can ingest existing testdefs, nodeconfig and product config files and manage spawning of the JVMs for Tasks, results collation etc. without requiring any infrastructure such as mysql or tomcat. Further, by wrapping these classes in an appropriate manner it is possible to have DTF tests masquerade as JUnit tests, facilitating integration with existing JUnit tooling e.g. the JUnit ant task. This would allow DTF tests to be run from an ant build script in much the same manner as unit tests.