How to run a foreground task through WinRM / Remote Powershelling - powershell

I'm trying to incorporate a test suite that runs nightly on an Azure VM.
As of now, I have a Build process using TFS2015 that publishes my test files, starts the VM, and copies the files.
I'm trying to then use the "PowerShell on Target Machine" task to execute a script that launches a batch file. The reason it'll be executing a batch file is because I can't have the build process wait until that script is finished (it takes around 3 hours for the tasks in the batch file to complete).
My initial logic was to have the powershell script create a task using schtasks. This part works and the task itself is created on the virtual machine, however, it never runs at the scheduled time.
The other issue is that if I manually create these tasks, the task is executed, but everything is executed in the background. I need everything to be executed in the foreground.
I'm aware that this is by design since you should not be able to run foreground processes/applications remotely since it isn't "your session".
So the question will remain, are there any work arounds to this?
I'm trying to do launch selenium webservers and then execute protractor automation tests on the virtual machine. So one batch file starts the selenium server and the second launches protractor with a defined suite. If these are ran in the background (essentially headless) all my tests break.
Any insight would be helpful, or if I need to expand on my question or provide further details please let me know. Thanks.

I'm aware that this doesn't answer your specific question, but have you looked at moving your Selenium tests into VSTS? They're officially supported in the build/release pipelines and other people are taking this approach with protractor here and elsewhere. People are also making it work with TFS.

Related

Azure Devops automated test results incoherent with powershell test results using the same data

I'm currently trying to integrate automatic test execution on the deployment process using Azure Devops but it's causing me an issue where some tests don't run properly.
The application I'm testing has a log-in page and I've set up a couple of tests to see if it opened properly. These ones run smoothly, but the ones that require going through the login process do not.
I've set up some snapshots amidst the process and the result was that I was getting an error on the last step of logging in. I've checked the application logs and the result I got was that no credentials were sent through the request which I found odd since they were displayed on the snapshots.
All the data being inserted was correct, I've checked the endpoints and settings on the agent that was running them and everything seemed fine.
I tried then to run the automated tests through powershell command directly on the same agent and all of them passed with no issue whatsoever.
I've tried changing my task to a powershell command but it still gives me an error.
I have no idea where my issue could be or where I should be even able to start looking for the problem, as clearly it seems that the problem is on the azure devops task but everything seems fine with it, I've tinkered around with the settings a bit but none of them seemed to have any impact on the results I was getting.
I'm using version 2 of the vstest task and am targetting the test assembly that was deployed to the agent. Any idea on what I could be missing or pointers on how to find the solution?
These ones run smoothly, but the ones that require going through the
login process do not
Based on this description, it seems that it will open a new window automatically by the task.
If I'm right, and your test will open a window to login with your private-hosted agent. At this time, the mode of your private-hosted agent must be in interactive which it can allow auto-logon enabled.
Just check this official document for more detail information.

How do I run my automation scripts which include UI interaction on an Octopus tentacle using the Octopus Server?

I have a batch file which uses nunitconsole runner to run my tests.
It's a combination of nunit framework and specflow.
When I run the batch file on the Octopus tentacle it works as expected.
However, if I create a step in the Octopus server to trigger this batch file, none of the UI related things happen.
Any setting or prerequisite is required for this?
Some time ago I had a similar situation, this is because Octopus server runs as a service, due to this, you can not have anything that requires a window or interaction to run, however a workaround could be, execute a scheduled task through Octopus to execute your batch, so you will execute in a non background way.

How to run scheduled Coded UI Tests on Virtual Machine without having a RDP connection

Situation in short:
Virtual Machine with Visual Studio 2013 installed. PowerShell script
runs on the VM to execute Get Latest, Build and Execute Coded UI
Tests. Windows Scheduled Task to execute PowerShell nightly.
auto-logon is enabled (or I'm doing something wrong?)
yes, I've read post Is it possible to run Coded UI tests without having to connect via remote desktop?
I've seen posts about TCM. Does this help and how can I use it in my
situation?
I made some tests in Microsoft Test Manager and I also executed and recorded them.
I've loaded these tests in a test project (and changed the script providing categories and custom checks).
I then categorized these (as Development or Acceptance).
I executed out using a PowerShell script on a VM (with Visual Studio 2013 installed) with following actions:
Get Latest
Build
Run latest build with a selected set aka category using mstest.exe
So far everything is going perfectly. All the tests pass.
However, when I create a Scheduled Task on my VM run the PowerShell script everything fails because of a missing session.
Do I have the VM (I have no knowledge of Virtual Machines) then unlock or something?
Side-Note:
I also tried to fix this with a Test Agent and Controller, but once I had installed these, all other users of TFS lost their rights, so I prefer not to do this again.
I would be very grateful if you know something that can solve this.
I spent hours on Google finding a solution for this issue, but no solution helped me.
Do I need to provide more information?
The problem you're seeming to have is that the testagent is not setup correctly. You need an active desktop session for Coded UI to be able to run (it needs it to perform all the actions such as clicks).
Microsoft has some nice info about setting up your test agent here.
But to tackle your exact problem of the test failing because of a missing session I'd suggest the following:
Run AutoLogOn.exe from the sysinternals suite (can be found at http://live.sysinternals.com/). It will automatically log in with specified user when the machine starts, and keeps the desktop session active.
Alright...I'm making progress.
I've installed test agent and controller. It's all running fine.
Next I've opened Lab Center on my own MTM to create a new environment.
Test Controller is found, but I receive the message in this post "Microsoft Test Manager cannot install test agent on these machines" when creating new Lab Center environment
File and Printer sharing exception is enabled. I don't get the other message.
I don't understand what is wrong.
Maybe I'm completely on the wrong track and it's not necessary to use the Lab Center.
Then the only remaining issue is the non-active desktop issue.

In TeamCity, can I run a command-line application for the duration of a build?

I have a command-line application that I want to run in a build configuration for the duration of the build, then shut it down at the end when all other build steps have completed.
The application is best thought of as a stub server, which will have a client run against it, then report its results. After the tests, I shut down the server. That's the theory anyway.
What I'm finding is that running my stub server as a command line build step shuts down the stub server immediately before going to the next build step. Since the next build step depends on the server running, the whole thing fails.
I've also tried using the custom script option to run both tools one after another in the same step, but that results in the same thing: the server, launched on the first line, is shut down before invoking the second line of the script.
Is it possible to do what I'm asking in TeamCity? If so, how do I do it? Please list any possibilities, right up to creating a plugin (although the easier, the better).
Yes you can, you can do that in a Nant script, have Teamcity run the script, look for spawn and the nantContrib waitforexit.
However I think you would be much better off creating a mock class that the client uses only when running the tests. Instead of round tripping to the server during the build as that is can be a bit problematic, sometimes ports are closed, sometimes the server hangs from the last run, etc. That way you can run the tests, make sure the code is doing the right thing when the mock returns whatever it needs to return etc.

Coypu/SpecFlow acceptance tests hang when run via Jenkins job

I'm running acceptance tests on a project via SpecFlow, NUnit and Coypu (for browser automation, using the WatiN driver). The running of the tests are invoked via a powershell/psake script.
If I run these tests on my local box, they run fine. However, we have a build server on which a Jenkins job will automatically run these tests, and when run via this Jenkins job they don't execute -- they just hang.
Looking in task manager I can see there's two instances of iexplore.exe that are created when the Jenkins job runs. However after a certain point they just hang - no changes in memory usage or CPU.
nunit-agent-x86.exe and nunit-console-x86.exe are also running but mostly hung, just nunit-agent-x86.exe going up very slowly in memory.
If I kill one of the iexplore.exe processes things continue, but the SpecFlow specs all subsequently fail.
At the point of killing iexplore.exe, the following exception is in the log:
Unhandled Exception: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: The remote procedure call failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BE)
If I invoke the psake script manually when logged in to the server, the specs run OK.
This issue began to occur when I tried to use basic DI for the BrowserSession as in the gist here: https://gist.github.com/2301407
Before that I was sharing the BrowserSession via a static property of an NUnit [SetupFixture] class. Things were working mostly OK that way, except a small issue with a test involving a modal dialog not working correctly, but I wasn't sure I was doing it right so wanted to do the technique in the gist
I'm a bit lost as to what's causing the hang. Any ideas what it is or tips to track it down?
UPDATE: After switching to Firefox as the browser, and Selenium as the driver, the problem has gone away...
I got a couple of responses on the Coypu list. I've yet to test them out as everything is fine with Firefox at the moment, but in case they are of assistance to anyone else...
On Thursday, 2 August 2012 16:38:30 UTC+1, Adiel wrote:
[...]i believe that watin needs nunit to run in STA (single-threaded) which could possibly be related to your problem.
In other words, perhaps you made your tests thread safe with the static singleton browser session, but now via specflow's IOC you are
getting multiple instances due to the way nunit is running.
On Thursday, 2 August 2012 16:41:11 UTC+1, Matt Ellis wrote:
This sounds like it's Internet Explorer's protected mode getting in the way. IE runs different zones, such as Internet and Intranet
(and about:blank) in different processes, and IIRC WatiN doesn't
handle that very well. If you can disable protected mode on your
server, you should be fine.