Starting external process during integration testing in maven

Question

I want completely automated integration testing for a Maven project. The integration tests require that an external (platform-dependent) program is started before running.

Answer 1

The cargo maven plugin is a good way to go if you're doing servlet development and want to deploy the resulting WAR for integration testing.

When I do this myself, I often set up a multi-module project (although that's not strictly nessecarily) and encapsulate all the integration testing into that one module. I then enable the module with profiles (or not) so that it's not blocking the immediate "yeah, I know I broke it" builds.

Here's the pom from that functional test module - make of it what you will:

  
    maven-example
    com.jheck
    1.5.0.4-SNAPSHOT
  
  4.0.0
  com.jheck.example
  functional-test
  Example Functional Test
  pom

  
    
      com.jheck.example
      example-war
      war
      provided
      LATEST
    
    
      httpunit
      httpunit
      1.6.1
      test
    
  

  
    

      
        org.apache.maven.plugins
        maven-compiler-plugin
        
          
            
              testCompile
            
          
        
      

      
        org.apache.maven.plugins
        maven-surefire-plugin
        
          
            integration-test
            
              test
            
          
        
      

      
        org.codehaus.cargo
        cargo-maven2-plugin
        0.3
        
          false 
          
            tomcat5x
            ${project.build.directory}/cargo.log
            
              
               
              http://www.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-5/v5.5.26/bin/apache-tomcat-5.5.26.zip

              ${installDir}
            
          
          
            
            ${project.build.directory}/tomcat5x/container
          
        

        
          
            start-container
            pre-integration-test
            
              start
              deploy
            
            
              
                
                  
                    com.jheck.example
                    example-war
                    war
                    
                    http://localhost:8080/example-war
                  
                
              
            
          
          
            stop-container
            post-integration-test
            
              stop