How can I stop maven from running TEST twice?

Question

I have a big project with around 5000 test cases. When running mvn clean install it will run the test goal twice (one as part of the install and the second time as part of the surefire plugin).

Why it needs to run the test for the second time? And is there away to force surefire to use the test goal results instead of re-invoking it's own? I see it as a waste of time and machine resource, especially recently the second round of running the test caused a PermGen build error and no matter how much heap I pump into maven runner it still dies in the second testing round.

This is my surefire pluging configuration:

 <plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.18.1</version>
    <executions>
       <execution>
         <id>default-test</id>
         <phase>test</phase>
         <goals>
             <goal>test</goal>
         </goals>
         <configuration>
            <parallel>classes</parallel>
            <threadCount>3</threadCount>
         </configuration>
      </execution>
   </executions>
</plugin>

Is there a way to tweak the plugin to better handle machine resources?

Here is the full default maven profile which gets executed:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.2</version>
            <configuration>
                <archive>
                    <manifest>
                        <addDefaultImplementationEntries>true</addDefaultImplementationEntries>
                    </manifest>
                    <manifestEntries>
                        <Build-Number>${build.number}</Build-Number>
                        <Job-Name>${job.name}</Job-Name>
                        <Build-Url>${build.url}</Build-Url>
                        <Git-Commit>${git.commit}</Git-Commit>
                        <Git-Branch>${git.branch}</Git-Branch>
                        <Timestamp>${maven.build.timestamp}</Timestamp>
                        <StyleGuide-Version>${styleguide.version}</StyleGuide-Version>
                    </manifestEntries>
                </archive>
                <warName>pss</warName>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>com.cj.jshintmojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>jshint-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.3.0</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>lint</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
            <configuration>
                <options>maxparams:5,camelcase,eqeqeq,forin,immed,latedef,noarg,noempty,nonew,expr</options>
                <directories>
                    <directory>src/main/webapp/js/page</directory>
                </directories>
                <excludes>
                    <exclude>src/main/webapp/js/page/marketingPreferences.js</exclude>
                    <exclude>src/main/webapp/js/page/changeCarParkingDetails.js</exclude>
                    <exclude>src/main/webapp/js/page/angularjs-app.js</exclude>
                    <exclude>src/main/webapp/js/page/content-cover.js</exclude>
                    <exclude>src/main/webapp/js/page/amendmentConfirm.js</exclude>
                </excludes>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.lesscss</groupId>
            <artifactId>lesscss-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.3.3</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>bingleless</id>
                    <configuration>
                        <sourceDirectory>${project.basedir}/src/main/webapp/app-resources/</sourceDirectory>
                        <outputDirectory>${project.basedir}/src/main/webapp/app-resources/</outputDirectory>
                        <includes>
                            <include>**\/policy-self-service\/**\/*pss-sg.less</include>
                        </includes>
                        <compress>true</compress>
                    </configuration>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>compile</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>net.alchim31.maven</groupId>
            <artifactId>yuicompressor-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.1</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>compress</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
            <configuration>
                <excludes>
                    <exclude>**/*.min.js</exclude>
                    <exclude>**/*.min.css</exclude>
                    <exclude>**/style-guide/**</exclude>
                    <exclude>**/generated/**</exclude>
                    <exclude>**/app-resources/common/**</exclude>
                    <exclude>**/app-resources/bower_components/**</exclude>
                    <exclude>**/app-resources/policy-self-service/**</exclude>
                </excludes>
                <nosuffix>true</nosuffix>
                <jswarn>false</jswarn>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <logViolationsToConsole>true</logViolationsToConsole>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${maven-surefire-plugin.version}</version>
            <configuration>
                <parallel>classes</parallel>
                <threadCount>3</threadCount>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${maven-surefire-report-plugin.version}</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>install</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>report-only</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Answer 1

I think the <execution> in your pom.xml causes the 2nd test run. Maven sees it as another goal to execute in addition to the default goal in the test phase.

Since maven-surefire-plugin is a plugin used by default in Maven for test phase, you only need to provide the <configuration> part outside of <execution>. Modify your pom.xml as below

<plugins>
  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.18.1</version>
    <configuration>
        <parallel>classes</parallel>
        <threadCount>3</threadCount>
    </configuration>
  </plugin>
</plugins>