How do I make Jenkins build fail when Maven unit tests fail?

Question

I'm using Jenkins, Maven 3.1, and Java 1.6. I have the following Maven job set up in Jenkins with the following goals and options ...

clean install -U -P cloudbees -P qa 

below is my pom.xml surefire configuration ...

<plugin>         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>         <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>         <version>2.17</version>         <configuration>                 <reuseForks>true</reuseForks>                 <argLine>-Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=512M </argLine>                 <skipTests>false</skipTests>         </configuration> </plugin> 

However, when my unit tests fail, the Jenkins console output still says "BUILD SUCCESS" and the build is marked as "unstable" instead of outright failing. How do I configure things in Jenkins (or Maven if taht's what it turns out to be) so that my build fails (not becomes unstable or passes) if any of the unit tests fail?

Below is what the console output says

17:08:04   MyProjectOrganizationControllerTest.testRecoverFromError » IllegalState Failed to... 17:08:04   MyProjectOrganizationControllerTest.testVerifyDistrictListPopulated » IllegalState 17:08:04   MyProjectOrganizationControllerTest.testUpdateSchool » IllegalState Failed to loa... 17:08:04   MyProjectOrganizationControllerTest.testDeleteSchool » IllegalState Failed to loa... 17:08:04   MyProjectOrganizationControllerTest.testVerifyOrgListPopulatedPrivateSchoolOrgType » IllegalState 17:08:04   MyProjectOrganizationControllerTest.testSubmitMultipleParams » IllegalState Faile... 17:08:04  17:08:04 Tests run: 155, Failures: 0, Errors: 154, Skipped: 1 17:08:04  17:08:04 [ERROR] There are test failures. 17:08:04  17:08:04 Please refer to /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/target/surefire-reports for the individual test results. 17:08:04 [JENKINS] Recording test results 17:08:07 log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.BooleanConverter). 17:08:07 log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly. 17:08:14 [INFO]  17:08:14 [INFO] --- maven-war-plugin:2.4:war (default-war) @ MyProject --- 17:08:15 [INFO] Packaging webapp 17:08:15 [INFO] Assembling webapp [MyProject] in [/scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/target/MyProject] 17:08:15 [INFO] Processing war project 17:08:15 [INFO] Copying webapp resources [/scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/src/main/webapp] 17:08:15 [INFO] Webapp assembled in [662 msecs] 17:08:15 [INFO] Building war: /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/target/MyProject.war 17:08:20 [INFO]  17:08:20 [INFO] --- maven-failsafe-plugin:2.17:integration-test (default) @ MyProject --- 17:08:20 [JENKINS] Recording test results 17:08:25 [INFO]  17:08:25 [INFO] --- maven-failsafe-plugin:2.17:verify (default) @ MyProject --- 17:08:25 [INFO] Failsafe report directory: /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/target/failsafe-reports 17:08:25 [JENKINS] Recording test results[INFO]  17:08:25 [INFO] --- maven-install-plugin:2.4:install (default-install) @ MyProject --- 17:08:25  17:08:25 [INFO] Installing /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/target/MyProject.war to /home/jenkins/.m2/repository/org/mainco/subco/MyProject/76.0.0-SNAPSHOT/MyProject-76.0.0-SNAPSHOT.war 17:08:25 [INFO] Installing /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/pom.xml to /home/jenkins/.m2/repository/org/mainco/subco/MyProject/76.0.0-SNAPSHOT/MyProject-76.0.0-SNAPSHOT.pom 17:08:26 Started calculate disk usage of build 17:08:26 Finished Calculation of disk usage of build in 0 seconds 17:08:26 Started calculate disk usage of workspace 17:08:26 Finished Calculation of disk usage of workspace in 0 seconds 17:08:26 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:08:26 [INFO] BUILD SUCCESS 17:08:26 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:08:26 [INFO] Total time: 11:00.616s 17:08:26 [INFO] Finished at: Mon Feb 23 17:08:26 UTC 2015 17:08:27 [INFO] Final Memory: 90M/414M 17:08:27 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:08:27 Waiting for Jenkins to finish collecting data 17:08:28 [JENKINS] Archiving /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/pom.xml to org.mainco.subco/MyProject/76.0.0-SNAPSHOT/MyProject-76.0.0-SNAPSHOT.pom 17:08:28 [JENKINS] Archiving /scratch/jenkins/workspace/MyProject/MyProject/target/MyProject.war to org.mainco.subco/MyProject/76.0.0-  SNAPSHOT/MyProject-76.0.0-SNAPSHOT.war 17:08:31 channel stopped 17:08:31 Started calculate disk usage of build 17:08:31 Finished Calculation of disk usage of build in 0 seconds 17:08:31 Started calculate disk usage of workspace 17:08:31 Finished Calculation of disk usage of workspace in 0 seconds 17:08:31 Finished: UNSTABLE 

Answer 1

You can add -Dmaven.test.failure.ignore=false to the MAVEN_OPTS if you click on Advanced button in the Build section of your Jenkins Job.

See Maven Surefire Plugin - surefire:test options for reference.