xcodebuild running tests headless?

Question

As we all know by now, the only way to run tests on iOS is by using the simulator. My problem is that we are running jenkins and the iOS builds are running on a slave (via SSH), as a result running xcodebuild can't start the simulator (as it runs headless). I've read somewhere that it should be possible to get this to work with SimLauncher (gem sim_launcher). But I can't find any info on how to set this up with xcodebuild. Any pointers are welcome.

Answer 1

Headless and xcodebuild do not mix well. Please consider this alternative:

You can configure the slave node to launch via jnlp (webstart). I use a bash script with the .command extension as a login item (System Preferences -> Users -> Login Items) with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash

slave_url="https://gardner.company.com/jenkins/jnlpJars/slave.jar"

max_attempts=40 # ten minutes
echo "Waiting to try again. curl returneed $rc"
curl -fO "${slave_url}" >>slave.log
rc=$?
if [ $rc -ne 0 -a $max_attempts -gt 0 ]; then
  echo "Waiting to try again. curl returneed $rc"
  sleep 5
  curl -fO "${slave_url}" >>slave.log
  rc=$?
  if [ $rc -eq 0 ]; then
    zip -T slave.jar
    rc=$?
  fi
  let max_attempts-=1
fi

# Simulator
java -jar slave.jar -jnlpUrl https://gardner.company.com/jenkins/computer/buildmachine/slave-agent.jnlp -secret YOUR_SECRET_KEY

The build user is set to automatically login. You can see the arguments to the slave.jar app by executing:

gardner:~ buildmachine$ java -jar slave.jar --help
"--help" is not a valid option
java -jar slave.jar [options...]
 -auth user:pass                 : If your Jenkins is security-enabled, specify
                                   a valid user name and password.
 -connectTo HOST:PORT            : make a TCP connection to the given host and
                                   port, then start communication.
 -cp (-classpath) PATH           : add the given classpath elements to the
                                   system classloader.
 -jar-cache DIR                  : Cache directory that stores jar files sent
                                   from the master
 -jnlpCredentials USER:PASSWORD  : HTTP BASIC AUTH header to pass in for making
                                   HTTP requests.
 -jnlpUrl URL                    : instead of talking to the master via
                                   stdin/stdout, emulate a JNLP client by
                                   making a TCP connection to the master.
                                   Connection parameters are obtained by
                                   parsing the JNLP file.
 -noReconnect                    : Doesn't try to reconnect when a communication
                                   fail, and exit instead
 -proxyCredentials USER:PASSWORD : HTTP BASIC AUTH header to pass in for making
                                   HTTP authenticated proxy requests.
 -secret HEX_SECRET              : Slave connection secret to use instead of
                                   -jnlpCredentials.
 -slaveLog FILE                  : create local slave error log
 -tcp FILE                       : instead of talking to the master via
                                   stdin/stdout, listens to a random local
                                   port, write that port number to the given
                                   file, then wait for the master to connect to
                                   that port.
 -text                           : encode communication with the master with
                                   base64. Useful for running slave over 8-bit
                                   unsafe protocol like telnet

gardner:~ buildmachine$ 

For a discussion about OSX slaves and how the master is launched please see this Jenkins bug: https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-21237