Logging into a VM to run GUI tests at test startup

Question

We are setting up our automation to run remotely so we can start incorporating them into the builds (you know, the whole CI/CD thing). These are a handful of important automated GUI tests that for obvious reasons, need an active VM to run. These are not browser tests, they are actually automated tests for a windows application so any support that Selenium brings to the table is off for us.

So now on to the challenge - how can I keep the VMs up and running without having to log into them using the Remote Desktop Connection to allow them to run the tests properly. Currently, I have to connect to them from my local machine and then minimize it and then I can kick off the builds. As soon as I exit however, the virtual machine is locked again.

I want the VMs to work completely independently from my machine, so I was skeptical about this approach because it seemed like it would still be tied to my machine only. Pretty much anyone in the company can log into the VMs from their machine using their credentials. What I would like to do is to programatically connect to the VM during my global TestStartup and then disconnect at TearDown. Is this possible to do? Has anyone had success or ran into similar situations with their automation integration process? We use a tool called LeanFT and NUnit as our test runner. .

Answer 1

Your idea to log in as part of the test is a bit fragile and prone to instabilities.

Here is the setup that works for every UI automation tool I've used for Windows

• set up your VM to not lock / sleep /hibernate, etc.
• Avoid using RDC (turn that feature off, even for admins if you can)
• Only use the console viewer for your vm server
• Limit access to those systems using the permissions in the VM server so that only you and your team can interact with them.

Here is why this works. You have already discovered that when you disconnect the RDP connection, the session locks and your automation fails. By using the vm console viewer, it's essentially like turning on/off the monitor connected to the system. By keeping them on all the time and not sleeping, they are always available for running tests.

We are using LeanFT and to encourage the stability of our tests, we have setup tasks to check the running processes to kill any stray leanft runtimes that didn't get closed cleanly from a prior run, as well as any stray applications that were not closed properly after a testing run.