Running build across slave nodes

[uscen...@gmail.com]

I am using jenkins to run selenium tests in ruby.

There are 4 nodes: master + 3 slaves

The current build runs all my tests on one slave. Is there a way to run one build and have the tests split across the slave nodes? I know I can split the tests into groups and run each group as a build but would prefer 1 build per run rather than 3.

[James Nord]

workflow with a parallel fork will give you this if you can do the "split"  (that is you will only have one workflow build).

[Victor Martinez]

Hi,

Let me also add more details, if you don't mind :)

There are different approaches but as far as I see, if you use selenium, have you considered to use https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Selenium+Plugin ?

You can use different Configuration as Code paradigms but in any case you will need to split your build in order to support different test cases, there are at least three different approaches:

- Workflow (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Workflow+Plugin), as James suggested. Which it is an active development plugin focused on driving Continuous Delivery within Jenkins in one shot, it's a really interesting approach.

- Job DSL (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Job+DSL+Plugin), it's one of the useful plugins within the Jenkins Community, You can code your Jenkins jobs accordingly once and reuse them as much as you want, exactly the same as the Workflow plugin.

- Python Job Builder (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/jenkins-job-builder/), it's a python library in order to drive your Jenkins jobs via YAML syntax. Openstack uses it since last year and they lead this project and already created a few hundred jobs (maybe a few thousands) via that way.

I hope it helps that brief summary

Cheers

[uscen...@gmail.com]

Thanks James. I was considering that but was not sure if that would work. Definitely will take a look.

[uscen...@gmail.com]

Thanks Victor. The feedback is always appreciated. 

Selenium Plugin uses the old selenium grid and server setup. Our tests are basically kicked off from the slaves and run on Sauce Labs. The grid is not really needed unless it would provide a performance boost. I'll take a look at the other plugins. Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.