How to do I start a Spring Boot service before the Serenity integration tests?

Question

I googled a lot but I didn't find a proper solution to my question. So maybe here.
There is a Spring Boot service that I would like to test through REST API in build time. So the service needs to be executed as a standalone service in the build phase before the integration tests are executed. I can execute somehow it but not the ideal.

I did something similar that the this article

I have a maven project with this pom:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>my.project.package</groupId>
    <artifactId>my-project-name</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.1</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <name>my-project-name</name>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.4.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath/> 
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
        <parallel.tests>3</parallel.tests>
        <serenity.maven.version>2.0.48</serenity.maven.version>
        <cucumber.version>4.8.0</cucumber.version>
        <serenity.version>2.1.2</serenity.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.json</groupId>
            <artifactId>json</artifactId>
            <version>20190722</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jdbc</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
            <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-jpamodelgen</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
            <artifactId>poi</artifactId>
            <version>3.16-beta1</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
            <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
            <version>2.7</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-data-redis</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.serenity-bdd</groupId>
            <artifactId>serenity-cucumber4</artifactId>
            <version>${serenity.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.serenity-bdd</groupId>
            <artifactId>serenity-rest-assured</artifactId>
            <version>${serenity.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.serenity-bdd</groupId>
            <artifactId>serenity-spring</artifactId>
            <version>${serenity.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-deploy-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.8.2</version>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.0.0-M1</version>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.0.0</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>add-test-sources</id>
                        <phase>generate-test-sources</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>add-test-source</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <sources>
                                <source>src/it/java</source>
                            </sources>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                    <execution>
                        <id>add-test-resources</id>
                        <phase>generate-test-resources</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>add-test-resource</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <resources>
                                <resource>
                                    <directory>src/it/resources</directory>
                                </resource>
                            </resources>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.22.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <includes>
                        <include>**/*Runner.java</include>
                    </includes>
                    <parallel>classes</parallel>
                    <threadCount>${parallel.tests}</threadCount>
                    <forkCount>${parallel.tests}</forkCount>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>integration-test</goal>
                            <goal>verify</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>net.serenity-bdd.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>serenity-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${serenity.maven.version}</version>
                <dependencies>
                    <dependency>
                        <groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
                        <artifactId>cucumber-core</artifactId>
                        <version>${cucumber.version}</version>
                    </dependency>
                </dependencies>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>serenity-reports</id>
                        <phase>post-integration-test</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>aggregate</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

I made an entry point for the test execution:

@RunWith(CucumberWithSerenity.class)
@CucumberOptions(
        features = "src/it/resources/features",
        glue = "my.project.package.integrationtest",
        plugin = {
                "pretty"
        },
        tags = "(not @Ignore) or (not @Manual) or (not @ToBeImplemented)"
)
@ActiveProfiles("integration-test")
public class IntegrationTestRunner {}

I have a StepsBase class which starts the app:

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest(webEnvironment = RANDOM_PORT)
@ActiveProfiles("integration-test")
@ContextConfiguration(classes = Application.class)
public class StepsBase {
    public static final String HOST = "http://localhost:";

    @LocalServerPort
    private int serverPort;

    public String getBaseUrl() {
        return  HOST + serverPort;
    }
}

And all my steps classes extends the StepsBase class like this

public class SimpleSteps extends StepsBase {

    @Given("this is a sample step")
    .
    .
    .
}

If I execute the service build with maven clean verify, then I get the following log for the integration tests:

The main problem with this solution is the first scenario execute the Spring Boot service before instantiating the step class, which is counting into the execution time, and the test cases are not compromised if the service is not starting. Bytheway the Serenity before every scenario checks that the service is running or not.

Do you have an idea of how to make that the service is started before Serenity startup? Or before the first step execution?

Answer 1

If everything is in the same project (or maven module) you can use the Spring Boot Maven plugin (https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/maven-plugin/usage.html). A sample configuration is shown below:

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.1.4.RELEASE</version>
                <configuration>
                    <classifier>exec</classifier>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>repackage</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                    <execution>
                        <id>pre-integration-test</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>start</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                    <execution>
                        <id>post-integration-test</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>stop</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
    ```