[SUREFIRE-1422] Forking fails on Linux if /bin/ps isn't available

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.20.1
• Fix Version/s: 2.21.0
• Component/s: process forking
• Environment: Linux (Debian 9 with OpenJDK 8)
• Assignee: Tibor Digana
• Reporter: Emmanuel Bourg
• Created: 22/Sep/17 14:13
• Updated: 18/Mar/18 08:03
• Resolved: 03/Oct/17 10:14

Description

Hi,

With the changes introduced by SUREFIRE-1302 I'm now experiencing a failure on Linux when the fork mode is enabled:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.20.1:test (default-test) on project foo: There are test failures.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] Please refer to /foo/target/surefire-reports for the individual test results.
[ERROR] Please refer to dump files (if any exist) [date]-jvmRun[N].dump, [date].dumpstream and [date]-jvmRun[N].dumpstream.
[ERROR] The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called?

I traced the issue back to the PpidChecker class, the code assumes that /bin/ps or /usr/bin/ps exist but this isn't guaranteed (especially on trimmed down containers commonly used for continuous integration).

It would be nice to have a fallback mechanism when ps isn't available, or at least check its existence and display an explicit message stating that it must be installed.

Issue Links

• is cloned by: SUREFIRE-1502 Forking fails on OS/X
• is duplicated by: SUREFIRE-1444 /usr/bin/ps and /bin/ps not found. Forked JVM fails.
• relates to: SUREFIRE-1479 SurefireBooterForkException: The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye since 2.20.1
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #178