Index: lucene/common-build.xml
===================================================================
--- lucene/common-build.xml	(revision 1086635)
+++ lucene/common-build.xml	(working copy)
@@ -77,6 +77,7 @@
   <property name="tests.directory" value="random" />
   <property name="tests.linedocsfile" value="europarl.lines.txt.gz" />
   <property name="tests.iter" value="1" />
+  <property name="tests.iter.min" value="${tests.iter}" />
   <property name="tests.seed" value="random" />
   <property name="tests.loggingfile" value="/dev/null"/>
   <property name="tests.nightly" value="false" />
@@ -499,6 +500,8 @@
               <sysproperty key="tests.linedocsfile" value="${tests.linedocsfile}"/>
               <!-- set the number of times tests should run -->
               <sysproperty key="tests.iter" value="${tests.iter}"/>
+              <!-- set the minimum number of times tests should run unless failure -->
+              <sysproperty key="tests.iter.min" value="${tests.iter.min}"/>
               <!-- set the test seed -->
               <sysproperty key="tests.seed" value="${tests.seed}"/>
               <!-- set the Version that tests should run against -->
Index: lucene/CHANGES.txt
===================================================================
--- lucene/CHANGES.txt	(revision 1086635)
+++ lucene/CHANGES.txt	(working copy)
@@ -20,6 +20,12 @@
   indexes, causing existing deletions to be applied on the incoming indexes as 
   well. (Shai Erera, Mike McCandless)
 
+Test Cases
+
+* LUCENE-3002: added 'tests.iter.min' to control 'tests.iter' by allowing to 
+  stop iterating if at least 'tests.iter.min' ran and a failure occured. 
+  (Shai Erera, Chris Hostetter)
+
 ======================= Lucene 3.1 (not yet released) =======================
 
 Changes in backwards compatibility policy
Index: lucene/src/test-framework/org/apache/lucene/util/LuceneTestCase.java
===================================================================
--- lucene/src/test-framework/org/apache/lucene/util/LuceneTestCase.java	(revision 1086635)
+++ lucene/src/test-framework/org/apache/lucene/util/LuceneTestCase.java	(working copy)
@@ -141,6 +141,8 @@
   public static final String TEST_DIRECTORY = System.getProperty("tests.directory", "random");
   /** Get the number of times to run tests */
   public static final int TEST_ITER = Integer.parseInt(System.getProperty("tests.iter", "1"));
+  /** Get the minimum number of times to run tests until a failure happens */
+  public static final int TEST_ITER_MIN = Integer.parseInt(System.getProperty("tests.iter.min", Integer.toString(TEST_ITER)));
   /** Get the random seed for tests */
   public static final String TEST_SEED = System.getProperty("tests.seed", "random");
   /** whether or not nightly tests should run */
@@ -1069,11 +1071,24 @@
       if (VERBOSE) {
         System.out.println("\nNOTE: running test " + arg0.getName());
       }
+      
+      // only print iteration info if the user requested more than one iterations
+      boolean verbose = VERBOSE && TEST_ITER > 1;
+      int lastIterFailed = -1;
       for (int i = 0; i < TEST_ITER; i++) {
-        if (VERBOSE && TEST_ITER > 1) {
+        if (verbose) {
           System.out.println("\nNOTE: running iter=" + (1+i) + " of " + TEST_ITER);
         }
         super.runChild(arg0, arg1);
+        if (testsFailed) {
+          lastIterFailed = i;
+          if (i == TEST_ITER_MIN - 1) {
+            if (verbose) {
+              System.out.println("\nNOTE: iteration " + lastIterFailed + " failed !");
+            }
+            break;
+          }
+        }
       }
     }