Metacat

<matt> another possibility would be to create a new target in the build that sets those properties explicitly for the hudson build.

This is a good way too.

I just tested if we set:
configutil.propertiesConfigured=false
configutil.authConfigured=false
configutil.skinsConfigured=false
configutil.databaseConfigured=false
configutil.geoserverConfigured=false

And add some default values on:
database.user=
database.password=
database.type=
database.driver=
database.adapter=

The administration servlet still works.

So here is the plan:
1. In metacat.properties fill those values base on the configuration of dev-testing:
database.user=
database.password=
database.type=
database.driver=
database.adapter=
test.metacatDeployDir=
And set:
configutil.propertiesConfigured=false
configutil.authConfigured=false
configutil.skinsConfigured=false
configutil.databaseConfigured=false
configutil.geoserverConfigured=false

2. In build.properties, fill the values base on dev-testing configuration
build.tomcat.dir
app.deploy.dir

3. In test.properties: fill the value base on dev-testing configuration
metacat.contextDir

4. Create a new target in build.xml to set:
configutil.propertiesConfigured=true
configutil.authConfigured=true
configutil.skinsConfigured=true
configutil.databaseConfigured=true
configutil.geoserverConfigured=true.

In above approach, the junit test can run without any additional configuration. And developer don't need to modify the metacat.properties during building installers.

This sounds good, Jing. One other issue is that the admin servlet runs SQL scripts to create/update databases, etc. So we'll need to execute that code on the deployed instance when the DB changes. Maybe there could be an ant target that checks and runs the sql code (I think there is one there already to run it, but we need to be able to determine which scripts to run (which the admin servlet does by querying the DB version).

I will add the target to check the database.

I added two targets into the build.xml. One will set configutil.* to be true. The other will install a metacat with the modified metacat.properties.

There are two issues now:
1. The metacat gives the error:
javax.servlet.ServletException: Service problem while intializing MetaCat Servlet: ServiceService.registerService - Service: DatabaseService is already registered. Use ServiceService.reregister() to replace the service.

2. The metacaturl value is "http\://localhost\:8080/knb/metacat" in metacat.properties and junit test doesn't like it.

The first issue in above comment relates to the second one. When metacat initializes the db service, it can recognize the url:
jdbc\:postgresql\://localhost/test

in above comment, can = can NOT :)

It turns out that Metacat is using a customized properties file management system.It makes the properties file more readable. But it can't recognize the escape character.

In order to avoiding the character escaping, "echo" is used to replace "propertyFile". New "configutil.propertiesConfigured=true" and other configutil properties are set on echo command.

This approach works.

Here are the next steps:
1. Install tomcat and postgreSQL in the testing machine.
2. Write a script to build the metacat with the new target - install-configured-metacat. The new script will also include to stop and start tomcat.
3. Let hudson run the script after any new svn commitment or daily.

Original Bugzilla ID was 5294