Note : On Windows, this functionality currently assumes you run Cygwin. It does not currently work "natively" on Windows : although much of the discussion below applies in theory, the remotely generated script assumes Bourne-shell like syntax.

On the Running/Basic tab in the static GUI, there is an entry "Run on machine". This can be used to divert tests to run on other machines on the network than the local one. This can also be done from the command line via the "-m" option. By default this assumes that the remote machine and the local machine are on a shared file system of some sort.

Sometimes your tests may only work correctly on particular machines, and in this case it's useful to set the default machine to one of these so that you don't have to remember to enter it each time. For this there is a config file setting "default_machine".

Tests will be submitted to the machine via "rsh", unless you override the config file setting "remote_shell_program", for example to "ssh" or "plink". TextTest makes every effort to provide default arguments to these programs that are sensible for batch testing: i.e. will fail rather than ask for passwords etc. To this end there is a dictionary config file setting "remote_program_options", which sets such values for typical remote shell programs. You shouldn't need to change this under normal circumstances unless you use a remote shell program we haven't used. Look at the table of config file values to see which arguments will be provided by default.

It's worth noting that rather more advanced, and parallel, usage can be made of remote machines if a grid engine program is also installed. See the document on running tests in parallel. If you do have a grid engine installed and also provide the "Run on machine" setting (or "-m" on the command line), this will be automatically translated into a grid engine resource so that the test runs there by way of the grid engine.

There is also support for running tests on systems even where the file system is not shared. This will of course be slower as the system under test and test data will need to be copied to the remote file system at the start, and the test result will need to be copied back again after the test. To enable it, set the config file entry "remote_copy_program" to some program that can copy files to remote systems, for example "scp", "rsync" or "pscp". Default arguments for these programs are also provided via the "remote_program_options" config file entry as above.

The dynamic GUI has a number of ways to view the files produced by the tests. With the tests being run remotely on potentially a different file system, it can become an interesting question whether the viewing programs should be started on the remote machine or the local machine. On the one hand the files may not be reachable from the local machine, but on the other hand viewing programs may not be installed on the remote machine.

When following files produced by remotely run tests, TextTest will always run the "follow_program" ("tail" on UNIX or "baretail" on Windows) by default on the remote machine, as this is supposed to respond quickly to changes and it is therefore better if it doesn't have to wait for the file server before responding. When viewing files normally, it will by default run the viewer on the local machine. This can however be configured, for example for files which can only be viewed remotely, using the config file setting "view_file_on_remote_machine", which can be keyed on file types in a similar way to "view_program" which it configures.