How to pass environment variables to a sbt test build step in Jenkins?

If you're not forking a new JVM to execute your tests, setting javaOptions does nothing.Excerpt from SBT itself:

> help javaOptionsOptions passed to a new JVM when forking.

This explains why your javaOptions are not used when you're not forking your tests.

You have basically two solutions:

• Either set fork in Test := true to run your tests in forked JVMs

• Or pass your system properties to SBT itself :

  sbt -Dcassandra.test.host=XX.XXX.XXX.XXX test

You're setting a system property with -Dcassandra.test.host=XX.XXX.XXX.XXX", but then using Properties.envOrElse which is for environment variables. See Environment Variables.

Try this:

  sys.props.getOrElse("cassandra.test.host", DEFAULT_CASSANDRA_TEST_HOST)

It seems that adding fork in Test := true solves the problem - even if, to be honest, I did not investigated the extact corrlation between the two events (i.e. adding fork in Test := true and having the system property passed to my tests.

So the correct argument to be passed to sbt is:

'; set fork in Test := true; set javaOptions += "-Dcassandra.test.host=XX.XXX.XXX.XXX"; test'