Hello,
I’m trying to debug UI tests randomly failing, but I’m unable to login with the user “distiller” which is running Xcode and the UI tests. I’m able to connect via VNC, but since I can’t change the distiller password with the command “sudo passwd distiller” I’m unable to login.
Is there a way to find the current distiller password or to configure it in the .circleci.yml?
Regards,
Luís
Hi @lm2s!
We actually have an article on this process here:
Likely you are using a version later than 10.2.0 for your Xcode image, in which case you will need to set a new user to utilize during the VNC process.
To mitigate this, you can create a new user account, and use the credentials of that new account instead of the " distiller " account for VNC login.
For example, the following command will create a user " vncuser ":
sudo /usr/sbin/sysadminctl -addUser vncuser -fullName "VNC User" -password <password> -admin
Hope that helps!
Thank you for your answer, it has helped me ssh into the machine and get VNC viewer running. However, it is the user distiller which is launching the simulator to execute the tests. Was wondering if there was any way we could log into distiller or change the account password using ‘vncuser’ so we can get into it. Thanks!
Hi @mustafa10,
You’re welcome and glad that helped at least with the SSH session.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to log into distiller or change the account password. For security purposes with the most recent (really since about our Xcode 10.2.0 image) that user requires the existing password which is not something we are able to provide.
-Nick
That’s a shame @nbialostosky ! So there is no way to actually see the iOS simulator in real-time whilst it is running tests on ‘distiller’?
Thanks,
Mustafa
Hi @mustafa10 ,
Currently there is not, as Secure Token prevents changing the password and that is something currently enabled on our images.
With that said, you can post a feature request to have that removed from our MacOS images and it is something our team will consider in future development:
https://circleci.canny.io/images
Thanks!
I’ve opened a new canny request to support VNC as the distiller user. Maybe there are alternative ways to authenticate as that user. But currently I’m blocked on this as well.
Hey @nbialostosky, was there any update on this? I am running into the same issue where i can setup the VNC to view the macos runner but since the job is being runned by distiller then i don’t really see anything which defeats the purpose of viewing.
~joseph
Hi @jevasco !
Unfortunately it is still not possible to login to distiller. That said, vncuser runs as a system admin and you can access the project in the distiller user’s directory.
You can copy the project across locally to the vncuser and run it over VNC. The shell session will likely differ, so variables may not be available automatically and you may have to set them manually first.
I hope this helps, let us know if you have any additional questions!
Zach