Starting a test session

To validate your draft flow, start a test session, provisioning a NiFi cluster.

Make sure that you have DFDeveloper permission to perform this task. For information on account and resource roles, see Cloudera DataFlow Authorization.
You have created a draft in Flow Designer.

Select Flow Options > Test Session.
- Add Custom NAR Configuration if your flow requires custom processors that you have built.
- Select Inbound Connections > Allow NiFi to receive data if your your draft uses listen processors with inbound connection endpoint support.
  The deployment wizard auto synchronizes port information with the configuration settings you made for your listen processor(s).
note
You can also change NiFi version but, unless you have a specific reason to select an earlier one, Cloudera recommends using the latest version.
Click Start Test Session.
Test Session status changes to Initializing Test Session...
Wait for the status to change to Active Test Session.
Click Flow Options > Services to enable Services.
Select a service you want to enable, then click Enable.
Repeat this step for all Services.
tip
You can also select Enable Service and Referencing Components. It will not only enable the controller service, but also any component that references it. This way, you do not need to enable the component separately to run the test session.
Click Back To Flow Designer to return to the flow design Canvas.
Start all processors that are not running (you see a Stopped symbol next to the processor name) by selecting the processor on the Canvas then clicking Start.

The flow starts executing. On the Flow Design Canvas you can observe statistics on your processors change as they consume data and execute their respective tasks. You can also observe one or more blue Notification Pill, providing information about the current task. Potential issues that need to be addressed are called out in an orange

Notification Pill on the individual processors.