CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ubuntuseleniumwebdriver
nonshatter
nonshatter

Reputation: 3517

Is it possible to run selenium (Firefox) web driver without a GUI?

We are considering upgrading our production server from Ubuntu-desktop 10.04 to Ubuntu-server 12.04.

We have various services running on our current desktop OS such as Selenium Web Driver. My question is can the Selenium Web Driver be run from a cli-based system?

My immediate thought is that it can't, because it relies on Firefox, but I'd like for someone to prove me wrong!

Upvotes: 128

Views: 138514

Answers (11)

grahaminn
grahaminn

Reputation: 1567

What you're looking for is a .

Yes, it's possible to run Selenium on Firefox headlessly. Here is a post you can follow.

Here is the summary steps to set up Xvfb

#install Xvfb
sudo apt-get install xvfb

#set display number to :99
Xvfb :99 -ac &
export DISPLAY=:99    

#you are now having an X display by Xvfb

Upvotes: 117

Stéphane Bruckert
Stéphane Bruckert

Reputation: 22893

Chrome now has a headless mode:

op = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
op.add_argument('--headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=op)

Upvotes: 40

Max Malysh
Max Malysh

Reputation: 31545

Install & run containerized Firefox:

docker pull selenium/standalone-firefox
docker run --rm -d -p 4444:4444 --shm-size=2g selenium/standalone-firefox

Connect using webdriver.Remote:

driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4444/wd/hub', DesiredCapabilities.FIREFOX)
driver.set_window_size(1280, 1024)
driver.get('https://www.google.com')

Upvotes: 4

U2647
U2647

Reputation: 510

maybe you need to set your window-size dimension. just like：

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--headless')
options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')
options.add_argument('--window-size=1920x1080');

browser = webdriver.Chrome(options=options,executable_path = './chromedriver')

if also not working, try increase window-size dimension.

Upvotes: 1

Vinee-the-Pooh
Vinee-the-Pooh

Reputation: 955

Yes, you can run test scripts without a browser, But you should run them in headless mode.

Upvotes: 0

Nicholas DiPiazza
Nicholas DiPiazza

Reputation: 10585

UPDATE: You do not need XVFB to run headless Firefox anymore. Firefox v55+ on Linux and Firefox v56+ on Windows/Mac now supports headless execution.

I added some how-to-use documentation here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Headless_mode#Selenium_in_Java

Upvotes: 5

郑文勋
郑文勋

Reputation: 99

An optional is to use pyvirtualdisplay like this:

from pyvirtualdisplay import Display

display = Display(visible=0, size=[800, 600])
display.start()

#do selenium job here

display.close()

A shorter version is:

with Display() as display:
    # selenium job here

This is generally a python encapsulate of xvfb, and more convinient somehow.

By the way, although PhantomJS is a headless browser and no window will be open if you use it, it seems that PhantomJS still needs a gui environment to work.

I got Error Code -6 when I use PhantomJS() instead of Firefox() in headless mode (putty-connected console). However everything is ok in desktop environment.

Upvotes: 9

A.J
A.J

Reputation: 4949

Yes. You can use HTMLUnitDriver instead for FirefoxDriver while starting webdriver. This is headless browser setup. Details can be found here.

Upvotes: 11

Alister Scott
Alister Scott

Reputation: 3685

Another option is GhostDriver which is now officially supported by WebDriver: Ghostdriver actual performance gain

Upvotes: 2

guillemhs
guillemhs

Reputation: 340

Be aware that HtmlUnitDriver webclient is single-threaded and Ghostdriver is only at 40% of the functionalities to be a WebDriver.

Nonetheless, Ghostdriver run properly for tests and I have problems to connect it to the WebDriver hub.

Upvotes: 1

haroonzone
haroonzone

Reputation: 374

If you want headless browser support then there is another approach you might adopt.

https://github.com/detro/ghostdriver

It was announced during Selenium Conference and it is still in development. It uses PhantomJS as the browser and is much better than HTMLUnitDriver, there are no screenshots yet, but as it is still in active development.

Upvotes: 10

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