Selenium Docker

The project is made possible by volunteer contributors who have put in thousands of hours of their own time, and made the source code freely available under the Apache 2.0 license.

Docker images for Selenium Standalone Server Hub and Node configurations with Chrome and Firefox


Images included:

• selenium/base: Base image which includes Java runtime and Selenium jar
• selenium/hub: Image for running a Selenium Grid Hub
• selenium/node-base: Base image for Selenium Nodes which includes a virtual desktop environment and VNC support
• selenium/node-chrome: Selenium node with Chrome installed, needs to be connected to a Selenium Hub
• selenium/node-firefox: Selenium node with Firefox installed, needs to be connected to a Selenium Hub
• selenium/standalone-chrome: Selenium standalone with Chrome installed
• selenium/standalone-firefox: Selenium standalone with Firefox installed
• selenium/standalone-chrome-debug: Selenium standalone with Chrome installed and runs a VNC server
• selenium/standalone-firefox-debug: Selenium standalone with Firefox installed and runs a VNC server
• selenium/node-chrome-debug: Selenium node with Chrome installed and runs a VNC server, needs to be connected to a Selenium Hub
• selenium/node-firefox-debug: Selenium node with Firefox installed and runs a VNC server, needs to be connected to a Selenium Hub

Running the images

Standalone Chrome and Firefox

$ docker run -d -p 4444:4444 selenium/standalone-chrome:2.46.0
# OR
$ docker run -d -p 4444:4444 selenium/standalone-firefox:2.46.0

Note: only one standalone image can run on port 4444 at a time.

To inspect visually what the browser is doing use the standalone-chrome-debug or standalone-firefox-debug images. See debugging section for more...

Selenium Grid Hub

$ docker run -d -p 4444:4444 --name selenium-hub selenium/hub:2.46.0

Chrome and Firefox Nodes

$ docker run -d --link selenium-hub:hub selenium/node-chrome:2.46.0
$ docker run -d --link selenium-hub:hub selenium/node-firefox:2.46.0

Building the images

Ensure you have the ubuntu:14.04 base image downloaded, this step is optional since docker takes care of downloading the parent base image automatically.

$ docker pull ubuntu:14.04

Clone the repo and from the project directory root you can build everything by running:

$ VERSION=local make build

Note: omitting VERSION=local will build the images with the current version number thus overwriting the images downloaded from dockerhub.

Using the images

e.g. Spawn a container for Chrome testing:

$ docker run -d --name selenium-hub -p 4444:4444 selenium/hub:2.46.0
$ CH=$(docker run --rm --name=ch \
    --link selenium-hub:hub -v /e2e/uploads:/e2e/uploads \
    selenium/node-chrome:2.46.0)

Note -v /e2e/uploads:/e2e/uploads is optional in case you are testing browser uploads on your webapp you'll probably need to share a directory for this.

I like to remove the containers after each e2e test with --rm since this docker container is not meant to preserve state, spawning a new one is less than 3 seconds. You need to think of your docker containers as single processes, not as running virtual machines, in case you are familiar with vagrant.

e.g. Spawn a container for Firefox testing:

This command line is the same as for Chrome, remember that the selenium running container is able to launch either Chrome or Firefox, the idea around having 2 separate containers, one for each browser is for convenience plus avoid certain :focus issues you web app may encounter during e2e automation.

$ docker run -d --name selenium-hub -p 4444:4444 selenium/hub:2.46.0
$ FF=$(docker run --rm --name=fx \
    --link selenium-hub:hub -v /e2e/uploads:/e2e/uploads \
    selenium/node-firefox:2.46.0)

Debugging

In the event you wish to visually see what the browser is doing you will want to run the debug variant of node or standalone images.

$ docker run -d -P --link selenium-hub:hub selenium/node-chrome-debug:2.46.0
$ docker run -d -P --link selenium-hub:hub selenium/node-firefox-debug:2.46.0

And for standalone:

$ docker run -d -p 4444:4444 selenium/standalone-chrome-debug:2.46.0
# OR
$ docker run -d -p 4444:4444 selenium/standalone-firefox-debug:2.46.0

You can acquire the port that the VNC server is exposed to by running:

$ docker port <container-name|container-id> 5900
#=> 0.0.0.0:49338

In case you have RealVNC binary vnc in your path, you can always take a look, view only to avoid messing around your tests with an unintended mouse click or keyboard.

$ ./bin/vncview 127.0.0.1:49160

If you are running Boot2Docker on Mac then you already have a VNC client built-in. You can connect by entering vnc://<boot2docker-ip>:49160 in Safari or Alfred

When you are prompted for the password it is secret. If you wish to change this then you should either change it in the /NodeBase/Dockerfile and build the images yourself, or you can define a docker image that derives from the posted ones which reconfigures it:

#FROM selenium/node-chrome-debug:2.46.0
#FROM selenium/node-firefox-debug:2.46.0
# Choose the FROM statement that works for you.

RUN x11vnc -storepasswd <your-password-here> /home/seluser/.vnc/passwd

Look around

$ docker images
#=>
REPOSITORY                      TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
selenium/node-firefox           2.45.0              c7c0c99afabd        31 minutes ago      695.9 MB
selenium/node-chrome            2.45.0              c4cd17423321        31 minutes ago      796.7 MB
selenium/node-base              2.45.0              4f7c1788fe4c        32 minutes ago      584.8 MB
selenium/hub                    2.45.0              427462f54676        35 minutes ago      431.4 MB
selenium/base                   2.45.0              9126579ae96e        35 minutes ago      431.4 MB
ubuntu                          14.04               5506de2b643b        3 weeks ago         199.3 MB

Troubleshooting

All output is sent to stdout so it can be inspected by running:

$ docker logs -f <container-id|container-name>