Selenium Grid

Selenium Grid can be a bit daunting to get up and running. Starting it is quite easy, but using it effectively can require pulling in third party tools. In this workshop we’ll cover how to run your grid effectively, using best practices culled from several large grid installations.

Agenda

Overview

• Describe what the grid is intended to solve, then get into how it solves it
• Going deeper into the funnel, how does it get its instructions, and how does it pass them to the nodes?
• What do the nodes do with these instructions, and how is it different by browser?
• What kinds of logging do the nodes/hubs do that can help in debugging and investigating problems?
• What is Docker?
• What is Ansible?

Set-up

• We’ll start with the conventional setup of hub and node servers running on the same box, for simplicity.
• Different options and flags that can be used when starting the hub/node processes
• How to simplify the start-up/shut-down of hubs/nodes, what to put into a bash script, etc to help
• How do you setup standalone & grid:hub-node using docker?
• How do you setup grid using Ansible? (time permitting)

Running

• How do you run a test in a container?
• How do you run a test against the docker grid setup?
• How do you look at the logs of tests running in a container?
• How do you find out the node to which a test was routed?

Extras:

• Using docker-compose to simplify docker grid setup process
• Setting up a UI for all your docker installations
• Quick look at what’s new in Grid
• How do you scale containers?
• Autoscaling using SeleniumGridScaler
• Overview of third-party tools: Zalenium, SeleniumGridScaler, selenium-grid-extras, just-ask
• How to build your own docker image (time-permitting)