Running Selenium with chromedriver inside a Windows container

Running Selenium for Web UI testing in a Windows container is a little bit tricky. I spent a week on this and finally could make it to work thanks to the idea in [1]. Woohuu!

Let's take a look at this sample Java application that runs Selenium with chromedriver.

1. Make sure your Desktop Docker running with Windows Container mode

2. In your Dockerfile, make sure:

• Install the needed fonts (googlechrome) => this is the most important thing! 

ADD files/fonts.tar /Fonts/

WORKDIR /Fonts/

RUN @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command ".\Add-Font.ps1 Fonts"

• Enable Web-WebSockets feature using Powershell

RUN @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-WindowsFeature Web-WebSockets"

• Install chocolatey to install openjdk8, and googlechrome

RUN @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin" -Y

RUN choco install openjdk8 -Y

RUN refreshenv

RUN choco install googlechrome -Y

• Copy the chromedriver.exe driver into your working directory

ADD files/drivers/chromedriver.exe "C:/ProgramData/drivers"

Full Dockerfile:

	FROM mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2019
	# install needed fonts for googlechrome to run properly
	ADD files/fonts.tar /Fonts/
	WORKDIR /Fonts/
	RUN @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command ".\Add-Font.ps1 Fonts"
	WORKDIR "C:/ProgramData"
	# enable Web-WebSockets
	RUN @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-WindowsFeature Web-WebSockets"
	# install chocolately
	RUN @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin" -Y
	# install openjdk8
	RUN choco install openjdk8 -Y
	# update environment variables
	RUN refreshenv
	# install googlechrome
	RUN choco install googlechrome -Y
	# copy your application to the WORKDIR
	ADD files/myapplication.war "C:/ProgramData"
	# copy chromedriver.exe to the same level of your application
	# assumming your application
	ADD files/drivers/chromedriver.exe "C:/ProgramData/drivers"
	EXPOSE 8080
	# run your application
	CMD ["java", "-jar", "C:/ProgramData/myapplication.war"]

view raw Dockerfile hosted with ❤ by GitHub

3. Build your Docker image using Powershell with administrator privileges

PS C:\Users\Trinh Nguyen\projects\mycontainer> docker build . -t yourimage_uri:yourtag

4. Run your containerized application from Powershell

PS C:\Users\Trinh Nguyen\projects\mycontainer> docker run -p 8080:8080 yourimage_uri:yourtag

5. You can find the Dockerfile and supplementary files in [2].

References:

[1] https://github.com/gantrior/docker-chrome-windows

[2] https://github.com/dangtrinhnt/windows-container-utils