Post Installation Setup

IDA integrates with remote testing automation framework based on Selenium Grid. IDA supports both version 4 and version 3 of Selenium Grid.

Selenium Grid sizes

Choosing a Grid role depends on what operating systems and browsers need to be supported, how many parallel sessions need to be executed, the amount of available machines, and how powerful (CPU, RAM) those machines are.

Creating sessions concurrently relies on the available processors to the Distributor. For example, if a machine has 4 CPUs, the Distributor will only be able to create up to 4 sessions concurrently.

By default, the maximum amount of concurrent sessions a Node supports is limited by the number of CPUs available. For example, if the Node machine has 8CPUs, it can run up to 8 concurrent browser sessions (with the exception of Safari, which is always one). Additionally, it is expected that each browser session should use around 1GB RAM.

In general, it is a recommended to have Nodes as small as possible. Instead of having a machine with 32CPUs and 32GB RAM to run 32 concurrent browser sessions, it is better to have 32 small Nodes in order to better isolate processes. With this, if a Node fails, it will do it in an isolated way. Docker is a good tool to achieve this approach.

Note that the default values (1CPU/1GB RAM per browser) are a recommendation and they could not apply to your context. It is recommended to use them as a reference, but measuring performance continuously will help to determine the ideal values for your environment.

Grid sizes are relative to the amount of supported concurrent sessions and amount of Nodes, and there is no “one size fits all”. It suggests to start with small grid size, which contains 5 or less nodes. More nodes can be added in future according to the actual requirement.

Selenium Grid v4

Notes

Selenium Grid 4 can be set up in the serveral modes: Standalone/Hub and Node/Distributed/Docker. For varied configuration details, please check Selenium documentation below.

Local installation

  1. Download the latest Selenium server jar selenium-server-4.x.x.jar.
  2. Download Selenium web drivers and put them under the same folder of the Selenium server jar file.
  3. To quickly start Selenium 4 in standalone mode with default configurations, run the command below. This will setup a 1-node hub with auto-detected webdrivers in the same folder as the jar file. 
     java -jar selenium-server-4.x.x.jar standalone

  4. To start Selenium 4 in Hub and Node mode with customized node configuration,
    • create a config.toml file with configuration below.
    [node]
detect-drivers = false
   
[[node.driver-configuration]]
display-name = "Firefox"  
max-sessions = 5
stereotype = "{\"browserName\": \"firefox\"}"
   
[[node.driver-configuration]]
display-name = "Chrome"
max-sessions = 5
stereotype = "{\"browserName\": \"chrome\"}"

[[node.driver-configuration]]
display-name = "Edge"
max-sessions = 5
stereotype = "{\"browserName\": \"MicrosoftEdge\"}"
  • Run commands below in different commandlines. 
       java -jar selenium-server-4.x.x.jar standalone --config config.toml

Docker installation

The following link provides detailed instructions on how to run Selenium 4 using Selenium Docker images: https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/docker-selenium.

Docker Compose is the simplest way to start a Grid.

  1. Download docker-compose-v3.yml, and check the execution instructions on top of each file. You can also edit the file to add more nodes by adding replicas. An example as follows:
version: "3"
services:
  chrome:
    image: selenium/node-chrome:4.10.0-20230607
    shm_size: 2gb
    depends_on:
      - selenium-hub
    deploy:
        replicas: 5
    restart: always
    environment:
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_HOST=selenium-hub
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_PUBLISH_PORT=4442
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_SUBSCRIBE_PORT=4443
      - SE_NODE_MAX_SESSIONS=5
      - SE_NODE_OVERRIDE_MAX_SESSIONS=true

  firefox:
    image: selenium/node-firefox:4.10.0-20230607
    shm_size: 2gb
    depends_on:
      - selenium-hub
    deploy:
        replicas: 5
    restart: always
    environment:
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_HOST=selenium-hub
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_PUBLISH_PORT=4442
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_SUBSCRIBE_PORT=4443
      - SE_NODE_MAX_SESSIONS=5
      - SE_NODE_OVERRIDE_MAX_SESSIONS=true

  edge:
    image: selenium/node-edge:4.10.0-20230607
    shm_size: 2gb
    depends_on:
      - selenium-hub
    deploy:
        replicas: 5
    restart: always
    environment:
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_HOST=selenium-hub
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_PUBLISH_PORT=4442
      - SE_EVENT_BUS_SUBSCRIBE_PORT=4443
      - SE_NODE_MAX_SESSIONS=5
      - SE_NODE_OVERRIDE_MAX_SESSIONS=true

  selenium-hub:
    image: selenium/hub:4.10.0-20230607
    container_name: selenium-hub
    ports:
      - "4442:4442"
      - "4443:4443"
      - "4444:4444"
    restart: always
  1. Start Selenium Grid 4.
docker-compose -f docker-compose-v3.yml up -d
  1. Stop Selenium Grid 4.
docker-compose -f docker-compose-v3.yml down

Selenium Grid v3

Notes

Below is the reference link for how to setup selenium grid. It includes the detail parameter setting explanation.

Local installation

  1. Download Selenium Grid 3.141.59

  2. Download Selenium web drivers and put them under the same folder of the Selenium Jar file.

  3. Start the Hub
    • Create hubconfig.json 
      {
   "port": 4444,
   "newSessionWaitTimeout": 10000,
   "servlets" : [],
   "withoutServlets": [],
   "custom": {},
   "capabilityMatcher": "org.openqa.grid.internal.utils.DefaultCapabilityMatcher",
   "registry": "org.openqa.grid.internal.DefaultGridRegistry",
   "throwOnCapabilityNotPresent": true,
   "cleanUpCycle": 5000,
   "role": "hub",
   "debug": false,
   "browserTimeout": 60,
   "timeout": 60
}
    • Run the command 
       java -jar selenium-server-standalone-3.141.59.jar -role hub -hubConfig hubconfig.json
  4. Start the Node
    • Create nodeconfig.json 
      {
  "capabilities": [
{
  "browserName": "firefox",
  "marionette": true,
  "maxInstances": 5,
  "seleniumProtocol": "WebDriver",
  "version": 67
},
{
  "browserName": "chrome",
  "maxInstances": 5,
  "seleniumProtocol": "WebDriver",
  "version": 75
},
{
  "browserName": "internet explorer",
  "platform": "WINDOWS",
  "maxInstances": 1,
  "seleniumProtocol": "WebDriver",
  "version": 11
}
  ],
  "proxy": "org.openqa.grid.selenium.proxy.DefaultRemoteProxy",
  "maxSession": 5,
  "port": -1,
  "register": true,
  "registerCycle": 5000,
  "hub": "http://localhost:4444",
  "nodeStatusCheckTimeout": 5000,
  "nodePolling": 5000,
  "role": "node",
  "unregisterIfStillDownAfter": 60000,
  "downPollingLimit": 2,
  "debug": false,
  "servlets": [],
  "withoutServlets": [],
  "custom": {},
  "browserTimeout": 60,
  "timeout": 60
}
    • Run the command 
       java -jar selenium-server-standalone-3.141.59.jar -role node -nodeConfig nodeconfig.json

    Notes: To see the parameters meanings, you could run scripts:

    java -jar .\selenium-server-standalone-3.141.59.jar -role node -help
java -jar .\selenium-server-standalone-3.141.59.jar -role hub -help

Docker installation

The followingThe below link is shows a step-by-step introduction to using the official Selenium Docker images using a basic Selemium Hub and Selenium Node configuration.

Selenium: Getting-Started-with-Hub-and-Nodes

You can follow below script to install Selenium Hub and Node on docker.We recommand you to install debug image version so you can visually see what the browser is doing.

docker pull selenium/hub:3.141.59-palladium
docker pull selenium/node-firefox:3.141.59-palladium
docker pull selenium/node-chrome:3.141.59-palladium

docker network create grid
docker run -d -p 4444:4444 --net grid --name selenium-hub selenium/hub:3.141.59-palladium
docker run -d -P --net grid -e HUB_HOST=selenium-hub  -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-chrome:3.141.59-palladium
docker run -d -P --net grid -e HUB_HOST=selenium-hub  -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-firefox:3.141.59-palladium

You can do the below command mutiple times,it will create mutiple chrome/firefox node for the grid remote testing. It can provide you to run the selenium tesing parallel in the Grid.We recommand you to create above 5 node number for chrome/firefox each.

docker run -d -P --net grid -e HUB_HOST=selenium-hub  -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-chrome:3.141.59-palladium
docker run -d -P --net grid -e HUB_HOST=selenium-hub  -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-firefox:3.141.59-palladium

After that you can open the browser http://dockerhostIP:4444/grid/console to check selenium grid/node installation status.