I use Selenium RC for testing. Now to perform a load test, I want to run parallel test cases. Is there any way to run them without opening a browser?

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possible duplicate of [Is it possible to hide the browser in Selenium RC?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1418082/is-it-possible-to-hide-the-browser-in-selenium-rc) – Salvador Dali Nov 20 '13 at 02:57
10 Answers
Chrome now has a headless mode:
op = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
op.add_argument('headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=op)

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2UserWarning: Selenium support for PhantomJS has been deprecated, please use headless versions of Chrome or Firefox instead warnings.warn('Selenium support for PhantomJS has been deprecated, please use headless ' – Tiffany F. Aug 22 '18 at 13:17
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how can i use this if I additionally want to copy something to clipboard and then paste it? I tried it but it only works when the browser opens – basilisk Jun 04 '20 at 15:32
Since PhantomJS has been deprecated, using headless versions of Firefox would be a viable option.
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options
options = Options()
options.add_argument("--headless")
driver = webdriver.Firefox(options=options)
driver.get('https://www.google.com/')

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this work in my macbook. I wonder why it would discretely open a firefox icon (looks like an idle icon) on the right side of my Dock, but yes you can't see what is happening. So I guess, it is operating headless indeed. – toking May 04 '23 at 12:37
Try this code:
op = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
op.add_argument('headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=op)

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To set up on Centos (do all installation as root)
Install pip Download https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
python get-pip.py
Installing selenium If you have pip on your system, you can simply install or upgrade the Python bindings: pip install -U selenium
Alternately, you can download the source distribution from PyPI (e.g. selenium-2.53.1.tar.gz), unarchive it, and run:
python setup.py install
install the program: pyvirtualdisplay
pip install pyvirtualdisplay
yum install Xvfb libXfont Xorg
Then modify your script to add the bold lines within ** and **
**from pyvirtualdisplay import Display**
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoAlertPresentException
import unittest, time, re
class SeleniumDemo(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
**self.display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
self.display.start()**
self.driver = webdriver.Firefox()
self.driver.implicitly_wait(30)
self.base_url = "http://www.soastastore.com/"
self.verificationErrors = []
self.accept_next_alert = True
def tearDown(self):`enter code here`
self.driver.quit()
***self.display.stop()***
self.assertEqual([], self.verificationErrors)

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You can run Selenium headless, take a look at this question/answer: Is it possible to hide the browser in Selenium RC?
Especially for performance load tests, you should have a look at Apache JMeter.
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I already tried Apache JMeter for load testing Of GWT apps. But it not quite successful. – Mohyt Sep 29 '11 at 12:16
Always follow the Documentation. Here is what selenium doc says. It provide a standalone jar.
Download the standalone jar. And run it with command
java -jar selenium-server-standalone.jar
Now you will see a stanalone server started.
Now set up your webdriver like below and rest part will be as it is.
driver = webdriver.Remote(command_executor='http://127.0.0.1:4444/wd/hub', desired_capabilities={'browserName': 'htmlunit', 'version': '2', 'javascriptEnabled': True})
Summary code will be like.
from selenium import webdriver from selenium.webdriver.common.desired_capabilities import DesiredCapabilities from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys driver = webdriver.Remote(command_executor='http://127.0.0.1:4444/wd/hub', desired_capabilities={'browserName': 'htmlunit', 'version': '2', 'javascriptEnabled': True}) driver.get("http://www.python.org") assert "Python" in driver.title elem = driver.find_element_by_name("q") elem.clear() elem.send_keys("pycon") elem.send_keys(Keys.RETURN) assert "No results found." not in driver.page_source driver.close()

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It is possible, but not with the standard firefox driver / chrome / etc.
You would need to install PhantomJS. Just assign your WebDriver to an instance of phantomJS driver:
driver = webdriver.PhantomJS()
If you run your code now, no browser window will be opened.

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the PhantomJS development is now suspended as per @Hunter and yes I can confirm. https://phantomjs.org/ – toking May 04 '23 at 12:40
You can import Options
if you don't want to open a web browser.
from selenium import webdriver # for webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait # for implicit and explict waits
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options # for suppressing the browser
Then in the code:
option = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
option.add_argument('headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=option)
And continue with the rest of the program.

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requirements:
sudo apt-get install xvfb
pip install selenium
pip install PyVirtualDisplay
download chrome driver binary from below link and paste into drivers directory: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/downloads
code:
from selenium import webdriver
from pyvirtualdisplay import Display
with Display(visible=False, size=(800, 600)):
browser = webdriver.Chrome('drivers/chromedriver')
browser.get('https://www.example.com')
print(browser.page_source)
browser.quit()

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You can simply pass an argument "headless" to test selenium without opening the browser.
op = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
op.add_argument('headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=op)
This code snippet will provide you exactly what you want.

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