Manage headless displays with Xvfb (X virtual framebuffer)
- Dev: https://github.com/cgoldberg/xvfbwrapper
- Releases: https://pypi.org/project/xvfbwrapper/
- Author: Corey Goldberg - 2012-2019
- License: MIT
xvfbwrapper is a python module for controlling virtual displays with Xvfb.
Xvfb (X virtual framebuffer) is a display server implementing the X11 display server protocol. It runs in memory and does not require a physical display. Only a network layer is necessary.
Xvfb is useful for running acceptance tests on headless servers.
pip install xvfbwrapper- X11 Windowing System
- Xvfb (sudo apt-get install xvfb, yum install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb, etc)
- Python 2.7 or 3.4+
from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb
vdisplay = Xvfb()
vdisplay.start()
try:
# launch stuff inside virtual display here.
finally:
# always either wrap your usage of Xvfb() with try / finally,
# or alternatively use Xvfb as a context manager.
# If you don't, you'll probably end up with a bunch of junk in /tmp
vdisplay.stop()from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb
vdisplay = Xvfb(width=1280, height=740)
vdisplay.start()
try:
# launch stuff inside virtual display here.
finally:
vdisplay.stop()from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb
vdisplay = Xvfb(display=23)
vdisplay.start()
# Xvfb is started with display :23
# see vdisplay.new_displayfrom xvfbwrapper import Xvfb
with Xvfb() as xvfb:
# launch stuff inside virtual display here.
# Xvfb will stop when this block completesThis test class uses selenium webdriver and xvfbwrapper to run test cases on Firefox with a headless display.
import unittest
from selenium import webdriver
from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb
class TestPages(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
self.xvfb = Xvfb(width=1280, height=720)
self.addCleanup(self.xvfb.stop)
self.xvfb.start()
self.browser = webdriver.Firefox()
self.addCleanup(self.browser.quit)
def testUbuntuHomepage(self):
self.browser.get('http://www.ubuntu.com')
self.assertIn('Ubuntu', self.browser.title)
def testGoogleHomepage(self):
self.browser.get('http://www.google.com')
self.assertIn('Google', self.browser.title)
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()- virtual display is launched
- Firefox launches inside virtual display (headless)
- browser is not shown while tests are run
- conditions are asserted in each test case
- browser quits during cleanup
- virtual display stops during cleanup
Look Ma', no browser!
(You can also take screenshots inside the virtual display to help diagnose test failures)