/webdrivermanager

Automatic management of Selenium WebDriver binaries

Primary LanguageJavaApache License 2.0Apache-2.0

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WebDriverManager

This library is aimed to automate the Selenium WebDriver binaries management in runtime for Java.

If you use Selenium WebDriver, you will know that in order to use some browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, PhantomJS, Microsoft Edge, or Internet Explorer, first you need to download a binary file which allows WebDriver to handle browsers. In addition, the absolute path to this binary must be set as JVM properties, as follows:

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "/absolute/path/to/binary/chromedriver");
System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver", "/absolute/path/to/binary/geckodriver");
System.setProperty("webdriver.opera.driver", "/absolute/path/to/binary/operadriver");
System.setProperty("phantomjs.binary.path", "/absolute/path/to/binary/phantomjs");
System.setProperty("webdriver.edge.driver", "C:/absolute/path/to/binary/MicrosoftWebDriver.exe");
System.setProperty("webdriver.ie.driver", "C:/absolute/path/to/binary/IEDriverServer.exe");

This is quite annoying since it forces you to link directly this binary file into your Java source code. In addition, you have to check manually when new versions of the binaries are released. WebDriverManager comes to the rescue, performing in an automated way all this dirty job for you.

WebDriverManager is open source, released under the terms of Apache 2.0 License.

Usage

In order to use WebDriverManager in a Maven project, you need to add the following dependency in your pom.xml (Java 7 or upper required):

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.github.bonigarcia</groupId>
    <artifactId>webdrivermanager</artifactId>
    <version>2.2.1</version>
</dependency>

WebDriverManager is typically used by tests, and therefore, the typical scope would be test (<scope>test</scope>).

Once we have included this dependency, you can let WebDriverManager to manage the WebDriver binaries for you. Take a look at this JUnit 4 example which uses Chrome with Selenium WebDriver (in order to use WebDriverManager in conjunction with JUnit 5, the extension Selenium-Jupiter is highly recommended):

public class ChromeTest {

    private WebDriver driver;

    @BeforeClass
    public static void setupClass() {
        WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
    }

    @Before
    public void setupTest() {
        driver = new ChromeDriver();
    }

    @After
    public void teardown() {
        if (driver != null) {
            driver.quit();
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void test() {
        // Your test code here
    }

}

Notice that simply adding WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup(); WebDriverManager does magic for you:

  1. It checks for the latest version of the WebDriver binary.
  2. It downloads the WebDriver binary if it's not present on your system.
  3. It exports the required WebDriver Java environment variables needed by Selenium.

So far, WebDriverManager supports Chrome, Firefox, Opera, PhantomJS, Microsoft Edge, and Internet Explorer. For that, it provides several drivers managers for these browsers. These drivers managers can be used as follows:

WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
WebDriverManager.firefoxdriver().setup();
WebDriverManager.operadriver().setup();
WebDriverManager.phantomjs().setup();
WebDriverManager.edgedriver().setup();
WebDriverManager.iedriver().setup();

NOTE: The old WebDriverManager API (version 1.x) is still supported (ChromeDriverManager.getInstance().setup();, FirefoxDriverManager.getInstance().setup();, and so on), although the 2.x fashion (WebDriverManager.chromedriver(), WebDriverManager.firefoxdriver(), and so on) is recommended.

Moreover, WebDriverManager provides a generic driver manager. This manager which can be parameterized using Selenium driver classes (e.g. org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver, org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver, etc), as follows:

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.WebDriverManager;

// ...

Class<? extends WebDriver> driverClass = ChromeDriver.class;
WebDriverManager.getInstance(driverClass).setup();
WebDriver driver = driverClass.newInstance();

This generic driver manager can be also parameterized using the enumeration DriverManagerType. For instance as follows:

import static io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.DriverManagerType.CHROME;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.WebDriverManager;

// ...

WebDriverManager.getInstance(CHROME).setup();
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

Examples

Check out the repository WebDriverManager Examples which contains different JUnit 4 test examples using WebDriverManager.

WebDriverManager API

WebDriverManager exposes its API by means of the builder pattern. This means that given a WebDriverManger instance, their capabilities can be tuned using different methods. The following table summarizes the WebDriverManager API, together with the equivalent configuration key:

Method Description Equivalent configuration key
version(String) By default, WebDriverManager tries to download the latest version of a given driver binary. A concrete version can be specified using this method. wdm.chromeDriverVersion, wdm.operaDriverVersion, wdm.internetExplorerDriverVersion, wdm.edgeDriverVersion, wdm.phantomjsDriverVersion, wdm.geckoDriverVersion
targetPath(String) Folder in which WebDriver binaries are stored (WedDriverManager cache). wdm.targetPath
forceCache() By default, WebDriverManager connects to the specific driver repository URL to find out what is the latest version of the binary. This can be avoided forcing to use the latest version form the local repository. wdm.forceCache=true
forceDownload() By default, WebDriverManager finds out the latest version of the binary, and then it uses the cached version if exists. This option forces to download again the binary even if it has been previously cached. wdm.override=true
useBetaVersions() By default, WebDriverManager skip beta versions. With this method, WebDriverManager will download also beta versions. wdm.useBetaVersions=true
architecture(Architecture) By default, WebDriverManager would try to use the proper binary for the platform running the test case (i.e. 32-bit or 64-bit). This behavior can be changed by forcing a given architecture: 32-bits (Architecture.x32) or 64-bits (Architecture.x64); wdm.architecture
arch32() Force to use the 32-bit version of a given driver binary. wdm.architecture=32
arch64() Force to use the 64-bit version of a given driver binary. wdm.architecture=64
operatingSystem(OperatingSystem) By default, WebDriverManager downloads the binary for the same operative systems than the machine running the test. This can be changed using this method (accepted values: WIN, LINUX, MAC). wdm.os=WIN, wdm.os=LINUX, wdm.os=MAC
driverRepositoryUrl(URL) This method allows to change the repository URL in which the binaries are hosted (see next section for default values). wdm.chromeDriverUrl, wdm.operaDriverUrl, wdm.internetExplorerDriverUrl, wdm.edgeDriverUrl, wdm.phantomjsDriverUrl, wdm.geckoDriverUrl
useMirror() The npm.taobao.org site is a mirror which hosts different software assets. Among them, it hosts chromedriver, geckodriver, operadriver, and phantomjs driver. Therefore, this method can be used for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and PhantomJS to force to use the taobao.org mirror. wdm.useMirror=true
proxy(String) Use a HTTP proxy for the Internet connection. wdm.proxy
proxyUser(String) Specify a username for HTTP proxy. wdm.proxyUser
proxyPass(String) Specify a password for HTTP proxy. wdm.proxyPass
ignoreVersions(String...) Ignore some versions to be downloaded. wdm.ignoreVersions
gitHubTokenName(String) Token name for authenticated requests (see "Known issues"). wdm.gitHubTokenName
gitHubTokenSecret(String) Secret for authenticated requests (see "Known issues"). wdm.gitHubTokenSecret
timeout(int) Timeout (in seconds) to connect and download binaries from online repositories wdm.timeout
properties(String) Properties file for configuration values (by default webdrivermanager.properties). wdm.properties
avoidExport() Avoid exporting JVM properties with the path of binaries (i.e. webdriver.chrome.driver, webdriver.gecko.driver, etc). Only recommended for interactive mode. wdm.avoidExport
avoidOutputTree() Avoid create tree structure for downloaded binaries (e.g. webdriver/chromedriver/linux64/2.37/ for chromedriver). Used by default in interactive mode. wdm.avoidOutputTree

The following table contains some examples:

Example Description
WebDriverManager.chromedriver().version("2.26").setup(); Force to use version 2.26 of chromedriver
WebDriverManager.firefoxdriver().arch32().setup(); Force to use the 32-bit version of geckodriver
WebDriverManager.operadriver().forceCache().setup(); Force to use the cache version of operadriver
WebDriverManager.phantomjs().useMirror().setup(); Force to use the taobao.org mirror to download phantomjs driver
WebDriverManager.chromedriver().proxy("server:port").setup(); Using proxy server:port for the connection

Three more methods are exposed by WebDriverManager, namely:

  • getVersions(): This method allows to find out the list of of available binary versions for a given browser.
  • getBinaryPath(): This method allows to find out the path of the latest resolved binary.
  • getDownloadedVersion(): This method allows to find out the version of the latest resolved binary.

Configuration

Configuration parameters for WebDriverManager are set in the webdrivermanager.properties file:

wdm.targetPath=~/.m2/repository/webdriver
wdm.forceCache=false
wdm.override=false
wdm.useMirror=false
wdm.useBetaVersions=false
wdm.avoidExport=false
wdm.avoidOutputTree=false
wdm.timeout=30

wdm.chromeDriverUrl=https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/
wdm.chromeDriverMirrorUrl=http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/chromedriver
wdm.chromeDriverExport=webdriver.chrome.driver

wdm.geckoDriverUrl=https://api.github.com/repos/mozilla/geckodriver/releases
wdm.geckoDriverMirrorUrl=http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/geckodriver
wdm.geckoDriverExport=webdriver.gecko.driver

wdm.operaDriverUrl=https://api.github.com/repos/operasoftware/operachromiumdriver/releases
wdm.operaDriverMirrorUrl=http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/operadriver
wdm.operaDriverExport=webdriver.opera.driver

wdm.phantomjsDriverUrl=https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/
wdm.phantomjsDriverMirrorUrl=http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/phantomjs
wdm.phantomjsDriverExport=phantomjs.binary.path

wdm.edgeDriverUrl=https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/webdriver/
wdm.edgeDriverExport=webdriver.edge.driver

wdm.internetExplorerDriverUrl=https://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/
wdm.internetExplorerDriverExport=webdriver.ie.driver

For instance, the variable wdm.targetPath is the default folder in which WebDriver binaries are going to be stored. By default the path of the Maven local repository is used. This property can be overwritten by Java system properties, for example:

System.setProperty("wdm.targetPath", "/my/custom/path/to/driver/binaries");

... or by command line, for example:

-Dwdm.override=true

By default, WebDriverManager downloads the latest version of the WebDriver binary. But concrete versions of WebDriver binaries can be forced by changing the value of the variables wdm.chromeDriverVersion, wdm.operaDriverVersion, wdm.internetExplorerDriverVersion, or wdm.edgeDriverVersion to a concrete version. For instance:

-Dwdm.chromeDriverVersion=2.25
-Dwdm.internetExplorerVersion=2.46
-Dwdm.operaDriverVersion=0.2.0
-Dwdm.edgeDriverVersion=3.14366
-Dwdm.phantomjsDriverVersion=2.1.1
-Dwdm.geckoDriverVersion=0.11.1

If no version is specified, WebDriverManager sends a request to the server hosting the binary. In order to avoid this request and check if any binary has been previously downloaded, the key wdm.forceCache can be used.

As of WebDriverManager 2, the value of these properties can be overridden by means of environmental variables. The name of these variables result from putting the name in uppercase and replacing the symbol . by _. For example, the property wdm.targetPath can be overridden by the environment variable WDM_TARGETPATH.

Moreover, as of WebDriverManager 2.2.x, configuration value can be customized using a configuration manager. This manager can be accessed using WebDriverManager.config(). For example:

WebDriverManager.config().setTargetPath("/path/to/my-wdm-cache");
WebDriverManager.config().setProperties("/path/to/my-wdm.properties");
WebDriverManager.config().setForceCache(true);
WebDriverManager.config().setOverride(true);

Interactive mode

As of version 2.2.0, WebDriverManager can used interactively from the shell to resolve and download binaries for the supported browsers. There are two ways of using this feature:

  • Directly from the source code, using Maven. The command to be used is mvn exec:java -Dexec.args="browserName". For instance:
> mvn exec:java -Dexec.args="chrome"
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building WebDriverManager 2.2.0
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec-maven-plugin:1.6.0:java (default-cli) @ webdrivermanager ---
[INFO] Using WebDriverManager to resolve chrome
[INFO] Reading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/ to seek chromedriver
[INFO] Latest version of chromedriver is 2.37
[INFO] Downloading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.37/chromedriver_win32.zip to folder D:\projects\webdrivermanager
[INFO] Binary driver after extraction D:\projects\webdrivermanager\chromedriver.exe
[INFO] Resulting binary D:\projects\webdrivermanager\chromedriver.exe
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 7.306 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2018-03-23T09:53:58+01:00
[INFO] Final Memory: 17M/247M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  • Using WebDriverManager as a fat-jar. This jar can be created using the command mvn compile assembly:single from the source code, and then java -jar webdrivermanager.jar browserName . For instance:
> java -jar webdrivermanager-2.2.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar chrome
[INFO] Using WebDriverManager to resolve chrome
[INFO] Reading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/ to seek chromedriver
[INFO] Latest version of chromedriver is 2.37
[INFO] Downloading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.37/chromedriver_win32.zip to folder D:\projects\webdrivermanager
[INFO] Resulting binary D:\projects\webdrivermanager\target\chromedriver.exe

HTTP Proxy

If you use an HTTP Proxy in your Internet connection, you can configure your settings by exporting the Java environment variable HTTPS_PROXY using the following notation: my.http.proxy:1234 or username:password@my.http.proxy:1234. Also you can configure username and password using environment variables (HTTPS_PROXY_USER and HTTPS_PROXY_PASS).

Known Issues

Some of the binaries (for Opera and Firefox) are hosted on GitHub. When several consecutive requests are made by WebDriverManager, GitHub servers return an HTTP 403 error response as follows:

Caused by: java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 403 for URL: https://api.github.com/repos/operasoftware/operachromiumdriver/releases
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream0(HttpURLConnection.java:1840)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1441)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:254)
    at io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.BrowserManager.openGitHubConnection(BrowserManager.java:463)
    at io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.OperaDriverManager.getDrivers(OperaDriverManager.java:55)
    at io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.BrowserManager.manage(BrowserManager.java:168)

Caused by: java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 403 for URL: https://api.github.com/repos/mozilla/geckodriver/releases
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream0(HttpURLConnection.java:1840)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1441)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:254)
    at io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.FirefoxDriverManager.getDrivers(FirefoxDriverManager.java:61)
    at io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.BrowserManager.manage(BrowserManager.java:163)

In order to avoid this problem, authenticated requests should be done. The procedure is the following:

  1. Create a token/secret pair in your GitHub account
  2. Tell WebDriverManager the value of this pair token/secret. To do that you should use the configuration keys wdm.gitHubTokenName and wdm.gitHubTokenSecret. You can pass them as command line Java parameters as follows:
-Dwdm.gitHubTokenName=<your-token-name>
-Dwdm.gitHubTokenSecret=<your-token-secret>

... or as environment variables (e.g. in Travis CI) as follows:

WDM_GITHUBTOKENNAME=<your-token-name>
WDM_GITHUBTOKENSECRET=<your-token-secret>

Help

If you have questions on how to use WebDriverManager properly with a special configuration or suchlike, please consider asking a question on Stack Overflow and tag it with webdrivermanager-java.

About

WebDriverManager (Copyright © 2015-2018) is a project created by Boni Garcia and licensed under the terms of the Apache 2.0 License. Comments, questions and suggestions are always very welcome!