SELENIUM GRID

 

SELENIUM GRIDE 

    Selenium Grid is a tool that distributes the tests across multiple physical or virtual machines so that we can execute scripts in parallel (simultaneously). It dramatically accelerates the testing process across browsers and across platforms by giving us quick and accurate feedback.

    
    Selenium Grid allows us to execute multiple instances of WebDriver or Selenium Remote Control tests in parallel which uses the same code base, hence the code need NOT be present on the system they execute. The selenium-serverstandalone package includes Hub, WebDriver, and Selenium RC to execute the scripts in grid.

Selenium Grid has a Hub and a Node. 
  • Hub - The hub can also be understood as a server which acts as the central point where the tests would be triggered. A Selenium Grid has only one Hub and it is launched on a single machine once. 
  •  Node - Nodes are the Selenium instances that are attached to the Hub which execute the tests. There can be one or more nodes in a grid which can be of any OS and can contain any of the Selenium supported browsers.
 ARCHITECTURE

The following diagram shows the architecture of Selenium Grid.

WORKING WITH GRID

    In order to work with the Grid, we need to follow certain protocols. Listed below are the major steps involved in this process: 
  •  Configuring the Hub 
  •  Configuring the Nodes 
  •  Develop the Script and Prepare the XML File 
  • Test Execution 
  • Result Analysis 
Let us discuss each of these steps in detail.

CONFIGURE THE HUB

Step 1 : Download the latest Selenium Server standalone JAR file from http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/. Download it by clicking on the version as shown below.
Step 2 : Start the Hub by launching the Selenium Server using the following command. Now we will use the port '4444' to start the hub. 
Note : Ensure that there are no other applications that are running on port# 4444.
Step 3 : Now open the browser and navigate to the URL http//localhost:4444 from the Hub (The system where you have executed Step#2).
Step 4 : Now click on the 'console' link and click 'view config'. The config of the hub would be displayed as follows. As of now, we haven't got any nodes, hence we will not be able to see the details.

CONFIGURE THE NODES

Step 1 : Logon to the node (where you would like to execute the scripts) and place the 'selenium-server-standalone-2.42.2' in a folder. We need to point to the selenium-server-standalone JAR while launching the nodes.
Step 2 : Launch FireFox Node using the following command. 
Step 3 : After executing the command, come back to the Hub. Navigate to the URL - http://10.30.217.157:4444 and the Hub would now display the node attached to it.
Step 4 : Now let us launch the Internet Explorer Node. For launching the IE Node, we need to have the Internet Explorer driver downloaded on the node machine. 
Step 5 : To download the Internet Explorer driver, navigate to http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/ and download the appropriate file based on the architecture of your OS. After you have downloaded, unzip the exe file and place it in a folder which has to be referred while launching IE nodes.  
Step 6 : Launch IE using the following command
Step 7 : After executing the command, come back to the Hub. Navigate to the URL - http://10.30.217.157:4444 and the Hub would now display the IE node attached to it
Step 8 : Let us now launch the Chrome Node. For launching the Chrome Node, we need to have the Chrome driver downloaded on the node machine. 
Step 9 : To download the Chrome Driver, navigate to http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/ and then navigate to Third Party Browser Drivers area and click on the version number '2.10' as shown below.
Step 10 : Download the driver based on the type of your OS. We will execute it on Windows environment, hence we will download the Windows Chrome Driver. After you have downloaded, unzip the exe file and place it in a folder which has to be referred while launching chrome nodes.
Step 11 : Launch Chrome using the following command.
Step 12 : After executing the command, come back to the Hub. Navigate to the URL - http://10.30.217.157:4444 and the Hub would now display the chrome node attached to it.

DEVELOP THE SCRIPT AND PREPARE THE XML FILE

Step 1 : We will develop a test using TestNG. In the following example, we will launch each one of those browsers using remote WebDriver. It can pass on their capabilities to the driver so that the driver has all the information to execute on Nodes.
Step 2 : The Browser parameter will be passed using XML. Create an XML under the project folder.
Step 3 : Select 'File' from 'General' and click 'Next'.
Step 4 : Enter the name of the file and click 'Finish'.
Step 5 : TestNg.XML is created under the project folder as shown below
Step 6 : The contents of the XML file are shown below. We create 3 tests and put them in a suite and mention parallel="tests" so that all the tests would be executed in parallel.

TEST EXECUTION

Step 1 : Select the created XML; right-click and choose 'Run As' >> 'TestNG Suite'.
Step 2 : Now open the Node, where we have launched all the browser nodes. You will see all the three browsers in execution simultaneously.

RESULT ANALYSIS 

Step 1 : Upon completing the execution, we can analyze the result like any other execution. The result summary is printed in the console as shown in the following snapshot.
Step 2 : Navigate to the 'Results of Running Suite' Tab and TestNG would display the result summary.

Step 3 : Upon generating the HTML, we will be able to see the test results in HTML format.