#browsermob proxy

[grotechminds]

Using BrowserMob Proxy with Selenium in Python: Network Traffic Monitoring

Using BrowserMob Proxy with Selenium in Python: Network Traffic Monitoring

In the realm of Software testing , Selenium WebDriver and Python automation testing, the integration of BrowserMob Proxy introduces a powerful dimension – network traffic monitoring. Join us on a journey where we unravel the secrets of optimizing your Selenium tests with Python by keeping a close eye on your application's network interactions.

Introduction

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes when your Selenium tests run? BrowserMob Proxy is here to demystify the network layer of your application. Let's explore how this tool, coupled with Selenium in Python, enables comprehensive network traffic monitoring for a more robust testing experience.

Why Monitor Network Traffic?

Before diving into the technicalities, let's ponder: Why should we monitor network traffic? Imagine your application as a bustling city, and each network request as a vehicle navigating through the streets. BrowserMob Proxy acts as your traffic cop, ensuring smooth flow and identifying potential bottlenecks in your application's journey.

Unveiling BrowserMob Proxy: The Traffic Cop

What is BrowserMob Proxy?

Meet BrowserMob Proxy – your trusted traffic cop in the world of Selenium and Python. Learn how this open-source tool intercepts and captures HTTP traffic, providing valuable insights into your application's network interactions.

Setting the Stage: Installation and Configuration

Step-by-Step Setup Guide

Let's get hands-on! Follow our step-by-step guide to installing and configuring BrowserMob Proxy seamlessly with Selenium in Python. Get ready to take control of your application's network flow.

Understanding Network Traffic Logs

Decoding Network Logs

Once BrowserMob Proxy is in action, understanding the generated network logs is crucial. Dive deep into decoding these logs and extracting meaningful information about your application's communication.

Visualizing Traffic Data: A Comparative Approach

Visualize the impact of BrowserMob Proxy by comparing network data before and after its integration. Understand how monitoring traffic enhances your ability to identify performance bottlenecks and potential issues.

Leveraging Data for Test Optimization

Enhancing Test Scenarios with Network Data

Discover how to leverage the captured network data to optimize your test scenarios. Uncover strategies for enhancing your Selenium tests in Python by incorporating insights from BrowserMob Proxy.

Advanced Features: Going Beyond the Basics

Intercepting Requests and Responses

Take your network monitoring to the next level by learning how to intercept requests and responses. BrowserMob Proxy empowers you to analyze and manipulate the communication between your application and servers.

Simulating Network Conditions

Explore the art of simulating different network conditions using BrowserMob Proxy. Test your application's resilience by mimicking scenarios like slow connections or dropped packets.

Troubleshooting: Common Network-related Issues

Overcoming Network Challenges

Just like a city with traffic jams, your application might face network-related challenges. Navigate through common issues and explore solutions to ensure smooth and reliable Selenium tests.

Conclusion

As we conclude our journey through BrowserMob Proxy and Automation Testing with Python , the significance of network traffic monitoring becomes clear. Empower your testing strategy by adding this traffic cop to your Selenium ensemble, ensuring your applications navigate the digital streets seamlessly.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q1: How does BrowserMob Proxy benefit Selenium test automation?

BrowserMob Proxy provides insights into network interactions during Selenium tests, helping identify performance bottlenecks and potential issues.

Q2: Can BrowserMob Proxy be used with other programming languages?

Yes, BrowserMob Proxy is language-agnostic, making it compatible with various programming languages beyond Python.

Q3: Does monitoring network traffic impact test execution speed?

While there may be a slight overhead due to network monitoring, the benefits of identifying issues outweigh the minimal impact on test execution speed.

Q4: Can BrowserMob Proxy capture HTTPS traffic?

Yes, BrowserMob Proxy is equipped to capture both HTTP and HTTPS traffic, offering comprehensive insights into encrypted communication.

Q5: Is network monitoring essential for all Selenium tests?

Network monitoring is particularly beneficial for tests where the application's performance, interactions, or dependencies on external resources are critical.

In conclusion, BrowserMob Proxy seamlessly integrates with Selenium in Python, offering a valuable tool for monitoring and optimizing your application's network traffic. Embrace this synergy to elevate your testing strategies and ensure a smoother automation testing journey for your applications.

[browserup-blog]

New Post has been published on BrowserUp

New Post has been published on http://browserup.com/post-ideas/

Post ideas

– Every error code and meaning during load/performance testing

– A master table with all error code and meanings summary linking to the other pages

– All major browsermob proxy errors

– Examples of each thing you could do with browserup proxy

– Performance Assertions

– Network Assertions

[ultraprivateproxyreviews]

Proxies for Selenium

Are you plan to use browsermob-proxy with Selenium for HTTP(s) request data fetching? Or maybe want to know which type of proxies are the best for Selenium automated testing, And what’s proxy settings are required for selenium grid?

What is Selenium? 

Selenium is a browser automation tool that allows you to automate activities in different types of browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

It also supports a majority of operating systems and programming languages such as Java, C#, Ruby, Python, and JavaScript.

A headless browser is a web browser without a user interface that is commonly used by developers, quality assurance teams and engineers to emulate specific scenarios and tests their results.

In regards to installation and use, Selenium requires some technical skills in terms of understanding web technologies and APIs.  With Selenium WebDriver you can upload or download files, work with pop-ups and overcome dialog barriers.

Why use Selenium for your test automation? 

Using Selenium, developers are able to emulate a behavior and follow the results with no limitations in terms of integration of other add-ons.

Selenium is the most flexible tool in terms of automation and functionality. It provides a blank slate and therefore the ability to create the exact environment a developer needs for the most accurate testing environment.

A headless browser like Selenium lacks types of software like Flash Player and digital rights management. These types of scripts can send information about the specific PC being used and by removing them altogether, you can increase your anonymity which will increase the success rate of your operations.

Websites compare information from your PC and check sessions with cookies. These sites, when using API, require a new cookie every few requests, the same user agent, and even the same accept-language.

A broken user agent or lack thereof may trigger an error response by the target website. By properly configuring Selenium, you can access and automate your operations with any target site for any reasonable scenario.

Why do you require proxies for Selenium? 

Selenium allows you to code all aspects of your computer, software, and fingerprints, but you cannot code your IP address.

Selenium itself does not support HTTP/HTTPS request fetching, But lots of guys are really want to use Selenium to do that, BrowserMobProxy is most recommended proxy manager for Selenium to handle your http(s) requests.

Without altering your IP address, no matter the settings or features used, you can be easily traced. Using Selenium with an IPPN (IP Proxy Network) will provide the complete anonymity desired in a testing environment.

Also, if your UI testing projects that do really need the proxies, You’ll most likely need Selenium Grid – To help you distributed and parallel Tests Execution, Use the proxies for Selenium Grid will help you save lots of time!

Residential proxies are real-user IPs which have all the characteristics needed for accurate testing. By resolving DNS at the peer, utilizing a headless browser like Selenium and applying the appropriate settings, your operations and tests will be completely anonymous and provide an unbiased view.

Not only does an IPPN provide the anonymity required in testing, but it also ensures that sites, apps, and types of software work as expected in different geo locations and across multiple devices.

Why choose Luminati as your IPPN?

Luminati offers the largest network of residential IPs with 35+ million IPs across the globe with country and city targeting. As a leader in the IPPN market, Luminati has multiple networks including rotating residential, ISP (static residential) IPs, Mobile and Data Center, offering a one-stop-solution for all your proxy needs.

With Luminati’s proprietary technology and powerful software –  Luminati Proxy Manager, you can automate your operations in their entirety.

The Luminati Proxy Manager is free, open-source software that is easily integrated through API and provides automatic auto-retry of IPs, automatic routing through multiple network types, and the ability to manipulate IPs without any coding.

How to connect Selenium with Luminati’s Proxy networks?

Let you show you step to steps, There are 2 ways to set up Luminati proxies on Selenium webdriver, One is using Proxy API (Super proxy), the other uses Luminati Proxy Manager (Really powerful)!

Luminati Super Proxy and Selenium Integration

Create a zone within your Luminati Dashboard

Select a ‘Network type’ and click save.

Within Selenium fill in the ‘Proxy IP:Port’ in the ‘setProxy’ function. For example, zproxy.lum-superproxy.io:22225 of both HTTP and https.

Under ‘sendKeys’ input your Luminati account ID and proxy zone name: lum-customer-CUSTOMER-zone-YOURZONE and your zone password found in the zone settings.

For example:

const {Builder, By, Key, until} = require(‘selenium-webdriver’); const proxy = require(‘selenium-webdriver/proxy’); (async function example(){ let driver = await new Builder().forBrowser(‘firefox’).setProxy(proxy.manual({ http: ‘zproxy.lum-superproxy.io:22225’, https: ‘zproxy.lum-superproxy.io:22225’ })).build() try { await driver.get(‘https://ift.tt/2jRrTOY); driver.switchTo().alert() .sendKeys(‘lum-customer-USERNAME-zone-YOURZONE’+Key.TAB+’PASSWORD’); driver.switchTo().alert().accept(); } finally { await driver.quit(); } })();

Luminati Proxy Manager and Selenium Integration

Create a zone with the network, IP type, and number of IPs you wish to use.

Install the Luminati Proxy Manager.

Click ‘add new proxy’ and choose the zone and settings you require, then click ‘save’.

In Selenium under the setProxy input your local IP and proxy manager port (i.e. 127.0.0.1:24000)

The local host IP is 127.0.0.1

The port created in the Luminati Proxy Manager is 24XXX, for example, 24000

Leave the username and password fields empty, as the Luminati Proxy Manager has already been authenticated with the Super Proxy.

For example:

const {Builder, By, Key, until} = require(‘selenium-webdriver’); const proxy = require(‘selenium-webdriver/proxy’); (async function example(){ let driver = await new Builder().forBrowser(‘firefox’).setProxy(proxy.manual({ http: ‘127.0.0.1:24000’, https: ‘127.0.0.1:24000’ })).build() try { await driver.get(‘https://ift.tt/2jRrTOY); driver.switchTo().alert().accept(); } finally { await driver.quit(); } })();

If you are a developer, engineer, or work in quality assurance, using Luminati’s networks simultaneously with the Selenium headless browser will provide the perfect environment for testing.

Together all, every aspect of a request can be coded, ensuring the most accurate results needed in rigorous testing and a true understanding of usability.

The post Proxies for Selenium appeared first on PrivateProxyReviews.com.

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[plightbo]

BrowserMob Proxy 2.0 beta 9 released!

I can't believe it's been 6 months since the last release already! Though considering that I have a four month old infant (along with a 2 year old) it shouldn't surprise me that time seems to be flying by.

Anyway, lots of new stuff in this release:

Various improvements to make sure the HAR output matches the latest 1.2 spec

A bunch of improvements to the REST API (with docs!)

Replaced the User-Agent parser with one that won't take down the proxy if the online UA service is having trouble

Advanced feature to define which address to bind each individual proxy to

Bug fixes: concurrency problems, charset fixes, better logging, more tests, and more.

Note: in this release the request/response interceptor interfaces have been modified to take a second argument (Har). If you use the Java interfaces you'll need to update your code. If you use the JavaScript REST interface (introduced in the last release) you don't have to do anything.

As usual, you can find the latest download at http://bmp.lightbody.net.

[browserup-blog]

New Post has been published on browserup blog

New Post has been published on http://browserup.com/blog/brotli-support-in-the-browserupbrowsermob-proxy/

Brotli Support in the BrowserUp/BrowserMob Proxy

We are happy to announce Brotli support in the BrowserUp Proxy. The BrowserUp proxy is our fork of the BrowserMob proxy.

Brotli is an open source compression scheme by Google that offers superior compression capabilities over GZIP, the most popular alternative.  At present, if you load either Google or Facebook, you’ll get web pages sent to you with Brotli compression.  Previously, the proxy would ignore the content of text in Brotli (br) encoded pages.

    Many sites are moving or have already moved to Brotli, and for good reason. Take a look at how much Brotli compression will reduce the size of your content. If you’re interested in better web performance, Brotli compression is something you should look at.

Along with Brotli support, we added in a couple other community PR’s, like a fix for Basic Auth credentials leaks in the proxy, and support for JSON content types with versions in the name into the new version. Give it a try!

<!-- if(wpa2a)wpa2a.script_load(); //-->

[browserup-blog]

New Post has been published on browserup blog

New Post has been published on http://browserup.com/blog/browserup-proxy-release-1-1/

BrowserUp Proxy Release 1.1

We recently released version 1.1 of the BrowserUp Proxy. BrowserUp Proxy is a free utility to watch, test, and manipulate web application network traffic and performance.

The BrowserUp proxy is based on a fork of the BrowserMob Proxy, an open source project which hasn’t had a release in a few years. It uses the same API as BrowserMob Proxy’s REST API. It should work as a drop in replacement if you’re using the older BrowserMob Client Libraries  We’re excited to build, add to it, and make it our own.

Our new point release features:

ZIP distribution with launch scripts, SSL certificates and keys

Dependency updates

[browserup-blog]

New Post has been published on browserup blog

New Post has been published on http://browserup.com/blog/announcement-an-actively-maintained-fork-of-the-browsermob-proxy/

Announcement: An actively maintained fork of the BrowserMob Proxy!

We are pleased to announce our new fork of the BrowserMob Proxy, renamed the BrowserUp Proxy. The BrowserMob Proxy played a vital role in the Selenium testing ecosystem by allowing access to network request data, but it has unfortunately not been updated for a couple years.

The commercial load testing and monitoring company which maintained the project, BrowserMob, was acquired by a company named Neustar, and while the proxy had some great community support for a while, the main fork hasn’t been updated since 2016. As an example of how this poses a problem, HTTP2 support has been needed sorely and is still missing from the proxy. Additionally, it would not compile against Java 11.

We have no relationship to BrowserMob or their acquirer. We do have a love of real browser testing and browsers, though. Since we are planning to put a lot of effort into the proxy, we decided to brand this fork under our own name, BrowserUp.

What are our plans for the BrowserUp Proxy? HTTP2 support, which you can see now. Bug fixes. Websocket support.  Modern dependency updates. Apache 2.0 license like it has always had. And… a lot of crazy new features that we will announce soon! Hint: Some are already done and can be found on the repo.

[plightbo]

The Future of BMP

TL;DR — I’m leaving BMP but I hope the project continues under new leadership. I have some ideas about what work needs to happen and I’m here to help with the transition. Read more…

Over the last year I’ve come to two conclusions:

I am personally no longer able to commit the time necessary to maintain the BMP project, primarily because of Real Life: two young daughters (1.5yo an 3.5yo) and an increasingly-demanding day job.

The BMP codebase is somewhere between “middle-aged” (the SiteBricks / REST API layer) and “decrepit” (see history below).

Given these two facts, I’ve decided that the best thing for the project and the community is for me to (gradually) retire from the project.

I don’t want to leave the community in a lurch, so my hope is to recommend a technical direction (outlined here) and nominate a number of recent, active BMP contributors to carry the torch. 

I will, however, not be responding to any open pull requests or incoming support questions on the mailing list starting immediately. My commitment is that I support anyone else who wishes to continue this project or start up a similar-but-alternative one.

But first, a bit of history…

BMP (aka BrowserMob Proxy) dates way, way back… about ~10 years ago, when Selenium was first getting off the ground. You may not know, but Selenium wasn’t aways offered as a native “Web Driver” to various browsers. Back then, it was a simple JavaScript library that ran inside the web application.

Some of the committers (myself included) realized that this approach was limited and required that the application under test bundle Selenium inside of it. In order to bypass that requirement, we created an HTTP proxy injected the JavaScript in to each header of each page load and did all sorts of tricky stuff. Eventually we started doing really funky stuff, like doing man-in-the-middle “attacks” so that we could inject in to SSL. 

Meanwhile, I began to get in to performance monitoring and load testing and realized that the proxy could be modified to serve my desire to measure HTTP request performance. I ended up starting two separate startups and forking the Selenium code to serve my needs. While during my second startup (BrowserMob) I realized that it would be helpful if other people could get performance data from their Selenium tests, so I forked the Selenium code a third time and BrowserMob Proxy (BMP) was born.

I tell all this history partly because I’m a bit nostalgic as this is the last remnant of code I’ve dabbled with for a decade, but also partly because it helps explain why the project has the features and cruft that it has.

The Features aka The Good

Because of my participation and leadership in the web performance market, I learned a lot about the features people need when doing performance testing. Some of these features can only be done through an HTTP proxy. I won’t outline all of them (consult the docs or API if you want a full list), but the main ones I think matter are:

SSL support!

Control over DNS lookup behavior

Bandwidth simulation

Injecting headers in the request and response

Handling authentication

Backlisting individual URLs and URL patterns

And of course: extracting performance data in a useful format (HAR)

Any one of these features can be done using non-proxy technology, but it’s hard and requires multiple complex pieces of software to do it all. That’s why I believe that for general purpose usage, the approach BMP takes is a good one for most people. That said, I do discuss alternatives (proxy and non-proxy alike) in a moment.

The Cruft aka The Bad

There are two fundamental problems with BMP:

I’m a mediocre programmer :) Seriously, the code base is monolithic and tangled, making it harder to maintain than it should be.

It depends on a very old chunk of Jetty code that was created and donated by Jetty founder, Greg Wilkins, ages ago.

Issue #1 isn’t too big of an issue: we just need to get some better programmers involved, which has already been happening. 

Issue #2 is more challenging: in order to maintain SSL support and ensure that BMP works reliably with modern stuff like, say, WebSockets, we need to have a more modern proxy engine, but we’re unable to upgrade to something newer, including Jetty.

This is because the SslRelay code that does the man-in-the-middle termination is incredibly complex and hard to reproduce, especially with newer web servers like Jetty and Netty, that use async. 

The concept of the code is simple, but I will be the first to admit that I’ve never fully understood the deep, dark corners of the Jetty 5 codebase on which it depends and I’ve fortunately been able to simply tweak Greg’s code over the years.

Recommendation

My recommendation is that BMP needs a major overhaul — probably a complete rewrite. In particular, I believe that BMP could become a nice performance-oriented project that wraps around LitteProxy.

LittleProxy can do most/all of the basic proxy stuff BMP needs, including SSL, and it has most of the necessary callbacks/extensions to support the BMP features. It may be missing a few things, but I believe those can be addressed by contributing to LittleProxy and leaving BMP to focus on the clean, performance-oriented wrapper around it.

Writing it out it doesn’t sound like much, but in fact this is a considerable amount of work!

In addition to this core proxy work, I also think the project would benefit from pulling apart the core server from the client driver(s) for each programming language. On top of that, a nice web-based GUI could be incredibly useful for people just getting started or for people doing exploratory testing.

Alternatives

I believe that BMP is the best choice for most performance testing needs, but it would be prudent to call attention to some important alternatives.

On the proxy side of the house, there is Charles Proxy and Fiddler, which are both much more popular and well-known. The main downside for both of them is they don’t have all the features I outlined and they (IMO) are not quite as easily embedded inside of test automation systems.

More importantly, there are some interesting non-proxy solutions that should be considered, especially if you don’t need all the features of BMP and just want performance data.

If you’re using PhantomJS + GhostDriver, consider the getLog() API and ask for the type “har” and you’ll get back a very nice HAR file with all the timings of the assets.

If you’re using ChromeDriver, there is some really in-depth performance data available, though sadly not in the convenient HAR format.

If you’re using Firefox, with a little elbow grease you can get FireBug + the NetExport plugin to leave HAR files behind in a folder or sent to a beacon after every page load.

And lastly, many modern browsers now support the Resource Timing spec, which means you can make the JavaScript call of “window.performance.getEntries()” and get back individual timings for most assets on the page. Sadly, response code and file size are not included.

The New Guard

So who will carry the torch? I’m not sure! But the good news is that there have been a number of contributors and commercial organizations using BMP over the last few years. In particular, three individuals stand out: andyclark, jekh, and nite23.

I’ve already granted all three commit rights to the codebase and I hope that at least one of them steps up and carries forward the BMP vision. If they do, I’ll be here to help them along the way.

[plightbo]

BrowserMob Proxy 2.0 beta 8 released!

It's been a few months and it was pretty obvious a new release of BrowserMob Proxy was in order. If you're impatient, you can get it here and skip this announcement. 

The most important thing to note is that I've forked the project back in to my personal Github repository. In addition, the website has been moved to bmp.lightbody.net. I did this simply because I no longer work at Neustar/Webmetrics and I'm the primary committer to this project, so I figured I should keep it where I know I'll have control over it.

Now to what's new:

A brand new test suite so I can finally make sure I'm not breaking anything too badly

Restored Java 6 compatibility, which broke in beta 7

Binary content can now be captured, resulting in base64 encoded content in the HAR body

We no longer modify the User-Agent header (it used to insert "BrowserMob RBU" in to it)

Post data (URL encoded and raw content) is now reliably captured in the HAR

This release also includes some REST API improvements:

Request/response interceptors can now be set via the REST API using a simple JavaScript scripting language (needs documentation still)

Automatic BASIC authentication can now be controlled via REST

Waiting for network activity to stop can now be accessed via REST

Network activity control, such as maxBitsPerSecond, is now accessible via REST

Control over connection timeouts is now available via REST

And more!

PS: Someday I'll get back in to more interesting blogging, but for now I'm just happy to post something :)