Running Selenium Server & ChromeDriver as a Windows Service

Question

So that we may perform front-to-back web UI testing, we are using Selenium and ChromeDriver to automate page loads / interaction as part of our testing pack.

This

Answer 1

You cannot run Selenium Grid as a windows service ever since Windows Vista. Microsoft calls it "Session 0 Isolation". You could do it in Windows 2000 or XP but since the time that Vista came out, Microsoft no longer will let Grid interact with the desktop (or any other UI programs for that matter). Regardless of the fact that you still see that "interact with desktop" checkbox, it is a red herring. So, you MUST run Selenium Grid in the foreground on that server in order for it to get access to the session. If it is running Windows Server, you could in theory have multiple sessions and leave Grid running in the foreground on one of the non-zero user sessions.

Answer 2

As I explained on this thread, I found that using a small paid tool FireDaemon Pro saved me a lot of time from trying to configure NSSM and other free tools.

It works well in the background, and restarts Selenium along with the server, which was my main requirement for running Selenium Standalone Server as a Windows Service.

Answer 3

This free tool would probably do it: http://yajsw.sourceforge.net/

For that to work, you need a wrapper.conf file and a script to run the YAJSW wrapper. I takes time to read the documentation, but it is a free solution.

I wrote an example shared here, that installs JBoss7 as a Windows service.

Of course, you can simplify my example by a lot.

Answer 4

Right now you can't help it - it used to work fine in session 0 but for the past few days after chrome update only works for interactive sessions.

Related bugs:

https://code.google.com/p/selenium/issues/detail?id=8029 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=422218

Answer 5

My preferred solution to this problem (and my default choice for running Selenium Grid as a service) is to use a simple tool called AlwaysUp. It has a free 30 day trial to try it out.

What to do:

• Download AlwaysUp
• Configure AlwaysUp to start the Selenium Grid node on startup
• Configure AlwaysUp to run the Selenium node as a specific user (not the default System user)

This way the the node will run as a service, survive machine restarts and work with the latest version Chrome.

If the user account you use to login to the machine is different from the user account you specify to run the node as a service then you will not see the browsers pop up on the desktop as they are running in a different user session. The end result is that it is almost identical to running as a normal service but gets round the Session 0 issue.

Answer 6

Yeah, you should use NSSM. Important is, that you add your windows account in the "Log on" tab, or any other valid account. If you run your node with the "Local System account" option, you will get the session 0 problem. With a normal user session, the nodes run smoothly invisible in the background :)