xvfbwrapper

Manage headless displays with Xvfb (X virtual framebuffer)

Info:

Dev: https://github.com/cgoldberg/xvfbwrapper
Releases: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/xvfbwrapper
Author: Corey Goldberg - 2012-2017
License: MIT

About xvfbwrapper:

xvfbwrapper is a python module for controlling virtual displays with Xvfb.

What is 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.

Install xvfbwrapper from PyPI:

pip install xvfbwrapper

System Requirements:

X11 Windowing System
Xvfb (sudo apt-get install xvfb, yum install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb, etc)
Python 2.7 or 3.3+

Examples

Basic Usage:

from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb

vdisplay = Xvfb()
vdisplay.start()

# launch stuff inside virtual display here.

vdisplay.stop()

Basic Usage, specifying display geometry:

from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb

vdisplay = Xvfb(width=1280, height=740)
vdisplay.start()

# launch stuff inside virtual display here.

vdisplay.stop()

Usage as a Context Manager:

from xvfbwrapper import Xvfb

with Xvfb() as xvfb:
    # launch stuff inside virtual display here.
    # Xvfb will stop when this block completes

Testing Example: Headless Selenium WebDriver Tests:

This 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()