Chromecast WebDriver Server

A WebDriver server for Chromecast, implementing the subset of the WebDriver protocol necessary for Karma. Add Chromecast to your Selenium grid!

Part of the Generic WebDriver Server family.

Installation

npm install --save-dev generic-webdriver-server chromecast-webdriver-server

Usage

First, please refer to the "Setup" doc for Generic WebDriver Server. That will explain how to set up Selenium to talk to Generic WebDriver Servers, as well as how to set server parameters.

In the command-line for the Selenium node, set the following Java system properties:

• genericwebdriver.browser.name: We recommend the value "chromecast". See also notes in the "Setup" doc.
• genericwebdriver.backend.exe: The path to the executable, such as node_modules/chromecast-webdriver-server/chromecast-webdriver-server.js
• genericwebdriver.backend.params.hostname: The hostname or IP address of the Chromecast device, with optional port number. If omitted, this must be provided in the client's desired capabilities instead. (See below.)

Supported parameters

This backend supports the following parameters:

• hostname: (required) The hostname or IP address of the Chromecast device, with optional port number.
• receiver-app-id: The receiver app ID to load, in case you want to host your own copy. (See also receiver-deployment.md)
• redirect: Use a redirect strategy instead of an iframe; requires the Cast SDK to be loaded at the destination URL. Use this for Shaka Player testing.
• idle-timeout-seconds: The timeout for idle sessions, after which they will be closed.
• connection-timeout-seconds: The connection timeout for the Chromecast, after which the corresponding WebDriver operation will fail.

Chromecast receiver deployment

Deploying your own copy of the Chromecast receiver is completely optional. Doing so would allow you to:

1. Make changes to the receiver app that affect your clients
2. Not depend on github.io being up or accessible from your network

Unless you need one of these things, we recommend using the default receiver app ID, which points to a copy served by github.io.

To learn how to deploy your own copy of the Chromecast Receiver, see receiver-deployment.md for details.

How it works

See how-it-works.md for details.

Tunneling to a Chromecast on another network

See tunneling.md for details.

Using the CLI

In addition to running a Chromecast node in Selenium, this package offers a CLI for directing a Chromecast to a specific URL. For example, if installed globally with npm install -g chromecast-webdriver-server:

chromecast-webdriver-cli --hostname=192.168.1.42 \
  --url=https://shaka-player-demo.appspot.com/demo/

Access Limitations

We show an arbitrary URL on the device by embedding it into an iframe in our Chromecast receiver app. However, sites can prevent iframe-embedding with the X-Frame-Options header.

Though this should not be an issue for a test runner, this may affect other URLs. Unfortunately, there is no way for the receiver app to detect when this has happened. See: https://github.com/shaka-project/generic-webdriver-server/issues/8