Manage modern.ie VirtualBox-Appliances with Selenium-Support

This script allows to delete and create virtual Windows-Machines using Images from https://www.modern.ie for automating Browser-Testing with Selenium.

As the modern.ie-Machines refuses to run more than 30-90 Days (at least for more than an hour) we remove the machines on a regular basis and recreate the original Appliance with all changes needed to run Selenium.

• modern.ie VBox-Appliances
• VirtualBox (tested with 4.3)
• VirtualBox Extension Pack
• Selenium-Hub
• deuac.iso
• IEDriverServer (for Selenium)
• chromedriver (for Selenium)
• Java JRE (for Selenium)
• Selenium Standalone Server
• Optional: phpVirtualBox

• Import modern.ie Appliances to VirtualBox
• Configure VM Network-Settings
• Configure VM RDP-Port-Setting (VRDE)
• Configure VM Clipboard behaviour
• Disable UAC
• Disable Windows-Firewall
• Rename the VM (Hostname)
• Configures IE Protected-Mode to work with Selenium
• Disables IE Cache
• Install Java
• Install Firefox
• Install Chrome
• Install Selenium
• Reports via E-Mail

• Download modern.ie Appliances
• Set up VirtualBox

• Clone this repository.
• Download the Appliance(s) you want to use from https://www.modern.ie/ and put the extracted OVA-Files on your Server. You can use the Makefile (see below)
• Get the Windows Java (JRE) Installer and Selenium Server Standalone (JAR) and put them beside the OVA-Files (or somewhere else).
• Get deuac.iso (https://github.com/tka/SeleniumBox/blob/master/deuac.iso).
• Get IEDriverServer.exe (https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/InternetExplorerDriver) and put it in ./Tools/selenium_conf/.
• Get chromedriver.exe (https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/ChromeDriver) and put it in ./Tools/selenium_conf/.
• Get Chrome and Firefox, place both in ./Tools/.
• Edit the Selenium Config-Files (./Tools/Selenium_conf/*/config.json).
• Edit the Config-Section in mkvm.sh so it fits your needs (see below for details).
• Run mkvm.sh /path/to/your/appliance/foobar.ova.

You can get a lot of the VMs (currently IE8-11 on Windows 7) using this command:

make fetch_vms

I've changed this from the original repository so that it uses a separate config script so that you can keep a local config script and not have to hack the main file.

So look in config.sh

If you use the Makefile to get the binary files then you shouldn't have to alter the config script.

By default the Script assumes that your VirtualBox-Machines are placed in VMs/ and that the script is run by the User the script is run as. All supplemental files should be placed in Tools/ but you can configure different paths.

To do so simply edit config.sh:

java_exe="jre-windows-i586.exe"

Filename of your Java-Installer.

selenium_jar="selenium-server-standalone.jar"

Filename of your Selenium-Server.

nic_bridge="eth0"

Name of your Network-Interface to use as bridge for your VM.

vm_path="VMs/"

Path where to put your VMs.

vm_mem="768"

Amount of memory (RAM) for Windows Vista, 7 and 8.x VMs in MB.

vm_mem_xp="512"

Amount of memory (RAM) for Windows XP VMs in MB.

deuac_iso="Tools/deuac.iso"

Path and filename for deuac.iso (a bootable CD-Image to disable UAC so we can install Java without Problems).

tools_path="Tools/"

Path to java_exe, firefox_exe and chrome_exe (Location of Installers on VM-Host).

selenium_path="Tools/selenium_conf/"

Path to your Selenium-Config-Files. It's important that you keep the folder structure below this point, otherwise the config will not be copied to the VMs (or the wrong Config goes to the wrong Machines).

ie_cache_reg="Tools/ie_disablecache.reg"

Path and filename to ie_disablecache.reg (Disables Internet Explorer Cache).

ie_protectedmode_reg="Tools/ie_protectedmode.reg"

Path and filename to ie_protectedmode.reg (Enables Protected Mode for all IE Security Zones).

log_path=""

Path to the (temporary) Logfile.

vbox_user="${USER}"

Username of VirtualBox-User.

mailto="[email protected]"

E-Mail-Adress to send logfile to.

create_snapshot=False

If True a snapshot will be created after all changes have been made.

To import the IE6-WinXP Appliance simply run:

mkvm.sh VMs/IE6\ -\ WinXP.ova

If you already have an IE6-WinXP-Instance - and want to recreate it - run:

mkvm.sh VMs/IE6\ -\ WinXP.ova --delete "IE6 - WinXP"

We recommend to use a CronJob to recreate the VMs on a regular basis. See mkvm_cronjob. To avoid too much load on the Host we use a Wrapper-Script mkvm_cron.sh so that only one Appliance gets imported after another.

XP-Machines doesn't set their new hostname automatically. You can use C:\Temp\rename.bat to set the correct name. Restart the VM afterwards. This is only needed if you run more than one instance of the same Appliance.

• deuac.iso comes from https://github.com/tka/SeleniumBox
• Inspired by https://github.com/xdissent/ievms
• https://modern.ie is a Service offered by Microsoft, so thanks for that.
• Thanks to https://github.com/dsuckau for the Selenium-Config Part
• Thanks to @tobyontour for pull request #8