How to set up a python application with selenium in a docker container

First of all you need a Docker Image with all packages installed. Lets create a Dockerfile for this.

FROM ubuntu:bionic

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    python3 python3-pip \
    fonts-liberation libappindicator3-1 libasound2 libatk-bridge2.0-0 \
    libnspr4 libnss3 lsb-release xdg-utils libxss1 libdbus-glib-1-2 \
    curl unzip wget \
    xvfb


# install geckodriver and firefox

RUN GECKODRIVER_VERSION=`curl https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases/latest | grep -Po 'v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+'` && \
    wget https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases/download/$GECKODRIVER_VERSION/geckodriver-$GECKODRIVER_VERSION-linux64.tar.gz && \
    tar -zxf geckodriver-$GECKODRIVER_VERSION-linux64.tar.gz -C /usr/local/bin && \
    chmod +x /usr/local/bin/geckodriver && \
    rm geckodriver-$GECKODRIVER_VERSION-linux64.tar.gz

RUN FIREFOX_SETUP=firefox-setup.tar.bz2 && \
    apt-get purge firefox && \
    wget -O $FIREFOX_SETUP "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest&os=linux64" && \
    tar xjf $FIREFOX_SETUP -C /opt/ && \
    ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox && \
    rm $FIREFOX_SETUP


# install chromedriver and google-chrome

RUN CHROMEDRIVER_VERSION=`curl -sS chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE` && \
    wget https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/$CHROMEDRIVER_VERSION/chromedriver_linux64.zip && \
    unzip chromedriver_linux64.zip -d /usr/bin && \
    chmod +x /usr/bin/chromedriver && \
    rm chromedriver_linux64.zip

RUN CHROME_SETUP=google-chrome.deb && \
    wget -O $CHROME_SETUP "https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb" && \
    dpkg -i $CHROME_SETUP && \
    apt-get install -y -f && \
    rm $CHROME_SETUP


# install phantomjs

RUN wget https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 && \
    tar -jxf phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 && \
    cp phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64/bin/phantomjs /usr/local/bin/phantomjs && \
    rm phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2


RUN pip3 install selenium
RUN pip3 install pyvirtualdisplay
RUN pip3 install Selenium-Screenshot

ENV LANG C.UTF-8
ENV LC_ALL C.UTF-8
ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1

ENV APP_HOME /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /$APP_HOME

COPY . $APP_HOME/

CMD tail -f /dev/null
CMD python3 example.py

It will run your program in the end. In my case it is example.py

Now place the example.py in the same directory as Dockerfile. An example for Firefox, Chrome and Phantom JS is given below.

import os
import logging

from pyvirtualdisplay import Display
from selenium import webdriver

logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

BASE_URL = 'http://www.example.com/'


def chrome_example():
    display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
    display.start()
    logging.info('Initialized virtual display..')

    chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
    chrome_options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')

    chrome_options.add_experimental_option('prefs', {
        'download.default_directory': os.getcwd(),
        'download.prompt_for_download': False,
    })
    logging.info('Prepared chrome options..')

    browser = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=chrome_options)
    logging.info('Initialized chrome browser..')

    browser.get(BASE_URL)
    logging.info('Accessed %s ..', BASE_URL)

    logging.info('Page title: %s', browser.title)

    browser.quit()
    display.stop()


def firefox_example():
    display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
    display.start()
    logging.info('Initialized virtual display..')

    firefox_profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
    firefox_profile.set_preference('browser.download.folderList', 2)
    firefox_profile.set_preference('browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting', False)
    firefox_profile.set_preference('browser.download.dir', os.getcwd())
    firefox_profile.set_preference('browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk', 'text/csv')

    logging.info('Prepared firefox profile..')

    browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=firefox_profile)
    logging.info('Initialized firefox browser..')

    browser.get(BASE_URL)
    logging.info('Accessed %s ..', BASE_URL)

    logging.info('Page title: %s', browser.title)

    browser.quit()
    display.stop()


def phantomjs_example():
    display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
    display.start()
    logging.info('Initialized virtual display..')

    browser = webdriver.PhantomJS()
    logging.info('Initialized phantomjs browser..')

    browser.get(BASE_URL)
    logging.info('Accessed %s ..', BASE_URL)

    logging.info('Page title: %s', browser.title)

    browser.quit()
    display.stop()




if __name__ == '__main__':
    chrome_example()
    firefox_example()
    phantomjs_example()

In the end we will create Docker-compose.yml to simplify things up.

selenium:
    build: .
    ports:
        - 4000:4000
    volumes:
        - ./data/:/data/
    privileged: true

Build and run through following command.

docker-compose build && docker-compose up -d

You can also run it through docker command without using docker-compose

docker build -t selenium_docker .
docker run --privileged -p 4000:4000 -d -it selenium_docker 

Source:

https://github.com/dimmg/dockselpy