browser=chrome in wptdriver.ini

WebPageTest Private Instances
1

Searched extensively, but didn’t find an answer.

What’s the significance of have browser=chrome in the WebPageTest section of wptdriver.ini?

Below is my wptdriver.ini. As can be seen, the machine is hosting 4 browsers, and I want to move away from that. However, I would first like to understand what the chrome browser-specific kvp signifies.

[WebPagetest]
url=http://watchtower.corp.yahoo.com/
location=SP2corp3
browser=Chrome
time limit=120
;key=Volvo850
;Automatically install and update support software (Flash, Silverlight, etc)
software=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/software.dat

[Chrome]
exe=“C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
options=‘–load-extension=“%WPTDIR%\extension” --no-proxy-server’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/chrome.dat

[Firefox]
exe=“C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”
options=‘-profile “%PROFILE%” -no-remote’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/firefox.dat
template=firefox

[Safari]
exe=“%PROGRAM_FILES%\Safari\Safari.exe”

[IE9]
exe=“%PROGRAM_FILES%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”

2

fyi - I’ve gone ahead and moved each browser to discrete machines, changing the “browser=” line in the wptdriver.ini file to reflect the current browser being hosted on a given machine.

There appear to be no issues, and my assumption at this time is that the “browser=” line is legacy code.

3

the browser= is there just to specify a default browser to use if one isn’t specified from the server. The only time that happens is if the locations.ini only has one browser listed. If you have multiple browsers that are comma separated then the browser will always be specified and it won’t be used.

4

Thanks, Patrick.

5

I have been asked to set up a private instance of WPT on a Windows XP VM. I have installed all the third party tools and the /install page shows everything green except for the agent section at the bottom of that page.

[color=#FF4500]No test agents are configured to render video
[/color]
xp : xp
xp-Chrome : Chrome - [color=#FF4500]No Agents Connected[/color]
xp-Firefox : Firefox - [color=#FF4500]No Agents Connected[/color]
laptop : laptop
laptop-Chrome : Chrome - [color=#FF4500]No Agents Connected[/color]
laptop-Firefox : Firefox - [color=#FF4500]No Agents Connected[/color]
Public_Dulles : WebPagetest.org - Dulles, VA
WPT_Dulles_IE8 : WebPagetest.org Dulles, VA - IE8 - [color=#FF4500]No Agents Connected[/color]
Appurify : Appurify Mobile Testing
Appurify_Mobile : Appurify Mobile - [color=#FF4500]No Agents Connected[/color]

It appears that it is possible to set up the agents and server on this one VM. I have not been able to get the locations.ini and wptdriver.ini settings correct.

What am I doing incorrectly? And where how does the install page know where to look for the wptdriver.ini file?

My locations.ini is:
[locations]
1=xp
2=laptop
3=Public_Dulles
4=Appurify
default=xp

;
; These are the top-level locations that are listed in the location

dropdown
; Each one points to one or more browser configurations
;

[xp]
1=xp-Chrome
2=xp-Firefox
label=xp

[xp-Chrome]
browser=Chrome
latency=0
key=webpagetest
label=“Chrome”

[xp-Firefox]
browser=Firefox
latency=0
key=webpagetest
label=“Firefox”

[laptop]
1=laptop-Chrome
2=laptop-Firefox
label=laptop

[laptop-Chrome]
browser=Chrome
latency=0
key=webpagetest
label=“Chrome”

[laptop-Firefox]
browser=Firefox
latency=0
key=webpagetest
label=“Firefox”

[Public_Dulles]
1=WPT_Dulles_IE8
label=“WebPagetest.org - Dulles, VA”
group=Public

;
; These are the browser-specific configurations that match the

configurations
; defined in the top-level locations. Each one of these MUST match the

location
; name configured on the test agent (urlblast.ini or wptdriver.ini)
;

[IE]
browser=IE 8
latency=0
label=“Test Location - IE 8”
;browserExe=pagetest.exe
key=webpagetest

;
; For a wptdriver configuration (chrome, firefox), the browser labels here
; MUST match the labels used in wptdriver.ini
;

[WebPagetest]
browser=Chrome,Firefox,Safari,IE
label=“Chrome”

;
; This is an example of a “remote” configuration where tests can be proxied

to a remote
; webpagetest instance. The test will be run by the remote server but the

results
; will be downloaded to the local server and deleted from the remote agent
;
; Each location that you want to use from the remote server needs to be

configured
; individually on the local configuration (location names do not need to

match)
;
; To use the public webpagetest.org instance you will need an API key
;

[WPT_Dulles_IE8]
browser=IE 8
label=“WebPagetest.org Dulles, VA - IE8”
relayServer=“http://www.webpagetest.org/”
;relayKey=
relayKey=A28A1B510FCD4A32B2FB9FFC01807097
relayLocation=Dulles_IE8

;
; This is a special location for testing on Appurify mobile devices.
; Appurify offers mobile device testing as a service.
;
[Appurify]
1=Appurify_Mobile
label=“Appurify Mobile Testing”
lat=35.682175
lng=139.752731
group=Mobile

[Appurify_Mobile]
type=Appurify
label=“Appurify Mobile”
key=
secret=

My wptdriver.ini file is:
[WebPagetest]
url=http://127.0.0.1/
location=laptop-Chrome
browser=Chrome
Time Limit=120
key=webpagetest
;Automatically install and update support software (Flash, Silverlight, etc)
software=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/software.dat

[chrome]
exe=“%PROGRAM_FILES%\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
options=‘–load-extension=“%WPTDIR%\extension” --user-data-dir=“%PROFILE%” --no-proxy-server’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/chrome.dat

[Firefox]
exe=“%PROGRAM_FILES%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”
options=‘-profile “%PROFILE%” -no-remote’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/firefox.dat
template=firefox

[Safari]
exe=“%PROGRAM_FILES%\Safari\Safari.exe”

[IE]
exe=“%PROGRAM_FILES%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”

Many thanks,

Andrew

6

Here you go:

locations.ini:

[locations]
1=xp_loc
2=laptop_loc
default=xp_loc

[xp_loc]
1=xp
label=xp

[xp]
browser=Chrome,Firefox
latency=0
key=webpagetest
label="xp"

[laptop_loc]
1=laptop
label=laptop

[laptop]
browser=Chrome,Firefox
latency=0
key=webpagetest
label="Laptop"

wptdriver.ini:

[WebPagetest]
url=http://127.0.0.1/
location=xp
browser=Chrome
Time Limit=120
key=webpagetest
;Automatically install and update support software (Flash, Silverlight, etc)
software=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/software.dat

[Chrome]
exe="%PROGRAM_FILES%\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
options='--load-extension="%WPTDIR%\extension" --user-data-dir="%PROFILE%" --no-proxy-server'
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/chrome.dat

[Firefox]
exe="%PROGRAM_FILES%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
options='-profile "%PROFILE%" -no-remote'
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/firefox.dat
template=firefox

[Safari]
exe="%PROGRAM_FILES%\Safari\Safari.exe"

[IE]
exe="%PROGRAM_FILES%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"
7

Thanks for responding Patrick. I have trying with these settings.

My locations.ini is in C:\Apache2\htdocs\webpagetest\settings
My wptdriver.ini is in C:\wpt-agent\wptdriver

It is still saying “No test agents are configured to render video” and “No Agents connected”. I suspect because the installation check script can’t find the wptdriver.ini file.

Should wptdriver.ini be located somewhere else? How does the installation script know where to look for wptdriver.ini?

Regards,

Andrew

8

The installation check doesn’t care about wptdriver.ini - it bases it’s information on logs that it keeps as agents poll the server for work and it means the agent’s aren’t connecting. Do you have urlblast and wptdriver running? In the access logs for the server do you see requests for /work/getwork.php?

9

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for getting back to me.

At the moment all I have is some files sitting in C:\wpt-agent on the VM.

What other steps need to happen? Is the documentation on how to set up an agent on a VM next to the website, that I might have missed?

Kind Regards,

Andrew

10

Maybe the step of creating a shortcut in the startup folder and rebooting? https://sites.google.com/a/webpagetest.org/docs/private-instances#TOC-wptdriver-Chrome-Firefox-Safari-IE-6-10-

11

Thanks Patrick,

Where is the wptdriver.exe come from?

Regards,

Andrew

12

it’s in the agent directory in the distribution: Releases · WPO-Foundation/webpagetest · GitHub

13

Great thanks Patrick. The install script now reports that an agent is installed and connected. WPTDriver is “waiting for work”

However when I run a test it crashes the browser (Chrome) after 20 seconds while in the “Testing” phase using the sample UrlBlast.ini

It does not appear to have emitted any sort of log to indicate the cause of the crash.

Regards,

Andrew

14

Try grabbing the latest update in case the crash was something that was fixed since the release (don’t think so but doesn’t hurt to try): https://sites.google.com/a/webpagetest.org/docs/private-instances#TOC-Updating-Test-Agents

Otherwise, do you have antivirus or something similar running that may be getting in the way? If so, try and disable it to see if that’s the problem (I use Microsoft’s security center and a couple of others and it does work but there are some that have had issues).

15

Hi Patrick,

Tried this. Have the updates in C:\agent\work\update\

Same result. Chrome crashed after the test was running for 17 seconds trying to test against firefox.

Is there any documentation that explain step by step exactly how to set this up on a single VM?

Regards,

Andrew

16

The updates go in the server directory, not in the agent. Wherever you have the www files it goes in www/work/update and the test agents will download and install the updates automatically.

17

Thanks Patrick,

My Apache conf is (comments removed for brevity):

DocumentRoot “c:/Apache2/htdocs”

<Directory “c:/Apache2/htdocs”>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

<Directory “c:/Apache2/htdocs/webpagetest”>
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

WPT website appears to be running fine on localhost

The updates now in: C:\Apache2\htdocs\webpagetest\work\update

The “update” directory having sibling directories of “jobs” and “video”. I assume this is the location you were referring to.

When the machine started I saw the agent window reporting that it was installing software.

From what I have read in other threads on this forum, it is possible to have both the agent and the server running inside the one VM (which is what I am trying to do). Is my understanding correct?

After the test running on the VM for 27 seconds the agent appears to be closing (or crashing) all currently open windows. This behaviour is repeatable on my Windows XP VM (Physical machine is Windows 8.)

The only other piece of information I can see is the agent window reporting “DnsFlushResolverCache returned 1” as soon as I hit the Start Tests button.

Is there any documentation that is explains to a newbie how to set this up locally?

Thank you,

Andrew

18

Andy Davies wrote up an article on configuring an all-in-one instance: Configuring an ‘all-in-one’ WebPageTest Private Instance

19

Hi Patrick,

We are yet to have any success to get this working on XP. It just doesn’t work. The lack of error logs makes it impossible to know where it is failing. It just closes.

  1. Is it possible run WPT on one VM or are multiple machines needed?
  2. If multiple machines are required, how do they find each other? Where is that setting?

Regards,

Andrew

20

Hi Patrick,

I got this working on a Win7 VM with the instructions from Andy.

Vista must have been at least one of the issues.

Cheers,

Andrew