7

Ubuntu

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:   trusty

Chromium

chromium-browser --version
Chromium 48.0.2564.116 Ubuntu 14.04

I am serving a Flask web application on localhost and I want to browse to it in headless mode.

Following this lead on stackoverflow

Prerequisite

$ apt-get install xvfb imagemagick

X virtual frame buffer xvfb-run

Running Chromium with the following options

--allow-running-insecure-content    // trying to get passed
--ignore-certificate-errors         // the self-signed certs
--ignore-urlfetcher-cert-requests   //
--disable-gpu                       
--no-sandbox

the command

 xvfb-run --server-args='-screen 0, 1024x768x24' chromium-browser --allow-running-insecure-content --ignore-certificate-errors --ignore-urlfetcher-cert-requests  --disable-gpu --no-sandbox https://admin:password@localhost

Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display ":99".

[2596:2596:0407/170544:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(206)] Running without the SUID sandbox! See https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxSUIDSandboxDevelopment for more information on developing with the sandbox on.
Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":99".
Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":99".
[2596:2596:0407/170544:ERROR:desktop_window_tree_host_x11.cc(892)] Not implemented reached in virtual void views::DesktopWindowTreeHostX11::InitModalType(ui::ModalType)
[2596:2596:0407/170545:ERROR:logging.h(808)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager.GetManagedObjects: object_path= /: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method "GetManagedObjects" with signature "" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager" doesn't exist
[2596:2596:0407/170545:ERROR:logging.h(808)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager.GetManagedObjects: object_path= /: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method "GetManagedObjects" with signature "" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager" doesn't exist
[2596:2596:0407/170629:ERROR:chrome_browser_main_extra_parts_x11.cc(62)] X IO error received (X server probably went away)

Without --disable-gpu and --no-sandbox

[3122:3122:0407/172728:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(338)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process
[3062:3099:0407/172728:ERROR:browser_gpu_channel_host_factory.cc(144)] Failed to create channel.

UPDATE 20160407

$ sudo Xvfb :1 -screen 0 1024x768x24 -ac +extension GLX +extension RANDR +render -noreset &
$ export DISPLAY=":1"
$ chromium-browser --allow-running-insecure-content --ignore-certificate-errors --ignore-urlfetcher-cert-requests  --disable-gpu --no-sandbox https://admin:password@localhost

getting

[3413:3413:0407/174058:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(206)] Running without the SUID sandbox! See https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxSUIDSandboxDevelopment for more information on developing with the sandbox on.
[3413:3413:0407/174058:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(256)] Gtk: cannot open display: :1
[3422:3422:0100/000000:ERROR:zygote_linux.cc(674)] write: Broken pipe

Also tried with google-chrome 

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add - 
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

Version

google-chrome --version
Google Chrome 49.0.2623.110

and I am getting the same errors including extension "RANDR" missing on display ":99".

Related posts

any-way-to-start-google-chrome-in-headless-mode

how-to-add-the-missing-randr-extension

unable-to-launch-chrome-ubuntu

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1 Answer 1

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I did something similar on a non-Ubuntu Linux distro. For testing purposes I will use my HTPC running Ubuntu (14.04) to make sure it works there as well with minimal changes.

Distro Information

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
Release:        14.04
Codename:       trusty

Making sure the display we want to use isn't present yet

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ DISPLAY=:1 xset q
xset:  unable to open display ":1"

Starting Xvfb

Sudo is not needed. I run it as the same user who also starts the browser.

Xvfb :1 -screen 0 '1280x1024x16' -ac &> /dev/null &

Make sure the display is present and owned by yourself

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ ls -l /tmp/.X11-unix/X1
srwxrwxrwx 1 htpc htpc 0 Apr 15 11:37 /tmp/.X11-unix/X1

Export current display to the :1 we just created.

We can also add DISPLAY=:1 before every command we want to run on the display. However exporting makes sure this will be saved for the current session so you don't have to provide it for every command.

export DISPLAY=:1

Another check to make sure the screen is present and is working (and also that the export bit is working)

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ xset q
Keyboard Control:
  auto repeat:  on    key click percent:  0    LED mask:  00000000
  XKB indicators:
    00: Caps Lock:   off    01: Num Lock:    off    02: Scroll Lock: off
    03: Compose:     off    04: Kana:        off    05: Sleep:       off
    06: Suspend:     off    07: Mute:        off    08: Misc:        off
    09: Mail:        off    10: Charging:    off    11: Shift Lock:  off
    12: Group 2:     off    13: Mouse Keys:  off
  auto repeat delay:  660    repeat rate:  25
  auto repeating keys:  00ffffffdffffbbf
                        fadfffefffedffff
                        9fffffffffffffff
                        fff7ffffffffffff
  bell percent:  50    bell pitch:  400    bell duration:  100
Pointer Control:
  acceleration:  2/1    threshold:  4
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking:  yes    allow exposures:  yes
  timeout:  600    cycle:  600
Colors:
  default colormap:  0x20    BlackPixel:  0x0    WhitePixel:  0xffff
Font Path:
  /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,built-ins
DPMS (Energy Star):
  Display is not capable of DPMS

Extra debugging step

I will be running nc which will print verbosely if Chrome is trying to contact it. So we'll know whether this setup works. Another way is to run a VNC server on the same display and connect to it so you can see what the browser is doing and whether is Chrome is starting up properly. Which I would recommend! Chrome might be giving different errors in the UI which cannot be seen in the console in your case.

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ echo Testing... | nc -l 9999 -v &
[2] 8416
htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ Listening on [0.0.0.0] (family 0, port 9999)

Time to start Chrome!

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ google-chrome --disable-gpu 'http://localhost:9999' &
[3] 8512
htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ [8512:8512:0415/115726:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(271)] Gtk: Locale not supported by C library.
    Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":1".
Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":1".
Connection from [127.0.0.1] port 9999 [tcp/*] accepted (family 2, sport 40050)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:9999
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.75 Safari/537.36
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8

As you can see above the RANDR error it still present, just ignore it. Below it you see the HTTP request done by Chrome (see User-Agent bit) to the nc process we started. Seems Chrome is starting up as expected and visiting the URL provided.

Trying the same with Chromium

htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ chromium-browser --disable-gpu 'http://localhost:9999' &
[3] 13108
htpc@HTPC:[~]:$ Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":1".
Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":1".
[13108:13108:0415/145854:ERROR:logging.h(813)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager.GetManagedObjects: object_path= /: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method "GetManagedObjects" with signature "" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager" doesn't exist

Connection from [127.0.0.1] port 9999 [tcp/*] accepted (family 2, sport 40542)
[13108:13108:0415/145854:ERROR:logging.h(813)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager.GetManagedObjects: object_path= /: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method "GetManagedObjects" with signature "" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager" doesn't exist

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:9999
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu Chromium/49.0.2623.108 Chrome/49.0.2623.108 Safari/537.36
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8

Doing the same has pretty much the same effect, with some other additional warnings. The User-Agent is Chromium as expected.

Extra

If you want to keep it all running do not forget to issue the disown command per process and keep them running in the background to make sure that they are not killed when you logout. See http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unix-linux-disown-command-examples-usage-syntax/ for more info about disown.

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9
  • Do you mind running chromium-browser and post the output? thanks for the detailed answer. Real neat!
    – zabumba
    Apr 15, 2016 at 12:54
  • 1
    I added a block with chromium as requested. See post for details.
    – Serrie
    Apr 15, 2016 at 13:02
  • 1
    Doesn't seem so. I'd recommend using VNC server so you can see what is actually happening inside the virtual screen. Let me know if you cannot get VNC to work.
    – Serrie
    Apr 15, 2016 at 13:18
  • I have set up VNC server, vncserver is on :2, how do you start it on the virtual framebuffer. I have tried vncserver :1 but the VNC client doesn't seem to be able to connect
    – zabumba
    Apr 15, 2016 at 13:44
  • 1
    Yeah that will work. x11vnc allows you to host any display already running in X over the VNC protocol, whilst vncserver automatically starts a virtual display. So just running vncserver is enough to start an empty display. In my case it starts one at :2 as :1 is already in use. Simply exporting DISPLAYas before to :2 and starting chromium-browser should work for vncserver.
    – Serrie
    Apr 15, 2016 at 14:53

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