Docker + Selenium Chrome driver error: Server terminated early with status 127

Question

I have a Docker script that runs some Selenium test scripts.

Here are the Dockerfile contents:

FROM selenium/hub:nightly

WORKDIR /usr/src/app

RUN sudo apt-get update

COPY . /usr/src/app/

RUN sudo curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash -

RUN sudo apt-get install nodejs -y

CMD ./start.sh

The "start.sh" file looks a bit like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "init..."

npm run test:dev

"test" is a NodeJs command (from package.json) which runs:

"test": "cucumber-js features/"

This loads the Selenium Chrome driver and runs a series of Selenium/Cucumber tests.

When run on the desktop (MacOS), everything works great! When I run this using Docker, I get the following error at the beginning of each test. I assume that the test cannot even begin because it cannot load the Chrome driver:

Error: Server terminated early with status 127
    at /usr/src/app/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/remote/index.js:259:24

The commands that I'm using to build & run docker are:

docker build - < Dockerfile && docker run selenium_automation_tests < Dockerfile

The contents of our run.sh file are:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
docker build --platform linux/x86_64 -t selenium_automation_tests .
docker run --platform linux/x86_64 -d -p 4442-4444:4442-4444  -it selenium_automation_tests #/bin/bash

I've searched Google & stackoverflow for this error ("Server terminated early with status 127") and have tried a lot of the suggestions, but so far nothing has worked. What can I do to get rid of this error and run the Selenium/Cucumber tests in Docker?

Answer 1

Assuming that your project looks something like this:

├── Dockerfile
├── features
│   ├── step_definitions
│   │   └── test_steps.js
│   └── test.feature
├── package.json
├── run.sh
└── start.sh

🗎 Dockerfile

FROM selenium/standalone-chrome:latest

USER root

RUN curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | bash - && \
    apt-get install -y nodejs

WORKDIR /usr/src/app

COPY . .

RUN npm install

RUN chmod +x ./start.sh

USER seluser

CMD ["./start.sh"]

🗎 package.json

{
  "name": "selenium-test",
  "type": "module",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test:dev": "cucumber-js features/"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.18.2",
    "selenium-webdriver": "^4.18.1",
    "supabase": "^1.145.4"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "description": "",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@cucumber/cucumber": "^10.3.1",
    "chai": "^5.1.0",
    "chromedriver": "^122.0.6"
  }
}

🗎 test.feature

Feature: Chrome Loads Page

  Scenario: Load example page
    Given I am on the example.com page
    Then the page has loaded

🗎 test_steps.js (The various options ensure that Chrome will run happily inside a container. They might not all be necessary.)

import { Given, Then, After } from '@cucumber/cucumber';
import { Builder, By, until } from 'selenium-webdriver';
import assert from 'assert';
import chrome from 'selenium-webdriver/chrome.js';

let driver;

let options = new chrome.Options();
options.addArguments('--headless');
options.addArguments('--no-sandbox');
options.addArguments('--disable-dev-shm-usage');
options.addArguments('--disable-gpu');
options.addArguments('--disable-extensions');
options.addArguments('--remote-debugging-port=9222');

Given('I am on the example.com page', async function () {
  driver = await new Builder().forBrowser('chrome').setChromeOptions(options).build();
  await driver.get('http://www.example.com');
});

Then('the page has loaded', async function () {
  let element = await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(By.css('h1')), 10000);
  let text = await element.getText();
  
  assert.strictEqual(text, "Example Domain", 'The page did not load correctly.');
});

After(async function () {
  if (driver) {
    await driver.quit();
  }
});

The run.sh and start.sh files are the same as the ones provided in the question.