Is there a captureNetworkTraffic implementation in Selenium 2 via webdriver?

Question

If yes, how is it called, or where can I find more info about it? (I'm not talking about using WebDriverBackend.)

If not, what alternatives are there?

Answer 1

You can capture network traffic using a proxy, such as the BrowserMob Proxy (http://proxy.browsermob.com)

To configure the use of the proxy with a webdriver instance, set the CapabilityName.PROXY value to a org.openqa.selenium.Proxy instance:

Proxy proxy = new Proxy();
// The URL here is the URL that the browsermob proxy is using
proxy.setHttpProxy("localhost:9100");

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.firefox();
capabilities.setCapability(CapabilityType.PROXY, proxy);

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(capabilities);

Once the test is finished, you can extract the data from the browsermob proxy using the mechanisms it provides. Notice that you can also use any proxy you want: it need not be the browsermob one!

Answer 2

No there is no native solution at the moment. If you use webDriverBackedSelenium you can try to utilise the captureNetworkTraffic functionality, however there were issues with it last time I heard it talked about (See here for more info - https://groups.google.com/d/topic/selenium-users/fMSHeH9ZVqU/discussion).

It's also worth noting that captureNetworkTraffic only works in FireFox due to the way it was implemented so it's not a cross browser solution.

*Update*

Based on some information that came through the selenium/webdriver mailing lists you can use a proxy instead (Suggested one is http://proxy.browsermob.com/, although there are others).

To configure it:

 Proxy proxy = new Proxy();
 proxy.setHttpProxy(<proxyAddress>);
 DesiredCapabilities ap = DesiredCapabilities.firefox();
 cap.setCapability(CapabilityType.PROXY, proxy);
 WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(cap);

This should currently work for FireFox and IE. It looks like this is going to be the way to capture network traffic moving forward.

Note: "new Proxy()" - Needs org.openqa.selenium.Proxy.

Answer 3

Haven't looked through it all yet, but I did find a post that seems related. Also, haven't tried it out, but, have you looked at any of the fiddler libraries? Although I have plans on trying them out, it's not going to be for a few months yet.