Robot Framework Python Remote Server

If you use port=0 to let the server select a free port, you can find the active port using these methods:

1. Console Output: The address and port are printed to the console on startup.
2. Port File: Provide a port_file path during initialization. The server writes the port to this file and removes it when stopped.
3. activate() method: Calling server.activate() returns the bound port and sets internal attributes.
4. Attributes: Access server.server_address (a tuple of address and port) or server.server_port (the port as an integer).

You can use Robot Framework's Libdoc tool to inspect the keywords available on a running remote server.

# List available keywords
python -m robot.libdoc Remote::http://127.0.0.1:8270 list

# Show documentation in the console
python -m robot.libdoc Remote::http://127.0.0.1:8270 show

# Generate HTML documentation
python -m robot.libdoc Remote::http://127.0.0.1:8270 MyLibrary.html

To use a remote library, you must first ensure the robotframework-pythonremoteserver is installed or available in your PYTHONPATH.

1. Start the remote library: Execute the library file using your preferred Python interpreter (Python 2/3, Jython, IronPython, or PyPy).
2. Run the tests: Execute the Robot Framework tests using the robot command or by running the robot module via an interpreter.

Note: This specific example is designed to work when the tests and the remote library are running on the same machine.

# 1. Start the library
python examplelibrary.py

# 2. Run the tests
robot tests.robot

You can install the Python Remote Server using pip. To install the latest available release, use the --pre and --upgrade flags. To install a specific version, such as version 1.1, specify the version number directly.

# Install the latest available release
pip install --pre --upgrade robotremoteserver

# Install exactly version 1.1
pip install robotremoteserver==1.1

The remote server can be stopped using several methods:

• Console: Press Ctrl-C (not supported automatically if running in a background thread).
• Signals: Send SIGINT, SIGTERM, or SIGHUP (does not work on Windows or in background threads).
• Robot Framework Keyword: Use the Stop Remote Server keyword.
• XML-RPC: Use the stop_remote_server method.
• CLI: Run python -m robotremoteserver stop [uri].
• Programmatically: Call the stop() method on the server instance (recommended for background threads).

Note: Remote stopping via keywords, XML-RPC, or CLI can be disabled by setting allow_remote_stop=False during initialization.

You can start the server in two ways: automatically upon initialization or manually by calling the serve() method. To use the manual method, set serve=False during initialization.

from robotremoteserver import RobotRemoteServer
from mylibrary import MyLibrary

# Option 1: Start automatically (default)
RobotRemoteServer(MyLibrary())

# Option 2: Start manually using serve()
server = RobotRemoteServer(MyLibrary(), serve=False)
server.serve()

You can check the availability of a remote server via the CLI or programmatically.

# Using CLI
python -m robotremoteserver test
python -m robotremoteserver test http://10.0.0.42:57347

# Using Python API
from robotremoteserver import test_remote_server

if test_remote_server('http://localhost:8270'):
    print('Remote server running!')

By default, the remote library listens on localhost at port 8270. You can override these settings using command-line arguments when starting the library, or by passing variables to the Robot Framework execution.

Using command-line arguments (Library side): Pass the address and port as positional arguments to the library script: python examplelibrary.py <ADDRESS> <PORT>

Using Robot Framework variables (Test side): Pass the ADDRESS and PORT variables to the robot command: robot --variable ADDRESS:<ADDRESS> --variable PORT:<PORT> tests.robot

# Start library on a specific IP and port
python examplelibrary.py 192.168.1.15 7777

# Run tests pointing to that specific IP and port
robot --variable ADDRESS:192.168.1.15 --variable PORT:7777 tests.robot

You can install the robotremoteserver package using pip, which is the easiest method. Alternatively, you can install it from the source distribution using setup.py.

# Using pip
pip install robotremoteserver

# Using source distribution
python setup.py install

Once the version is set and tagged, follow these steps to create and publish the package to PyPI:

1. Clean the environment:

   invoke clean

2. Build distributions: Create a source distribution and a universal wheel (compatible with Python 2 and 3).

   python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel --universal

3. Upload to PyPI: Use twine to upload the files in the dist/ directory.

   twine upload dist/*

4. Verify installation:

   pip install --upgrade robotremoteserver

Before creating releases, you must install the necessary build dependencies using pip and the provided requirements-build.txt file. This ensures that tools like Invoke and rellu are available.

Requirements:

• Operating System: Linux (tested), OSX/Unix (expected to work). Windows is not recommended.
• Python: 3.6 or newer.

pip install -r requirements-build.txt

To run the server in a background thread, initialize it with serve=False and use the threading module. Note that when running in a thread, automatic graceful stopping via Ctrl-C or signals is not supported; you must register signal handlers manually to call server.stop().

import signal
import threading
from examplelibrary import ExampleLibrary
from robotremoteserver import RobotRemoteServer

server = RobotRemoteServer(ExampleLibrary(), port=0, serve=False)
# Register signal handler to stop the server gracefully
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, lambda signum, frame: server.stop())

server_thread = threading.Thread(target=server.serve)
server_thread.start()

while server_thread.is_alive():
    server_thread.join(0.1)