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LuaWebDriver Installation Guide

Lua Chrome WebDriver Linux

📋 Table of Contents

🔧 Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

  • Linux operating system (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, etc.)
  • Native Lua installed (version 5.4 or higher)
  • curl for downloading files
  • unzip for extracting archives
  • Basic terminal knowledge

You can check if you have these by running:

lua -v          # Check Lua version
curl --version  # Check curl
unzip           # Check unzip

🚀 Installation Steps

Step 1: Download LuaWebDriver

Step Required

Download the main LuaWebDriver library file to your project directory.

curl -L https://github.com/OUIsolutions/LuaWebDriver/releases/download/0.1.0/luaWebDriver.lua -o luaWebDriver.lua

What this does:

  • Downloads the latest stable release (v0.1.0) of LuaWebDriver
  • Saves it as luaWebDriver.lua in your current directory
  • Uses -L flag to follow redirects from GitHub

Step 2: Download LuaBear HTTP Client

Step Required

LuaWebDriver needs an HTTP client to communicate with ChromeDriver. We'll use LuaBear for this purpose.

Why do we need this? ChromeDriver uses HTTP/1.1 protocol for communication. LuaBear provides the necessary HTTP functionality that LuaWebDriver requires.

# Create directory for LuaBear
mkdir -p luaBear

# Download LuaBear Lua module
curl -L -o luaBear/luaBear.lua https://github.com/OUIsolutions/Lua-Bear/releases/download/0.3.0/luaBear.lua

# Download LuaBear native library (compiled C module)
curl -L -o luaBear/luaBear.so https://github.com/OUIsolutions/Lua-Bear/releases/download/0.3.0/luaBear.so

File structure after this step:

your-project/
├── luaWebDriver.lua
└── luaBear/
    ├── luaBear.lua
    └── luaBear.so

Alternative HTTP Clients: If you prefer to use a different HTTP client, make sure it provides the same interface as LuaBear's fetch function.

Step 3: Download ChromeDriver

Step Required

ChromeDriver is the bridge between your Lua code and the Chrome browser.

Finding the right version:

  1. Visit the Chrome for Testing page
  2. Choose a ChromeDriver version that matches your Chrome browser
  3. For this guide, we're using version 138.0.7204.94
# Create chrome directory
mkdir -p chrome

# Download ChromeDriver for Linux 64-bit
curl -L https://storage.googleapis.com/chrome-for-testing-public/138.0.7204.94/linux64/chromedriver-linux64.zip -o chromedriver.zip

# Extract ChromeDriver
unzip -o chromedriver.zip -d chrome

# Clean up zip file
rm chromedriver.zip

What happens:

  • Downloads ChromeDriver v138.0.7204.94 for Linux 64-bit
  • Extracts it to chrome/chromedriver-linux64/
  • Removes the temporary zip file

Step 4: Download Chrome Browser

Step Required

You need the Chrome browser binary that matches your ChromeDriver version.

Important: Always use the same version for both ChromeDriver and Chrome to avoid compatibility issues.

# Download Chrome browser (same version as ChromeDriver)
curl -L https://storage.googleapis.com/chrome-for-testing-public/138.0.7204.94/linux64/chrome-linux64.zip -o chrome-linux64.zip

# Extract Chrome browser
unzip -o chrome-linux64.zip -d chrome

# Clean up zip file
rm chrome-linux64.zip

File structure after Steps 3 & 4:

your-project/
├── luaWebDriver.lua
├── luaBear/
│   ├── luaBear.lua
│   └── luaBear.so
└── chrome/
    ├── chromedriver-linux64/
    │   └── chromedriver
    └── chrome-linux64/
        ├── chrome
        └── [other Chrome files...]

Step 5: Create Your First Script

Step Testing

Now let's create a simple test script to verify everything works correctly.

Create a file called main.lua:

local webdriver = require("luaWebDriver")
local luabear = require("luaBear.luaBear")

-- Setup WebDriver server
local server = webdriver.newLocalServer({
    fetch = luabear.fetch,
    chromedriver_command = "./chrome/chromedriver-linux64/chromedriver",
    port = 4444
})

-- Create a new browser session
local session = server.newSession({
    binary_location = "./chrome/chrome-linux64/chrome",
})

-- Navigate to a website
session.navegate_to("https://news.ycombinator.com")

-- Find and interact with elements
local big_box = session.get_element_by_id("bigbox")
local td = big_box[1]
local table_1 = td[1] 
local tbody = table_1[1]

-- Print all news items
print("=== Hacker News Articles ===")
for i = 1, tbody.get_children_size() do 
    local tr = tbody.get_element_by_index(i)
    local text = tr.get_text()
    if text and text ~= "" then
        print(i .. ". " .. text)
    end
end

print("✅ Test completed successfully!")

🧪 Testing Your Installation

Run Your First Script

Test

lua main.lua

Expected output:

=== Hacker News Articles ===
1. Show HN: I built a tool to...
2. Ask HN: What are you working on?
3. [Article title...]
...
✅ Test completed successfully!

Verify Installation

Verify

Check that all files are in place:

# Check file structure
ls -la
ls -la luaBear/
ls -la chrome/

# Verify ChromeDriver is executable
./chrome/chromedriver-linux64/chromedriver --version

# Verify Chrome is executable  
./chrome/chrome-linux64/chrome --version

🔧 Troubleshooting

Common Issues and Solutions

Error Permission Denied

If you get permission errors:

# Make ChromeDriver executable
chmod +x ./chrome/chromedriver-linux64/chromedriver

# Make Chrome executable
chmod +x ./chrome/chrome-linux64/chrome

Error Module Not Found

If Lua can't find the modules:

# Check your current directory
pwd

# Make sure files exist
ls luaWebDriver.lua
ls luaBear/luaBear.lua
ls luaBear/luaBear.so

Error Chrome Won't Start

If Chrome fails to start:

# Install missing dependencies (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y libnss3 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libdrm2 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxrandr2 libgbm1 libxss1 libasound2

# For CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install -y nss atk at-spi2-atk libdrm libXcomposite libXdamage libXrandr mesa-libgbm libXScrnSaver alsa-lib

Error Version Mismatch

If ChromeDriver and Chrome versions don't match:

  1. Check Chrome version: ./chrome/chrome-linux64/chrome --version
  2. Check ChromeDriver version: ./chrome/chromedriver-linux64/chromedriver --version
  3. Download matching versions from Chrome for Testing

⚙️ Alternative Configurations

Using System Chrome

If you prefer to use your system's Chrome installation:

local session = server.newSession({
    binary_location = "/usr/bin/google-chrome",  -- or "/usr/bin/chromium"
})

Headless Mode

For running without a GUI (servers, CI/CD):

local session = server.newSession({
    binary_location = "./chrome/chrome-linux64/chrome",
    args = {
        "--headless",
        "--no-sandbox",
        "--disable-dev-shm-usage"
    }
})

Custom Window Size

Set a specific browser window size:

local session = server.newSession({
    binary_location = "./chrome/chrome-linux64/chrome",
    args = {
        "--window-size=1920,1080"
    }
})

🎉 Next Steps

Now that you have LuaWebDriver installed, you can:

  1. Read the API Documentation to learn about all available features
  2. Explore element finding methods like get_element_by_id, get_element_by_css_selector
  3. Try form automation with send_keys and click methods
  4. Experiment with multiple tabs using open_new_tab and switch_to_window

Happy automating! 🚀