Building your in house Device Farm on Mac OS using OpenSTF for Android Testing

2 minutes read

What is OpenSTF ?

OpenSTF is an open source project that gives us the ability to create our own test farm with real devices.

Using OpenSTF we can create a device farm that gives us the possibility to share devices between team members without actually physically moving the device from the device farm.

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Why is OpenSTF useful ?

The are quite a few advantages for using OpenSTF:

  • it’s open source
  • we do not need to physically move the devices around
  • we can easy install the application on the devices

How do we install OpenSTF on our server ?

  1. First we need to install the dependencies for STF using home brew by running the following from the command line:
    • brew install rethinkdb graphicsmagick zeromq protobuf yasm pkg-config
  2. If we want to run STF from source we need to:
    • Clone the repository from https://github.com/openstf/stf by running:
      git clone git@github.com:openstf/stf.git
    • build the application by running:
      npm install
    • link the module so that you’ll be able to access the stf command directly from the command line
      npm link
  3. If we just want to install STF without building the latest version we can simply run:
    npm install -g stf
  4. To start openstf we first need to start rethinkdb; for that we need to run the following command in the command line:
    rethinkdb
  5. Now we are ready to start STF; for that we run the following command in the command line:
    stf local
  6. Open your favourite browser and browse to:
    http://localhost:7100
  7. Enter a username and password (you can enter any username and password)
  8. You should now be able to see in the OpenSTF UI the devices that you have connected to your machine as in the picture below

  9. Double clicking the device will take you to the device and you will be able to interact with the device exactly like you would do on the real device
  10. Note: it does not support emulators or iOS devices

What do we need to buy to create our own device farm ?

  • a Mac Mini box
  • a couple of Android devices (ex. 5 devices)
  • a couple of USB hubs
  • a couple of USB cables

Which are the features that OpenSTF supports ?

  • Android OS support: Android 2.3 ~ 8.0 including Wear 5.1, FireOS, CyanogenMod
  • Keyboard & Mouse Input with Multi-Touch, even in Safari iOS
  • Copy & Paste to and from the device
  • Take Screenshots and resize them
  • Drag & Drop APK files
  • Install and launch apps in 1 step
  • Open URLs in any installed browser
  • Display Logs with realtime filtering
  • Run Shell Commands without leaving your browser
  • Debug Remotely with Android Studio, Chrome Debug Tools, as if it was plugged into your computer
  • Reverse Port Forwarding
  • Device Rotation
  • Play Store Automation

For a complete description of OpenSTF and the features please visit the project page: https://openstf.io/

 

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