Run Selenium on azure functions

Question

Run Selenium on azure functions

Tilanka Kulatunga 1

I have a web scrapper app. which use selenium chrome driver.
how can I host the application in azure.
Can I use azure functions and docker container

2 answers

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Answer 1

Pramod Valavala 20,656 Microsoft Employee Moderator

This should indeed be possible with a Custom Container since you can install all required dependencies and not run into limitations of the shared environment where functions usually run on.

This blog covers this for Python but the parts of the dockerfile related to selenium could be reused.

Tilanka Kulatunga 1 Reputation point

2021-01-13T16:07:24.533+00:00

thanks @Pramod Valavala

I have done this way. but when I create Kubernetes Cluster, Azure creates virtual machine. and it is very costly.
is there a another way without creating kubernates cluster

Thanks
Pramod Valavala 20,656 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2021-01-21T04:43:01.21+00:00

AKS isn't a requirement. A Custom Image can be deployed in a Premium or Dedicated Plan as mentioned in the docs.
Salazar, Jaime 26 Reputation points

2022-01-04T09:17:00.017+00:00

Is all of this still required? I'm hoping that a year later after this response was published, Microsoft may have simplified the whole process a bit. At work, I'm hoping to convince IT and the dev team to let us run Selenium on Azure but it will be a hard sell if all of this is still required.

Googling brings up articles like the above blog post, this article, or this one, which all require Docker. Is it possible that Microsoft has made any advances such that Docker is no longer needed when trying to run Selenium on Azure Functions?
Pramod Valavala 20,656 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2022-01-13T14:10:02.92+00:00

@Salazar, Jaime The limitations are primarily due to the sandbox in which functions run. Using containers is the only way if you want the browser to run in the same instance.

You could always opt for remote webdriver which reduces the requirements for the environment since the browsers are running in different machines.
Wayne Harper 1 Reputation point

2022-12-21T12:11:33.673+00:00

Using a remote driver still requires it to be ran somewhere that isn't a function app. This would defeat the purpose of a serverless idea.

Answer 2

sadomovalex 3,636

is it possible (acceptable) in your case to allow anonymous access for Azure functions? If yes then you may create regular Azure function app without containers which will have globally accessible url (https://{function app name}.azurewebsites.net) which can be used by Selenium.

Diego Bejar 1 Reputation point

2022-12-27T02:33:07.177+00:00

Can you detail this solution please?

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Run Selenium on azure functions

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