Run Firefox on Linux RHEL 6.9

After days of searching and many attempts to instal/run firefox on Linux EC2, I have the following steps:

1. Install Xvfb:

yum install libXdmcp

yum install libxshmfence

yum install xorg-x11-server-common

yum install xorg-x11-xauth

wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6/os/x86_64/Packages/xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.17.4-16.el6.centos.x86_64.rpm

rpm -ivh xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.17.4-16.el6.centos.x86_64.rpm

2. Install firefox (latest in yum repo)

yum install firefox

3. Launch firefox with xvfb-run:

xvfb-run firefox

And, I get the following error message:

Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":99".

In addition, I don't get any indication the firefox is actually running. All of the blogs/instructions over the web are not up to date (over 2 years old).

Any ideas?

Adi Ohana

Posted 2018-02-05T16:06:03.220

Reputation: 105

I'm using firefox on a centos 6.6 using tigervnc-server for years, no problem – tonioc – 2018-02-06T12:25:50.477

Answers

You might still be missing the VNC server part - which helps you to remotely connect to your firefox session. Have a look at this URL which explains the needed steps: http://tedi.es/connect-remote-xvfb-server-using-vnc-ssh-tunnel/

vautee

Posted 2018-02-05T16:06:03.220

Reputation: 653

thanks for the answer. in the target state i will connect to the browser with selenium web driver. i just want to verify that the installation was successful. any ideas which commands i should execute? – Adi Ohana – 2018-02-05T16:27:27.097

I don't think the above mentioned 'randr' message is an error, just a warning. If you see firefox in your process list after sending the last command, you're good. – vautee – 2018-02-05T16:36:21.500

I have FF in my process list. I'm trying to verify connectivity to URLs just like in Chrome: chrome --headless --disable-gpu --dump-dom https://www.chromestatus.com/

– Adi Ohana – 2018-02-05T16:45:42.643

root 1610 1109 0 17:53 pts/0 00:00:00 /bin/sh /bin/xvfb-run firefox -headless root 1623 1610 15 17:53 pts/0 00:00:02 /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox -headless root 1705 1623 5 17:53 pts/0 00:00:00 /usr/lib64/firefox/plugin-container -greomni /usr/lib64/firefox/omni.ja -appomni /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/omni.ja -appdir /usr/lib64/firefox/browser 1623 tab – Adi Ohana – 2018-02-05T17:53:51.017

Xvfb gained the RANDR extension in version 1.18.0.

You have version 1.17.4.

RHEL 7 has version 1.19.3.

Upgrade to RHEL 7.

Michael Hampton

Posted 2018-02-05T16:06:03.220

Reputation: 11 744

upgraded to RHEL 7.4 still same error – Adi Ohana – 2018-02-05T17:50:34.223