setting request headers in selenium

Question

I\'m attempting to set the request header \'Referer\' to spoof a request coming from another site. We need the ability test that a specific referrer is used, which returns a

Answer 1

Had the same issue today, except that I needed to set different referer per test. I ended up using a middleware and a class to pass headers to it. Thought I'd share (or maybe there's a cleaner solution?):

lib/request_headers.rb:

class CustomHeadersHelper
  cattr_accessor :headers
end

class RequestHeaders
  def initialize(app, helper = nil)
    @app, @helper = app, helper
  end

  def call(env)
    if @helper
      headers = @helper.headers

      if headers.is_a?(Hash)
        headers.each do |k,v|
          env["HTTP_#{k.upcase.gsub("-", "_")}"] = v
        end
      end
    end

    @app.call(env)
  end
end

---

config/initializers/middleware.rb

require 'request_headers'

if %w(test cucumber).include?(Rails.env)
  Rails.application.config.middleware.insert_before Rack::Lock, "RequestHeaders", CustomHeadersHelper
end

---

spec/support/capybara_headers.rb

require 'request_headers'

module CapybaraHeaderHelpers
  shared_context "navigating within the site" do
    before(:each) { add_headers("Referer" => Capybara.app_host + "/") }
  end

  def add_headers(custom_headers)
    if Capybara.current_driver == :rack_test
      custom_headers.each do |name, value|
        page.driver.browser.header(name, value)
      end
    else
      CustomHeadersHelper.headers = custom_headers
    end
  end
end

---

spec/spec_helper.rb

...
config.include CapybaraHeaderHelpers

Then I can include the shared context wherever I need, or pass different headers in another before block. I haven't tested it with anything other than Selenium and RackTest, but it should be transparent, as header injection is done before the request actually hits the application.

Answer 2

With the solutions already discussed above the most reliable one is using Browsermob-Proxy

But while working with the remote grid machine, Browsermob-proxy isn't really helpful.

This is how I fixed the problem in my case. Hopefully, might be helpful for anyone with a similar setup.

1. Add the ModHeader extension to the chrome browser

How to download the Modheader? Link

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.addExtensions(new File(C://Downloads//modheader//modheader.crx));

// Set the Desired capabilities 
DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
capabilities.setCapability(ChromeOptions.CAPABILITY, options);

// Instantiate the chrome driver with capabilities
WebDriver driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(YOUR_HUB_URL), options);

2. Go to the browser extensions and capture the Local Storage context ID of the ModHeader

3. Navigate to the URL of the ModHeader to set the Local Storage Context

.

// set the context on the extension so the localStorage can be accessed
driver.get("chrome-extension://idgpnmonknjnojddfkpgkljpfnnfcklj/_generated_background_page.html");

Where `idgpnmonknjnojddfkpgkljpfnnfcklj` is the value captured from the Step# 2

4. Now add the headers to the request using Javascript

.

   ((Javascript)driver).executeScript(
         "localStorage.setItem('profiles', JSON.stringify([{  title: 'Selenium', hideComment: true, appendMode: '', 
             headers: [                        
               {enabled: true, name: 'token-1', value: 'value-1', comment: ''},
               {enabled: true, name: 'token-2', value: 'value-2', comment: ''}
             ],                          
             respHeaders: [],
             filters: []
          }]));");

Where token-1, value-1, token-2, value-2 are the request headers and values that are to be added.

5. Now navigate to the required web-application.

   driver.get("your-desired-website");

Answer 3

You can do it with PhantomJSDriver.

PhantomJSDriver pd = ((PhantomJSDriver) ((WebDriverFacade) getDriver()).getProxiedDriver());
pd.executePhantomJS(
            "this.onResourceRequested = function(request, net) {" +
            "   net.setHeader('header-name', 'header-value')" +
            "};");

Using the request object, you can filter also so the header won't be set for every request.