# Browser needed for login test?

**URL:** <https://forum.robotframework.org/t/browser-needed-for-login-test/3645>\
**Category:** Robot Framework\
**Created:** [19 April 2022 08:24 UTC](https://forum.robotframework.org/t/browser-needed-for-login-test/3645 "2022-04-19T08:24:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![freebeasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dbc845/32.png) [@freebeasty](https://forum.robotframework.org/u/freebeasty)\
**Post date:** [19 April 2022 08:24 UTC](https://forum.robotframework.org/t/browser-needed-for-login-test/3645/1 "2022-04-19T08:24:53Z")

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Hello all,

I’m relatively new to Robot Framework, anyway here’s my question :

I would like to use Robot Framework to test the login of my Nextcloud server, so  
whether it’s working or not.

So far I just found examples which uses a desktop browser.

Is it also possible to run this test from the console or do I need an operating system with GUI ?

Thanks and regards,  
Raphael

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**Author:** ![damies13](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/forum.robotframework.org/damies13/32/623_2.png) [@damies13](https://forum.robotframework.org/u/damies13)\
**Post date:** [19 April 2022 10:04 UTC](https://forum.robotframework.org/t/browser-needed-for-login-test/3645/2 "2022-04-19T10:04:29Z")

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Hi Raphael,

To test the website with a library that uses a browser ([SeleniumLibrary](https://robotframework.org/SeleniumLibrary/SeleniumLibrary.html) and [Browser](https://marketsquare.github.io/robotframework-browser/Browser.html)) you will need a GUI as the browsers won’t actually launch without one.

It doesn’t have to be a physical display however, the docker images that run these libraries use Xvfb (a virtual X display driver in linux) so that might be an option for you.

Another option, if you don’t need to do any complex navigation through the site, [RequestsLibrary](https://robotframework-requests.netlify.app/doc/requestslibrary) might be an option for you, as it doesn’t require a GUI at all, it’s the python equivalent of using curl.

If you start down the RequestsLibrary and find the site (Nextcloud) too difficult to script, then [har2rf-req](https://github.com/damies13/har2rf-req) might help, it’s quite alpha-ish at the moment and not well documented, so i’m not recommending it yet.  
The concept of har2rf-req is you save the navigation through the browser as har file(s), then call har2rf-req passing it the har file(s) and it with generate a requests library robot file with the dynamic stuff (XCRF tokens, hidden form fields, etc) taken care of as variables.

Hope that helps,

Dave.

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**Author:** ![freebeasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dbc845/32.png) [@freebeasty](https://forum.robotframework.org/u/freebeasty)\
**Post date:** [4 May 2022 06:21 UTC](https://forum.robotframework.org/t/browser-needed-for-login-test/3645/3 "2022-05-04T06:21:08Z")

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Yes - that helps a lot !

Thank you !  
Raphael