= WatirGrid

WatirGrid allows for distributed testing across a grid network using Watir.

== Getting Started
This gem is hosted on Gemcutter. Gemcutter is the next generation of gem hosting for the Ruby community. To get started:
  gem install gemcutter
  gem tumble
  
Then to install WatirGrid:
  gem install watirgrid

=== The Basics
WatirGrid is built on Rinda which implements the Linda distributed computing paradigm in Ruby. According to Wikipedia: “Linda is a model of coordination and communication among several parallel processes operating upon objects stored in and retrieved from shared, virtual, associative memory.”

In other words, WatirGrid allows multiple parallel processes to *_provide_* remote Watir objects in the form of tuple spaces across a grid network. This grid network is *_controlled_* by a ring server.

==== Key Terminology
The *controller* implements a repository of tuples (tuple space) that can be accessed concurrently. The controller hosts the *ring* *server* which advertises these tuples across a grid network. Typically you will host one controller on a central machine.

The *providers* make remote Watir objects available to the tuple space hosted by the *ring* *server*. Typically you will host one or many providers on your grid network, for example, each PC may become a single provider of a Watir tuple in the form of an Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari browser object.

=== Simple Example

Pick a server to host the 'controller' for the ring server and execute the following:
  $ controller

This should find your external facing IP and start the corresponding DRb and Ring Servers:
  DRb server started on : druby://143.238.105.61:11235
  Ring server started on: druby://143.238.105.61:12358

On each client PC, host the 'provider' for the distributed (DRb) Watir objects
  $  provider

This should find the recently started Ring Server and register a tuple for the Watir object:
  DRb server started on : druby://143.238.105.61:11236
  Ring server found on  : druby://143.238.105.61:12358
  New tuple registered  : druby://143.238.105.61:12358

You will now be able to execute commands across remote browsers on your grid network.

e.g.
  grid = Watir::Grid.new(:ring_server_port => 12358)
  grid.start(:quantity => 1, :read_all => true)
  threads = []
  grid.browsers.each do |browser|
    threads << Thread.new do 
      b = browser[:object].new_browser
      b.goto("http://www.google.com")
      b.text_field(:name, 'q').set("watirgrid")
      b.button(:name, "btnI").click
    end
  end
  threads.each {|thread| thread.join}

You may wish to host the controller and providers on different machines in a real scenario. You can specify things like server hostnames, ports and access control lists for each of the different types of servers. For more help see:
  $  controller --help
  Usage: controller [options]
  Specific options:
      -H, --drb-server-host HOST       Specify DRb Server interface to host on
      -d, --drb-server-port PORT       Specify DRb Server port to listen on
      -h, --ring-server-host HOST      Specify Ring Server interface to host on
      -r, --ring-server-port PORT      Specify Ring Server port to listen on
      -a, --access-control-list ACLS   Specify a comma separated Access Control List
      -l, --log-level LEVEL            Specify log level {DEBUG|INFO|ERROR}
          --help                       Show this message

  $  provider --help
  Usage: provider [options]
  Specific options:
      -H, --drb-server-host HOST       Specify DRb Server interface to host on
      -d, --drb-server-port PORT       Specify DRb Server port to listen on
      -h, --ring-server-host HOST      Specify Ring Server host to connect to
      -r, --ring-server-port PORT      Specify Ring Server port to broadcast on
      -b, --browser-type TYPE          Specify browser type to register {ie|firefox|safari}
      -a, --access-control-list ACLS   Specify a comma separated Access Control List
      -l, --log-level LEVEL            Specify log level {DEBUG|INFO|ERROR}
          --help                       Show this message                  

== Copyright

Copyright (c) 2009 Tim Koopmans. See LICENSE for details.