Local website testing - Setting up TestingBot Tunnel
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Setting up TestingBot Tunnel

Setting up TestingBot Tunnel requires Java (JRE) to be present. The minimum version is JRE 8. If you are looking to run the Tunnel with Docker, there's a Docker image available as well: testingbot/tunnel

Downloading TestingBot Tunnel

The tunnel comes as a .jar file, which needs to be executed with the command line. You can download the file from the TestingBot Tunnel documentation.

Running TestingBot Tunnel

Once downloaded, you'll need to open a terminal and navigate to the folder where the downloaded .jar file resides.

To start the tunnel, you'll need to make sure you have obtained the key and secret from the TestingBot dashboard.

These 2 secret values are required, as the Tunnel needs to communicate with the TestingBot API.

When you've retrieved the credentials, you can start the Tunnel: java -jar testingbot-tunnel.jar KEY SECRET

You'll need to replace KEY and SECRET with the values you obtained.

You should see output from this command, similar to the example below:

Copy code
  TestingBot Tunnel v3.2
  Questions or suggestions, please visit https://testingbot.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:27 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.App setJettyPort
INFO: Setting up Local Proxy Port 65453
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:30 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.PidPoller <init>
INFO: Pid file: /Users/xxx/projects/web/public/downloads/testingbot-tunnel/testingbot-tunnel.pid
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:30 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.App boot
INFO: Please wait while your personal Tunnel Server is being setup. Shouldn't take more than a minute.
When the tunnel is ready you will see a message "You may start your tests."
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:32 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.App tunnelReady
INFO: Successfully authenticated, setting up forwarding.
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:33 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.proxy.ForwarderServlet addProxyHeaders
INFO: [GET] http://127.0.0.1:4445/
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:33 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.proxy.TunnelProxyServlet$TunnelProxyResponseListener onComplete
INFO: [GET] http://127.0.0.1:2010/squid-internal-periodic/store_digest (200) - 2 ms
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:33 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.proxy.TunnelProxyServlet$TunnelProxyResponseListener onComplete
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:33 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.App tunnelReady
INFO: The Tunnel is ready, ip: 109.68.165.150
You may start your tests.
Aug 23, 2022 1:49:33 PM com.testingbot.tunnel.App tunnelReady
INFO: To stop the tunnel, press CTRL+C

Important: you need to run the Tunnel on a machine (pc, server, VM, ...) which has access to the public internet and which has access to the environment you want to test with TestingBot.

Stopping TestingBot Tunnel

To stop the tunnel, you can send a CTRL+C key combination, which will gracefully stop the process.

Or you can send a KILL signal to the Tunnel's PID which will stop the process gracefully.

Note: we do not recommend hard killing the process, as that might cause some resources to not be cleaned up properly, causing a bad state.