Browser testing through a VPN

[igozali]

Hi there,

I was wondering if there are any updates for how to use VPN in CircleCI 2.0? I need to run browser testing against a server that I’ve deployed behind a VPN.

I tried to search around the forums and other places and the most relevant topic I could find is the following:

VPN connection from Build machine

Hi, I’m having issues setting up a vpn connection from the build machine. Is that possible at all? I installed all the required packages but seems I cannot use the TUN device. it says it’s not found and gives an error when I’m trying to create it… ubuntu@box703:~$ sudo mknod /dev/net/tun c 10 200 mknod: `/dev/net/tun’: Operation not permitted Can anyone assist please?

Using ideas from the proposed answer in the topic above, what I’m doing right now is to use machine: true flag in the job, and using sshuttle as a background process to connect to the VPN. As I understand it, the machine: true flag is going to be phased out at some point, and I just want to make sure I’m not going to be in that situation where I can’t run my browser tests anymore.

I’ve also found a CircleCI blog post about VPNs: https://circleci.com/blog/vpns-and-why-they-don-t-work/.

At the end of the post, it seems like another follow-up post or article explaining how to do this was going to be written, but not sure if that post has been written yet…

Thank you!

[halfer]

As I understand it, the machine: true flag is going to be phased out at some point

I would doubt that. I think it might become chargeable in the future, but there will always be a need for a real VM rather than a lightweight containerised environment. Containers have quite a few system limitations - the VPN issue is just one of them.

The machine offering has been free for the past year or so.

[igozali]

That’s good to know. So, right now the machine: true flag is the accepted way of doing tests through VPN, I guess?