e2e-container

name

e2e-container

description

Guides running Playwright E2E tests for the Kubernetes Dashboard extension inside a Linux container (e.g. on macOS via Docker/Podman). Covers prerequisites, installing a Podman Desktop testing binary, building the extension plugin without podman, starting an envtest cluster, running the tests via CDP mode (no test runner patching needed), and cleanup. Triggers when running E2E tests inside a container, setting up a containerised test environment, or troubleshooting headless Electron issues.

Running E2E Tests in a Linux Container

Platform: Tested and supported on macOS/arm64 only. The container images, binary downloads, and scripts assume an ARM64 host.

This skill covers running the Playwright E2E test suite from inside a Linux arm64 container where podman, brew, and macOS-specific tools (hdiutil, codesign) are unavailable.

All executable scripts are in the scripts/ directory alongside this file.

Prerequisites

These tools must be available in the container. Use the check commands to verify, and install anything missing.

Tool	Check command
Go	go version
kubectl	kubectl version --client
Go PATH	echo $PATH | grep -q "$(go env GOPATH)/bin" && echo ok
envtest tools	command -v envtest-start && command -v setup-envtest
Xvfb + Electron libs	command -v Xvfb
dbus-launch	command -v dbus-launch

Run the prerequisites install script to install everything:

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/install-prerequisites.sh

This installs Go PATH setup, envtest tools, Xvfb with Electron shared libraries, and dbus-x11 (for dbus-launch).

Step-by-Step Workflow

Step 1: Install a Podman Desktop testing binary

Downloads the latest nightly Linux arm64 build and creates a wrapper script that passes --disable-dev-shm-usage to work around the 64 MB /dev/shm limit in containers:

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/install-pd-binary.sh

Step 2: Build the extension plugin

Without podman, this replicates the container export by copying build output directly into the plugins directory:

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/build-extension-plugin.sh

Step 3: Start the envtest Kubernetes cluster

Starts a local Kubernetes API server via envtest and waits for the kubeconfig to be written:

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/start-envtest.sh

The script exports KUBEBUILDER_ASSETS and backgrounds the envtest-start process. The PID is saved to /tmp/envtest-start.pid for later cleanup.

Step 4: Run the tests

Copies kubeconfigs and runs the E2E suite using CDP mode:

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/run-tests.sh

How it works: Setting DEBUGGING_PORT switches the test runner to ChromeDevToolsProtocolRunner, which launches Electron with --remote-debugging-port and connects via CDP — the same mechanism used by the interactive Podman Desktop skill. This avoids recordVideo in electron.launch(), which triggers Chromium's Page.startScreencast and blocks the compositor in GPU-less containers.

Step 5: Stop the cluster

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/stop-envtest.sh

Restarting the Tests

Quick restart — only the cluster needs to be restarted: redo steps 3 and 4, keeping EXTENSION_PREINSTALLED=true.

Full clean restart (e.g. after modifying extension sources) — after stopping the cluster, reset the Podman Desktop profile:

rm -rf tests/playwright/tests/playwright/

Then redo steps 2, 3, and 4.

Cleanup

After stopping the cluster (step 5), remove all generated files:

bash skills/e2e-container/scripts/cleanup.sh