Cross Browser Testing

Test web sites with a variety of web browsers. No queues. No contacts. No pre-payments.

All this is possible through the magic of Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2). We have built a few virtual machines, installed several browsers on them, and you can use them for just the "Amazon tax" of 12.5¢ per hour. Billing is by the hour and charged to your credit card (by Amazon) at the end of each month.

Boot up one of these virtual machines and you will be running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with (click on the screen snapshot to see it larger)

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Opera
• Safari
• Google Chrome
• Adobe Flash Player

Getting Started

It will take five or ten minutes to get everything in order. You will need to have your credit card handy.

1. Download and install Amazon's Elasticfox Firefox extension. You might also want the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Elasticfox Getting Started Guide.
2. Sign up for a Amazon Web Services account.
3. Sign up for the Amazon EC2 service.
4. Within the AWS web site, go to the Access Identifiers page. On this page, do the following:
   1. Scroll down to the X.509 Certificate section. Use the buttons to create a new certificate. After creating the certificate, download both the certificate and the private key to your computer. Keep these safe.
   2. Scroll up to the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key section. Copy your access key ID and your secret access key to a text editor.
   3. Carefully remove any leading and trailing blanks from your Access Key ID and the Secret Access Key.
5. Go to Elasticfox (you will find it in the Tools menu of Firefox)
   1. Click the blue Credentials button near the top, left corner. Make up an Account Name, e.g., "My AWS Account." Then copy and paste your access key ID from the text editor into the AWS Access Key field and your secret access key into the AWS Secret Key field.
   2. Click on the Security Groups tab. In the Your Groups pane, select the "default" group. Above the Group Permissions pane, click the green Grant Permission button. Fill in a Port Range from 3389 to 3389. Click the Add button to save the new permission. (This step allows the Windows remote desktop client to connect to your virtual machine.)

Machine Images

We currently offer these Amazon Machine Images (AMIs):

AMI Name	windows32h	windows32g	windows32n	windows32m
Date Created	January 7, 2009	January 7, 2009	March 25, 2009	March 25, 2009
Installed Software	IE6 Firefox 2 Firefox 3 Chrome 1.0 Opera 9 Safari 3.1 Flash Player 10	IE6 with the IE Developers Toolbar Firefox 2 Firefox 3 Chrome 1.0 Opera 9 Safari 3.1 Flash Player 10	IE7 Firefox 2 Firefox 3 Chrome 1.0 Opera 9 Safari 4 Public Beta 528.16 Flash Player 10	IE8 Firefox 2 Firefox 3 Chrome 1.0 Opera 9 Safari 4 Public Beta 528.16 Flash Player 10 Silverlight 2

Using the Virtual Machine

Now that you are set up with AWS and EC2, using the machine is a simple four step process. Click on each image to see it larger.

First, locate the Hen's Teeth Network machine image(s) by typing "htn" into the Elasticfox search window.

Second, select the machine image you want to use.

Third, boot your virtual machine by clicking the Launch Instance button. (AWS calls each virtual machine an "instance.")

Very important: Wait 10-15 minutes before proceeding with the next step. The status of the instance will change from "pending" to "running" long before Windows is actually up and running and ready for you to log in.

Fourth, log into your instance by clicking the Connect To Instance button. The username is "administrator" and the password is "administrator".

When you are finished using your virtual machine, turn it off by clicking the Terminate Selected Instances button. You will keep incurring charges until you do this!

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