Can it use SSE to call Chrome on another machine?

[seasoncool]

We want to use it for automated testing. We hope to deploy some Chrome instances via Docker and then invoke the Chrome browsers using SSE to achieve our automated testing goals.

[OrKoN]

Could you please clarify why do you need SSE? you can connect chrome-devtools-mcp to a Chrome instance running remotely using the --browser-url parameter (see https://github.com/ChromeDevTools/chrome-devtools-mcp?tab=readme-ov-file#configuration)

[seasoncool]

@OrKoN
Thank you for your reply.

We would like to install both Chrome DevTools and Chrome together inside a container, and deploy it on an Ubuntu Docker container.
This way, each tester can have their own isolated container with Chrome DevTools, ensuring that their automated tests do not interfere with one another. However, the testers need to access these containers from their personal laptops. I believe SSE protocol would be required to achieve this—please correct me if I’m wrong. Thank you!

[seasoncool]

@OrKoN

Thank you for the above guidance—we tried using the remote debugging feature, which is a great idea.
However, we encountered an issue: we want to launch Chrome on another machine for remote debugging, but currently, we can only access it via localhost:9222; accessing it via IP address fails.
For example, http://localhost:9222/json returns the basic information, but http://10.232.160.17:9222/json is unreachable.

/usr/bin/google-chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --remote-debugging-address=0.0.0.0 --remote-allow-origins=* --user-data-dir=/tmp/chrome-profile-stable


{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chrome-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "chrome-devtools-mcp@latest",
        "--browser-url=http://10.232.160.17:9222"
      ]
    }
  }
}

[bentalakai21-ux]

/usr/bin/google-chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --remote-debugging-address=0.0.0.0 --remote-allow-origins=* --user-data-dir=/tmp/chrome-profile-stable

{
"mcpServers": {
"chrome-devtools": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"chrome-devtools-mcp@latest",
"--browser-url=http://10.232.160.17:9222"
]
}
}
}

[bentalakai21-ux]

I need help

[OrKoN]

@OrKoN

Thank you for the above guidance—we tried using the remote debugging feature, which is a great idea. However, we encountered an issue: we want to launch Chrome on another machine for remote debugging, but currently, we can only access it via localhost:9222; accessing it via IP address fails. For example, http://localhost:9222/json returns the basic information, but http://10.232.160.17:9222/json is unreachable.

/usr/bin/google-chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --remote-debugging-address=0.0.0.0 --remote-allow-origins=* --user-data-dir=/tmp/chrome-profile-stable


{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chrome-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "chrome-devtools-mcp@latest",
        "--browser-url=http://10.232.160.17:9222"
      ]
    }
  }
}

I think you would also need to forward the traffic (e.g., via ssh port forwarding) to a local port because Chrome listens on localhost only by default. --remote-debugging-address=0.0.0.0 was removed from Chrome for security reasons a while ago.

[seasoncool]

You are correct; remote access functionality is no longer available, and I have also found some information:
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/327558594#comment6

[rust17]

@seasoncool

After struggling for a long time, I finally figured it out.

I managed to get Google Chrome DevTools in an OrbStack virtual machine to connect to Chrome on the macOS host for remote debugging.

At first, using host.docker.internal kept getting rejected by Chrome (due to Host header validation), and no matter what parameters I tried, it didn't work.

Eventually, I used an SSH tunnel to map port 9222 from the Mac to 127.0.0.1 in the VM, successfully bypassing the Host validation and connecting.

The command was roughly:

ssh -N -L 127.0.0.1:9223:127.0.0.1:9222 <user>@<mac-ip>

The MCP connection to http://127.0.0.1:9223 worked perfectly.

This was quite a hassle—Chrome's Host restrictions are really strict: IP works, but hostname doesn't.

[seasoncool]

@rust17 WOW~
That sounds great!
Can you use noVNC to view the Chrome interface inside the container?
Are you deploying it with Docker? If possible, could you please provide the Dockerfile?

[rust17]

@seasoncool I am using mcp to call Chrome on a physical machine within a virtual machine in orbStack, without using Docker. I think it's somewhat similar to your scenario.

[seasoncool]

@rust17 Thank you for your information, and we will also try your way.