Post for Multi-Arch Images via Docker Selenium

website_and_docs/content/blog/2024/multi-arch-images-via-docker-selenium.md

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+---
+title: "Multi-Arch Images via Docker Selenium"
+linkTitle: "Multi-Arch Images via Docker Selenium"
+date: 2024-05-23
+tags: [ "Grid", "Docker", "Kubernetes" ]
+categories: [ "Docker" ]
+author: Viet Nguyen Duc [@VietND96](https://github.com/VietND96)
+description: >
+  This blog post announces the availability of Multi-Arch Images for Selenium Grid Server on the official Selenium Docker Hub registry.
+---
+
+We're very happy to announce the landing of Multi-Arch Images for Selenium Grid Server on
+the [Selenium](https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/) Docker Hub registry!
+
+### Motivation
+
+For experimental Docker container images that are able to run on platforms such as the Apple M-series or Raspberry Pi,
+the community-driven repository initiative hosted
+at [SeleniumHQ-Community/docker-seleniarm](https://github.com/seleniumhq-community/docker-seleniarm). These images are
+built for separate architectures: linux/arm64 (aarch64), linux/arm/v7 (armhf), and linux/amd64 and published
+on [Seleniarm](https://hub.docker.com/u/seleniarm) Docker Hub registry.
+
+In order to bring more awareness to the existence of the Multi-Arch Docker container images, provide more insight and
+transparency on how the container images are built, as well as overcome challenges in building and maintaining them. We
+have decided to merge the fork into the main project [Docker Selenium](https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/docker-selenium)
+and
+published multi-arch images on [Selenium](https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/) Docker Hub registry.
+
+### Overview
+
+From image tag [releases](https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/docker-selenium/releases) `4.21.0` onwards, the architectures
+supported by Docker Selenium as below
+
+|       Architecture        | Operating System | Available |
+|:-------------------------:|------------------|:---------:|
+|    x86_64 (aka amd64)     | Ubuntu LTS       |     ✅     |
+| aarch64 (aka arm64/armv8) | Ubuntu LTS       |     ✅     |
+| armhf (aka arm32/armv7l)  | N/A              |     ❌     |
+
+Based on the architecture of the host machine, Docker will automatically pull the correct image for the platform.
+
+### Browser Binaries
+
+Let's take a moment to look at the browser binaries which are available for various architectures
+
+Google does not build Chrome (google-chrome) for Linux/ARM platforms. Hence, the Chrome (node and standalone) images are
+only available for AMD64. Similarly, Microsoft does not build Edge (microsoft-edge) for Linux/ARM platforms.
+
+Instead, the open source Chromium browser is used in place of Chrome and Edge. The `standalone-chromium`
+and `node-chromium`
+
+```bash
+$ docker run --rm -it -p 4444:4444 -p 5900:5900 -p 7900:7900 --shm-size 2g selenium/standalone-chromium:latest
+```
+
+Mozilla Firefox now is available for Linux/ARM64
+via [Nightly](https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2024/04/19/firefox-nightly-now-available-for-linux-on-arm64/) channel.
+The Firefox version in the ARM64 image will be different from the AMD64 version until the stable release is available.
+
+| Image Name          | Operating System | amd64 | arm64 |
+|---------------------|------------------|-------|-------|
+| standalone-chromium | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ✅     |
+| node-chromium       | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ✅     |
+| standalone-firefox  | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ✅     |
+| node-firefox        | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ✅     |
+| standalone-edge     | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ❌     |
+| node-edge           | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ❌     |
+| standalone-chrome   | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ❌     |
+| node-chrome         | Ubuntu LTS       | ✅     | ❌     |
+
+### Build, test, and distribute multi-arch images
+
+We would also like to share what has been done to ensure that the multi-arch images can be built, tested, and
+distributed seamlessly.
+
+- Utilize Bash scripts and Makefile to wrap the tasks as much as possible. It provides the transparency on how the
+  container images are built and proceed by single command.
+
+- Utilize Arm VM's support on [CircleCI](https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/SeleniumHQ/docker-selenium) to build,
+  test, and deploy ARM64 images. Once GitHub Actions officially supports Arm-based hosted runners, those workflows can
+  easily be moved back to the same place. All the tests done for AMD64 images (including Docker, Docker Compose, and
+  deploy to Kubernetes) are used to verify ARM64 images.
+
+- Utilize experimental feature [containerd image store](https://docs.docker.com/storage/containerd/) in Docker Engine to
+  build and distribute multi-arch images in a simple way.
+
+Hopefully, this will make it easy for the community to find and use multi-arch images to simplify Selenium Grid Server
+deployment on various platforms.
+
+---
+
+Stay tuned for updates by following SeleniumHQ on [X (Formerly Twitter)](https://twitter.com/seleniumhq)
+or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/selenium/)!
+
+Happy testing!