headless.md

#If you're on Ubuntu or working with a Linux VM...

Step 1: Install the Ubuntu dependencies needed:

SSH into your server as a root or do sudo -i.

Then install necessary software:

apt-get update
apt-get install -y xvfb fluxbox x11vnc dbus libasound2 libqt4-dbus libqt4-network libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libxss1 libpython2.7 libqt4-xml libaudio2 libmng1 fontconfig liblcms1 lib32stdc++6 lib32asound2 ia32-libs libc6-i386 lib32gcc1 nano
apt-get install -y python-gobject-2
apt-get install -y curl git

Step 2. Options for starting:

Normal:

xvfb-run --server-args='-screen 0, 1024x768x16' google-chrome -start-maximized > /dev/null &

Start and open a page:

xvfb-run --server-args='-screen 0, 1024x768x16' google-chrome -start-maximized http://www.example.com > /dev/null &

#If you're on Windows..

Use Desktops from the MS SysInternals package. You can spawn your Chrome process directly from the "hidden" desktop and keep it working there (I have not personally tested this).

#Other options...

You could try spawning Chrome as a child process using something like Node.js and piping the output back to the terminal. See runChrome.js for an example of how to do this (todo: update to latest Express).

runChrome.js

var express = require('express');
var http = require('http');
var cp = require('child_process');
var port = 3000;
var app = express();
//var app = express();
//var server = http.createServer(app);
var chrome_count = 0;


app.get('/', function(req, res){
    startChrome(chrome_count++,9222,function chromeStared(err,id,chrome){
    	res.send('Chrome '+id+' Started\r\n');
    	console.log('Simulating some data parsing');
    	setTimeout(function(){
    		console.log('Shutdown chrome '+id);
    		chrome.kill('doh!');
    	},1000);
    });
});


app.listen(port);
console.log('Server is listening on port ' + port);
 
function startChrome(id,port,callback){
	var terminal = cp.spawn('bash');
	var chrome = {};
 
	terminal.on('exit', function (code) {

		console.log('Starting chrome');
		chrome = cp.spawn('/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome',[
			'--remote-debugging-port='+port,
			'--user-data-dir=/Volumes/DATA/repos/scrapper/userdata',
			'http://www.chrome.com'
		]);
		callback(null,id,chrome);
	});
 
	setTimeout(function() {
		console.log('Sending stdin to terminal');
		//terminal.stdin.write('echo "Hello $USER"');
		terminal.stdin.write('rm -rf /Volumes/DATA/repos/scrapper/userdata'+'\n');
		terminal.stdin.write('mkdir /Volumes/DATA/repos/scrapper/userdata'+'\n');
		terminal.stdin.write('touch "/Volumes/DATA/repos/scrapper/userdata/First Run"'+'\n');
		terminal.stdin.write('chmod 777 "/Volumes/DATA/repos/scrapper/userdata/First Run"'+'\n');
		terminal.stdin.end();
	}, 5000);	
}