How to Use a Proxy with Robot Framework

Which proxy to use

Residential proxies suit automation that acts like a visitor, with a sticky session for anything that logs in. For testing your own site from other countries, any plan with the right country works; Residential Lite is the cheapest.

What to enter

A PiratProxies plan gives you four things: a host, a port, a username and a password. These are the values for Residential; the username and password are on your plan page.

Host	`resi.piratproxies.com`
HTTP port	`8080`
SOCKS5 port	`1080`
Username	`USERNAME`
Password	from your plan page

The country and the session are chosen in the username, not in a separate setting. The generator on your plan page writes the username for you, and Targeting and sessions explains each part.

Steps

With the Browser library, pass proxy to New Browser, with the server, username and password.
With RequestsLibrary, pass a proxies dictionary to Create Session.

Example

Browser library

*** Settings ***
Library    Browser

*** Test Cases ***
Show Exit IP
    New Browser    chromium    proxy={'server': 'http://resi.piratproxies.com:8080', 'username': 'USERNAME', 'password': 'PASSWORD'}
    New Page    https://api.ipify.org
    ${ip}=    Get Text    body
    Log    ${ip}

Replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with the login from your plan page. The example asks an IP-check address, so the output is the address your request left from.

Rotating or sticky

If Robot Framework is acting as one visitor through several steps, use a sticky session so the IP address stays the same throughout. If each run is independent, leave the session out and every run starts from a new address.

A sticky username looks like this:

USERNAME-country-us-time-600-session-a1b2c3d4

If it does not work

SeleniumLibrary drives Chrome through WebDriver, which has no place for a proxy login. Use the Browser library, or a local forwarder.
A 407 error means the username or password was not accepted. Copy both again from your plan page, and check that nothing added a space or cut the username short.
If the IP address is in the wrong country, look at the username: the country code is part of it. More fixes.

Questions

Which PiratProxies proxy should I use with Robot Framework?

Robot Framework is a product of its own makers. PiratProxies is not affiliated with it; the name is used here only to say what this guide is about. Use it within the rules of the sites you work with and our acceptable use policy.