Simulating audio playback on headless linux server
- by afro
Hi people,
We have a headless linux server (Debian 5) we use for runnin integration tests of our web-page code. Among these tests are ones implemented using Selenium, which practically simulates a user browsing our pages and clicking on things. One of these tests is failing now, because it involves starting a flash-based audio player and checking to see whether the progress bar gets displayed properly. The reason this test fails is that there is no way to play the audio, and no sound card on the machine, which has simple webserver hardware.
So, my question would be: Is there a simple way of giving a program the impression that its audio output is being processed, and playback is taking place? I don't have to record the playback, or redirect it or anything like that, just a dummy soundcard, like the dummy X-server we aer using, which actually does not need to display stuff.
I have tried using JACK, but it's too complicated, and the documentation does not even answer this very simple question. I also installed alsa on the server; it 'pretends' to run, but when a program tries to play audio, just spews error and debug information having to do with the non-existence of a soundcard.
It would be really awesome if one of you has a simple answer to this question.
Cheers,
Ulas
