Virtual Browser

Virtual Browser lets you run a full Chromium or Firefox browser inside your workspace and control it remotely from your own browser. It uses a headless display server with VNC streaming - you see and interact with the remote browser as if it were running locally.

Use Cases

Web scraping - browse sites from a VM IP address, avoiding bot detection on your local machine
UI testing - visually verify web applications running inside the workspace
Web tool access - use browser-based tools (admin panels, dashboards) from within the VM network
Screenshot automation - capture pages rendered by a real browser engine
Multi-browser testing - both Chromium and Firefox are available for cross-browser verification

How It Works

Virtual Browser runs three components inside your workspace: You open the noVNC URL in your own browser and get a live, interactive view of the remote browser.

Requirements

Virtual Browser requires Xvfb and x11vnc to be installed in the workspace, along with Chromium and Firefox via Playwright. None of these come pre-installed, so you install them as part of the tool.

Image	Status	What’s included
`base`	Requires installation	None of the above
`dev`	Requires installation	None of the above

Installation downloads Chromium and Firefox, which can take several minutes on either image.

Installation

Install Virtual Browser before launching it. This installs Playwright along with Chromium and Firefox browsers. The install runs asynchronously and prints a job id you can poll.

rig tools install --workspace $WORKSPACE --tool virtual-browser

Installation downloads browser binaries and their dependencies. This can take 3-5 minutes on a base image workspace depending on network speed.

See Install Tool for the full response schema.

Tracking Installation Progress

Poll the installation status with the job id from rig tools install to know when the browser is ready.

rig tools install-status --workspace $WORKSPACE --tool virtual-browser --job-id $JOB_ID

See Installation Status for the response schema.

Launching Virtual Browser

Once installed, launch the browser.

rig tools launch --workspace $WORKSPACE --tool virtual-browser

See Launch Tool for the response schema.

Accessing the Browser

Once launched, Virtual Browser is accessible via noVNC on port 8892 inside the workspace. The public URL is:

https://browser-{workspace-id}.rigbox.dev

Open this URL in your local browser. You’ll see the remote browser’s display and can interact with it using your mouse and keyboard.

The browser- prefixed subdomain is created automatically when you launch Virtual Browser. You don’t need to create an app route manually.

Interacting with the Remote Browser

Once connected via noVNC:

Click anywhere to interact with page elements
Type to enter text in input fields and the address bar
Scroll with your mouse wheel or trackpad
Navigate using the browser’s address bar, back/forward buttons
Open new tabs using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+T) or right-click menus

The noVNC client supports clipboard sharing. Copy text on your local machine and paste it into the remote browser, or vice versa. Use the noVNC sidebar menu for clipboard controls.

Stopping Virtual Browser

Stop the browser when you’re done to free up resources.

rig tools stop --workspace $WORKSPACE --tool virtual-browser

See Stop Tool for details.

Complete Example: Browse a Local Web App

This walkthrough starts a web app inside the workspace and uses Virtual Browser to view it.

Create a workspace with the dev image

rig workspace spawn creates the workspace from the dev template, boots it, and waits until it’s ready:

rig workspace spawn --name browser-demo --template dev

Start a local web app

SSH into the workspace and start your web application. Replace <APP_DIR> with the path to your project (for example, /home/developer/my-app):

# Inside the VM
cd <APP_DIR>
npm run dev -- --port 3000 &

Launch Virtual Browser

rig tools launch --workspace browser-demo --tool virtual-browser

Then open https://browser-<workspace-id>.rigbox.dev in your local browser.

View your app in the remote browser

Open the noVNC URL in your local browser. In the remote Chromium browser, navigate to http://localhost:3000 to see your web app rendered by a real browser engine inside the VM.

Stop when done

rig tools stop --workspace browser-demo --tool virtual-browser

Programmatic Browser Control with Playwright

Since Virtual Browser installs Playwright, you can also control the browser programmatically from within the VM for automation tasks.

# Inside the VM - run this as a Python script
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch()
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://example.com")
    page.screenshot(path="screenshot.png")
    print(f"Title: {page.title()}")
    browser.close()

This is useful for:

Automated screenshot capture
Web scraping with full JavaScript rendering
End-to-end testing of web applications
PDF generation from web pages

Virtual Browser (the VNC-based UI) and Playwright scripts use separate browser instances. Launching Virtual Browser does not affect Playwright scripts, and vice versa.

Next Steps

Architecture Explorer - visualize code structure and dependencies
Images & Templates - choose the dev image for a richer development environment
Catalog Apps - install VS Code, Jupyter, and other pre-packaged apps

Getting Started

Concepts

Deploying & hosting

AI, automation & data

CLI Reference

Integrations & tools

Build on Rigbox

Use Cases

How It Works

Requirements

Installation

Tracking Installation Progress

Launching Virtual Browser

Accessing the Browser

Interacting with the Remote Browser

Stopping Virtual Browser

Complete Example: Browse a Local Web App

Create a workspace with the dev image

Start a local web app

Launch Virtual Browser

View your app in the remote browser

Stop when done

Programmatic Browser Control with Playwright

Next Steps

​Use Cases

​How It Works

​Requirements

​Installation

​Tracking Installation Progress

​Launching Virtual Browser

​Accessing the Browser

​Interacting with the Remote Browser

​Stopping Virtual Browser

​Complete Example: Browse a Local Web App

​Create a workspace with the dev image

​Start a local web app

​Launch Virtual Browser

​View your app in the remote browser

​Stop when done

​Programmatic Browser Control with Playwright

​Next Steps

Use Cases

How It Works

Requirements

Installation

Tracking Installation Progress

Launching Virtual Browser

Accessing the Browser

Interacting with the Remote Browser

Stopping Virtual Browser

Complete Example: Browse a Local Web App

Create a workspace with the dev image

Start a local web app

Launch Virtual Browser

View your app in the remote browser

Stop when done

Programmatic Browser Control with Playwright

Next Steps