Having several user sessions on one computer

[Dr. Leff]

How does one run several instances of a Web Browser on one computer to
exercise software.

I am testing a system that supports several individuals collaborating
(it is the ID3 system for
participatory democracy described at www.wiu.edu/users/mflll/ThreeSystems.html
in case anyone is curious.)

I start up Mozilla Firefox
and log in fine. I start up another Mozilla and when
I log in the system treats it as the same session.

The system to which we are communicating
is a Struts implementation running under Tomcat.

I have the same problem if I used Internet Explorer.
I can have Internet Explorer and Mozilla firefox and one
instance of each type of browser
is treated as a separate user. However, that only gives me two
simultaneous
simulated individuals on one computer. I need at least three to
demonstrate
or test the functionality of my system. (Of course, selenium has
a multi-user feature, but I am not at that phase yet.)

Thanking you for any insight into this problem.

Dr. Laurence Leff, Western Illinois University

[Arno Welzel]

Post by Dr. Leff
How does one run several instances of a Web Browser on one computer to
exercise software.
I am testing a system that supports several individuals collaborating
(it is the ID3 system for
participatory democracy described at www.wiu.edu/users/mflll/ThreeSystems.html
in case anyone is curious.)
I start up Mozilla Firefox
and log in fine. I start up another Mozilla and when
I log in the system treats it as the same session.

Since sessions are handled by cookies and all running browser instances
share the cookie information, this is an expected result.

I don't know any way to prevent browser instances to share the cookies.
The only way would be to run the browsers in different virtual machines,
e.g. using VMware Player, VirtualBox etc. with Ubuntu (or Windows, if
you have additional licenses).