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Mohammad Waseem
Mohammad Waseem

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Overcoming Geo-Restrictions in Legacy Codebases with Web Scraping for Automated Testing

#webscraping #devops #automation

Introduction

Dealing with geoblocked features in legacy applications presents a unique challenge for QA and DevOps teams. Traditional testing tools often fall short when features are region-restricted, especially in legacy stacks that lack modern API-first design or geo-location flexibility. As a Senior Developer, I’ve encountered a scenario where automated testing of geo-restricted features was critical, yet direct access was impossible without violating legal or contractual boundaries.

In this context, I employed web scraping techniques to simulate user interactions from different regions, enabling seamless testing without modifying the core legacy codebase or relying on complex VPN setups. This approach leverages the principle of emulating real user environments, providing a reliable way to verify regional content delivery.

Problem Breakdown

The main challenge was to test a legacy web application that renders region-specific content based on user location, with the following constraints:

  • The server enforces geo-restrictions based on IP detection.
  • The codebase is monolithic, with minimal API exposure.
  • Modifying server-side logic wasn’t feasible due to stability and deployment concerns.
  • The testing environment needed to simulate different geographic regions reliably.

Why Web Scraping?

Web scraping offers a flexible solution. By programmatically retrieving web pages as a user from a specific region, we can observe the content served without needing API access or backend changes. This approach ensures compliance with existing systems and avoids potential legal issues associated with IP spoofing or VPN misconfigurations.

Implementation Strategy

The core idea is to use an HTTP client with a custom header setup and, when necessary, integrate with a proxy service to simulate geographic locations.

Step 1: Use a Proxy Service

To emulate different regions, you can employ geo-targeted proxies or VPN APIs that assign a specific IP location for the HTTP requests.

import requests

PROXY = "http://proxy-service-region-xyz"  # Replace with your proxy URL
headers = {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)"
}

response = requests.get("https://legacy-application-url.com/feature", headers=headers, proxies={"http": PROXY, "https": PROXY})
print(response.text)
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Step 2: Parse and Validate Content

Using libraries like BeautifulSoup (Python), extract specific elements to verify if the correct regional content loads.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')
region_content = soup.find('div', {'id': 'region-specific'})
assert 'expected region content' in region_content.text
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Step 3: Automate Multiple Regions

Create a list of proxy endpoints or IP addresses corresponding to regions and iterate through them.

regions = ['region1', 'region2', 'region3']
proxies = {
    'region1': 'http://proxy1',
    'region2': 'http://proxy2',
    'region3': 'http://proxy3'
}

for region in regions:
    response = requests.get("https://legacy-application-url.com/feature", headers=headers, proxies={"http": proxies[region], "https": proxies[region]})
    # Parse and validate
    soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')
    region_content = soup.find('div', {'id': 'region-specific'})
    print(f"Content for {region}: {region_content.text}")
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Best Practices and Considerations

  • Use stable, compliant proxy providers to ensure data integrity and legal adherence.
  • Implement robust error handling for network issues or content discrepancies.
  • Consider parsing JavaScript-rendered content using headless browsers like Selenium or Puppeteer if needed.
  • Document and automate proxy management to handle regional updates.

Conclusion

Web scraping with geo-targeted proxies is a powerful workaround for testing geo-locked features in legacy environments. It offers controlled, repeatable testing scenarios without risking the stability of critical systems. While not a substitute for comprehensive infrastructure updates, it serves as an effective bridge for current testing needs, ensuring regional compliance and feature validation.

This method exemplifies how innovative, non-invasive techniques can enhance existing DevOps workflows, ensuring quality across global markets with minimal disruption.

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