We are Using Ulitmate PDF in a locked down on premise environment with only reactive apps.
Also, we are using BDD Client Side. BDD Client side frame work.
We are not allowed to phone home, so we are using the Ultimate PDF Management component to store the Chromium version.
The BDD component also want to have access to a chromium version.
Question: is there a way to consolidate both forge components to use the same version?
Hi Joost,
I’ve seen the same scenario in restricted on-premises installations where “phoning home” is not allowed.
Context
Ultimate PDF bundles its own Chromium binaries but also allows using the Ultimate PDF Management component to store and reference a specific Chromium version locally.
BDD Framework (Client Side), when running tests in Reactive apps, also needs Chromium to drive headless browser execution. By default, it expects to fetch its own binaries as well.
So essentially you have two Forge components that both want Chromium, and in a locked-down environment you don’t want to duplicate or open outbound connections.
At the moment, there’s no out-of-the-box configuration to make Ultimate PDF and BDD share the same Chromium package. Each Forge component ships with its own bootstrap logic and expects binaries in its own expected path.
However, there are a couple of workarounds you can consider:
Centralize Chromium in Ultimate PDF Management
Deploy your required Chromium version into Ultimate PDF Management.
In BDD, override the Chromium path resolution (this requires tweaking the BDD setup or extending it with a custom plugin) so that it points to the same binaries.
Custom “shared library” approach
Place Chromium binaries in a shared folder on the server.
Adjust both Ultimate PDF Management and BDD config files (or clone and extend the Forge components) so they look to that path instead of maintaining two separate versions.
Version Alignment
Make sure the Chromium version you’re pinning in Ultimate PDF Management matches one that BDD supports. If they’re aligned, even if technically duplicated, at least you avoid mismatch issues.
Recommendations
In practice, most customers in locked-down environments pick one Forge component as the “owner” of Chromium (usually Ultimate PDF Management), and then modify the other (BDD) to point to that same path.
This might mean creating a small extension or wrapper around BDD to override its Chromium lookup.
If modification is not allowed, the safer fallback is to keep separate Chromium copies, but pin them to the same version for consistency.