selenium using username/pw in URL

Question

When running selenium tests, to handle apache authentication, it is possible to just send in the 'username:pw@' in the URL string, like https://username:pw@TheSiteIamTesting.com. When running tests on my local machine, I am not worried about sending in the password, as it is going to a local browser then out over https, and therefore the username and password should not be able to be easily picked off. However, what about when I run the test on a remote node? Is the URL string sent to the node over a standard http connection (in the clear) and then executed once it gets to the node. In that case, I am a little nervous that the username and password could seen. Any insights on this?

Answer 1

I figured out how to get around this, with some help, see below. I set up an ssh tunnel between the hub and the node, so I can send whatever I want back and forth.

password protection using selenium grid and remote nodes