password protection using selenium grid and remote nodes

Question

When using selenium grid with remote nodes, how can I execute commends on the node without passing information in the clear between the grid and the node? I access the site I am testing uses https, so communication between the node and the site is secure, but what about between the hub and the node? Is there any way to secure that? Has anyone tried port forwarding on both the hub and the node?

Answer 1

Thank you. With the help of that link and a little tinkering, I got it to work. In case it helps someone, here is basically what I did. This is the case where I am running the grid on my local machine (at home) and I have nodes running on remote laptops.

• Generate an rsa key on the remote machine, and take id_rsa.pub and place it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the local machine running the grid, making sure you have file/directory permissions set correctly
• Make sure you have a fixed IP at your local machine, I used the AirPort Utility, under network options, DHCP Reservations. (Info about how to do this is generally easily web-searchable)
• Open up port 22 on your local router. I did this using the Airport Utility, network options, Port Settings. At this point you should be able to ssh from the remote machine to the local machine successfully, without using a password.
• Start port forwarding on the remote machine, with something like this. ssh -N -L 4444:${HUB_IP}:4444 ${USER_NAME}@${HUB_IP}. Now all data that is sent to port 4444 on the remote machine, will be sent securely to end up on port 4444 on the local machine (this presumes that your grid is set up on 4444)
• Start the grid on the local machine, using port 4444
• Start the node on the remote machine with the hub setting of -hub http://localhost:4444/grid/register -port {whatever_you_want_for_driver_but_not_4444}

I put this all into a script that runs from the local machine, it calls scripts on the remote machine, so you need to also be able to ssh from the local machine to the remote machine. It is a bit of a hassle to set this up, but once it is done, you can start one script to start the hub and as many nodes as you like.

I think now I can pass information securely between the hub and the nodes.

Answer 2

I have not done this personally, but this link may help you.

For logging into websites, I have usually tried to log in via an API and then insert the cookie into the driver session so logging in was not needed via Selenium.