Selenium Grid - Remote Controls always being unregistered by hub

Question

I have Selenium Grid 1.0.8 running well with the hub and several remote controls on the same machine. My testNG tests all run successfully.

When I start a remote control on a different machine, everything initially appears to be fine. The hub console shows the remote control to be available with the default environment "*firefox".

However, when I run the tests (still on the hub machine), the remote controls on the other box never work properly. They keep getting deregistered from the hub.

I've disabled the firewalls and I can ping betweeen the two boxes. Has anyone encountered similar issues?

The Remote Control Log:

[java] 21:34:19.479 WARN - Hub at http://192.168.1.129:4444/heartbeat?host=localhost&port=5539 does not have us as registered [java] 21:34:49.496 INFO - Checking connection to hub... [java] 21:34:49.496 INFO - Ping Hub at http://192.168.1.129:4444/heartbeat?host=localhost&port=5539

The hub log:

[java] INFO: Garbage collecting unavailable RCs and stale sessions...

 [java] Jun 16, 2011 9:39:52 PM org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector executeWithRetry

 [java] INFO: I/O exception (java.net.ConnectException) caught when processing request: Connection refused

 [java] Jun 16, 2011 9:39:52 PM org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector executeWithRetry

 [java] INFO: Retrying request
 [java] Jun 16, 2011 9:39:52 PM org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector executeWithRetry
 [java] INFO: I/O exception (java.net.ConnectException) caught when processing request: Connection refused
 [java] Jun 16, 2011 9:39:52 PM org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector executeWithRetry
 [java] INFO: Retrying request
 [java] Jun 16, 2011 9:39:52 PM org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector executeWithRetry
 [java] INFO: I/O exception (java.net.ConnectException) caught when processing request: Connection refused
 [java] Jun 16, 2011 9:39:52 PM org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector executeWithRetry
 [java] INFO: Retrying request

Answer 1

Are you passing the correct host value when you register your node? In order to deal with proxies properly, the node must provide a routable hostname to that node when registering with the hub. Without this value, the hub will be unable to communicate with the node and will unregister it.