Test localhost and staging websites that are not publicly accessible
BrowserStack can integrate with test suites pointing to your localhost URL, staging environment, and even websites behind one or more proxies/firewalls. This is done using BrowserStack Local - a tunneling feature that establishes a secure connection between your machine and the BrowserStack Cloud.
Prerequisites
- BrowserStack Username and Access key. You can find this in your account profile. If you do not have an account yet, you can sign up for a Free Trial.
- Node.js v12 or higher installed on your machine.
- Nightwatch 2.6.0 or higher installed on your machine.
- Nightwatch plugin is installed in your automation test suite.
Configure BrowserStack Local
Install the BrowserStack Nightwatch plugin in your project and set the browserstackLocal capability to true, as shown in the following code snippet:
You can now test your private websites on BrowserStack.
Check BrowserStack Local connectivity
Run this sample test to check if BrowserStack Local is working as expected and can connect to BrowserStack servers.
Clone sample git repository
Clone the sample nightwatch-browserstack repository and install dependencies. Skip this step if you have already cloned the repository.
Set BrowserStack credentials
Set the userName and accessKey in the nightwatch.conf.js configuration file. Skip this step if you have already set credentials as environment variables.
Execute build on BrowserStack
From the root directory of this project, run the following command:
If the test fails, refer to the following section for additional configuration that may be needed.
Additional configuration
BrowserStack Local works out of the box in most cases, but depending on the URL being tested and your network setup, additional configuration may be needed. Following are the frequently occurring scenarios:
The URL being tested is accessible from the internet but serves different content within your internal network.
This is common with staging environments set up as sub-domains and configured to work only in your private/VPN network. In this case, add the following entry in your configuration (nightwatch.conf.js) file.
The forceLocal capability will resolve all network traffic through the BrowserStack Local tunnel.
Testing on Safari and iOS devices
When testing localhost on Safari desktop browsers and iOS real devices, your automation scripts Get URL/Open URL commands are redirecting to bs-local.com. This is a necessary action due to circumventing Safari browser behaviors and limitations. Check out the detailed explanation in this FAQ.
Potential impact on your test scripts
If your application is not honoring relative URLs and explicitly refers to localhost from a config file, for example. In this case, we recommend honoring relative URLs in your web application as a best practice or handling this case as you deem fit.
Bypass invalid certificate browser warnings
To avoid invalid certificate errors while testing on our remote browsers, set the acceptInsecureCerts capability at the root level in your configuration nightwatch.conf.js file.
Advanced use cases and troubleshooting
For restricted networks and troubleshooting, refer to the following articles:
- Configure proxy settings (HTTP, MITM)
- Configure proxy using PAC file
- Troubleshoot BrowserStack Local issues
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