Securing the communication with the remote Mac computer

When UFT One connects to a remote Mac computer, it can access the Safari application and perform steps on Web applications running in Safari. Therefore, it is important to secure this connection, to prevent inappropriate access to your Mac and Web pages that the Mac can access.

When UFT One communicates with the Mac, UFT One acts as a client and the UFT Connection Agent acts as a server.

You can secure this communication on different levels.

Set up client authentication by defining a passphrase

Define the same passphrase in UFT One's Remote Connection pane in the Options dialog box (Tools > Options > GUI Testing > Remote Connection) and in the UFT Connection Agent's preferences.

By default, the passphrase is empty. To provide better security, provide a passphrase that is long, complicated, and difficult to guess.

UFT One uses this passphrase whenever it initiates a connection with any Mac computer.

The UFT Connection Agent accepts a connection request only if the passphrase included in the request matches the passphrase defined in the agent's preferences.

You can define the same passphrase on multiple UFT One instances (on different computers, or in different user accounts on the same computer), and multiple instances of the UFT Connection Agent, (on different Mac computers or in different Mac user accounts). This way, you can set up a group of computers that all share the same passphrase and are used for similar testing purposes (like a virtual lab).

Back to top

Secure the communication using SSL

In the UFT Connection Agent preferences, set the following:

  • Specify whether communications with this agent must take place over SSL connections (use SSL)

  • If they must, then:

    • Specify the path to an SSL certificate file for the server to use for the communication. (Chain certificate files are also supported)

    • Specify the path to the SSL private key that matches the certificate.

In UFT One:

  • In the Remote Connection pane in the Options dialog box (Tools > Options > GUI Testing > Remote Connection), specify the path to an SSL CA certificate file that UFT One can use to validate the SSL certificate provided by the server. (Certificate bundles are also supported.)

  • When defining the details for a specific remote connection, you specify whether the connection should use SSL. This can be done in the Remote Connection dialog box, in the Record and Run settings (on a per-test basis), or using the RemoteConnection utility method in a test step. For details, see Connect to a remote Mac computer.

  • For a connection to succeed, the use SSL option must have the same value in UFT One and the UFT Connection Agent.

    At different times, UFT One can connect to different UFT Connection Agents, by using different Mac or port numbers. You can instruct UFT One to initiate non-SSL connections with agents that you know do not require SSL, and SSL connections with agents that you know require it. UFT One uses the CA certificate file for certificate validation only on connections initiated using SSL.

Back to top