does not identify server is up - probably missing other things too

[GuyMograbi]

The code is wrong in data

Why?

simply because .on('data',func) does not promise you anything about the data you receive.

While you're looking for Selenium Server is up and running , you might never actually see it since it might split to 2 data events. one will say Selenium Server is and the other up and running..

it can split at any point...

you can clearly see it in the code

    function data(out) {
            grunt.verbose.writeln('>> '.red + out);
            var lines;

            if (REGEXP_REMOTE.test(out)) {
                server = extract(REGEXP_REMOTE, out, 1).replace(/\/wd\/hub/, '') || server;
            } else if (REGEXP_START_READY.test(out)) {
                // Success

what you need is to concatenate the outputs and look at the concatenation..

this might be handy: http://stackoverflow.com/a/20091680/1068746