Websocket Relay Server

This is a ready-to-deploy Websocket based relay server with caching support. Please refer to the flow diagram at the end of this document for a detailed overview. Additionally, the relay server also supports basic authentication of clients. This authentication mechanism can be extended to integrate a regular client authorization techniques such as OAuth.

Technical Details

Client connection status, and caching is done in conjuction with Redis. The Redis Server can be configured to have a username, and password. But default implementation assumes such mechanisms are not in use.

The relay server also supports HTTPS, given proper Key, Certificate and Certficate Authority. Self-signed certificates maybe used, but connections are not guaranteed to work with major browser clients. In such cases HTTP deployments are also possible.

Setting Up

1. Install redis-server on your deployment platform

2. Start redis-server

3. Clone this repo and navigate to the directory

4. Open .env on a text editor

   REDIS_HOST=localhost
   REDIS_PORT=6379
   REDIS_PASS=password
   PORT=1337
   HOST=localhost
   HTTPS=true
   

5. Alter the configurations to suit your configuration

   The HOST config is for running tests. PORT is which the relay server listens to incoming connections.

6. Starting the server.

   You may use node index.js, but on production it is advised to use pm2. If so, simply, pm2 start index.js. Monitoring can be done at pm2 monit.

Credits: Gists from mariotacke

Testing

The tests are designed to emulate most client scenarios from Authentication, relaying a message, and testing the cache releasing functions.

The HOST config on .env enables you to test the relay server locally, or remotely pointing to a deployed relay server.

To run tests, simply, npm run tests

Detailed Flow