NodeJS Secure Websockets will not attach to https - node.js

Question

I'm going insane trying to get a super basic wss:// functioning in NodeJS for the last 2 days. I've tried quite a few methods and libraries but I can't seem to get the websocket server attached to an https instance. I have no problem leveraging regular old http and attaching it to that instance. I don't get any errors in my debug console.
I've created both self-style type certs (Create Key + CA, create CSR,
sign it, use new server cert), and (Create Key + self-signed Cert,
use them).
I've tried disabling TLS verification via env var:
NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED="0"
I've tried both ws, and websocket libraries and many different combos
of basic ws creation vs server attaching methods.
I've built a VM of Ubuntu 21.04, installed dependencies and vscode
just to rule out my OS. Same issue here.
Tried using node versions 14 + 16.
:Package Deps:
"websocket": "^1.0.34",
"ws": "^8.0.0"
:server.js:
const fs = require('fs');
const WebSocket = require('ws');
//HTTPS
const https = require('https');
const server = new https.createServer({
key: fs.readFileSync('./config/certs/key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('./config/certs/cert.pem')
});
//HTTP
// const http = require('http');
// const server = new http.createServer();
const wss = new WebSocket.Server({server});
wss.on('connection', function connection(ws) {
ws.on('message', function incoming(message) {
console.log('received: %s', message);
ws.send('hello from server!, the time is: ' + timestamp());
});
});
//Helper function to create a timestamp
function timestamp() {
return (new Date)
.toISOString()
.replace(/z|t/gi, ' ')
.trim()
};
//Start the server
server.listen(3000);
I'm suspecting some underlying compatibility issues between node and dependencies or something...Any advice would be much appreciated. I'm not too familiar with debugging internal modules so if there are some command line switches I should add to node/nodemon please let me know. I have --inspect and --trace-warnings enabled at the very least.

Answer 1

I just figured it out and as usual it was something simple and overlooked. I've been using Firefox with the Weasel client add-on to test websockets. I had imported my self-signed cert along with the root CA cert I had created into Firefox. Even though it was imported, I still had to navigate to the HTTPS url and acknowledge the wonderful yellow border popup. As soon as I clicked on "Accept risk and continue" I tabbed over to Weasel and it established a connection to wss://localhost:3000 with no problems.
Even though the cert is whitelisted I still receive the warning page and have to acknowledge it. Next time I'll try a different client like one built in another language (Python, .NET...). Never would have thought it to be a browser issue but it makes sense with the way ssl/tls works.