Any way to check if TCP socket in NodeJS has been connected - node.js

Any way to check if TCP socket in NodeJS has been connected.
As opposed to still connecting in transient.
Am looking for a property as opposed to an emitted event.
Is it even possible?

The manual shows you that an event is emitted for when the connection is established and that is how you should handle it the Node.js way (using non-blocking, asynchronous i/o)
There is though an undocumented way to check it, the socket object has a _connecting boolean property that if set to false means it has been connected already or failed.
Example :
var net = require('net');
//Connect to localhost:80
var socket = net.createConnection(80);
if(socket._connecting === true) {
console.log("The TCP connection is not established yet");
}

Related

Redis connection lost without any indication

I'm using a very simple redis pub-sub application, in which I have a redis server in AWS and a nodejs based redis client that is located inside office LAN that subscribes to some channel.
This worked great until the network changed and it seems that some device is now interfering with outgoing connections (I also started receiving socket hangups on outbound SSH connections which I mitigated with the ServerAliveInterval 60 setting in the SSH config).
After the network change, whenever the redis client application is executed, it creates a redis client, subscribes to some channel and acts upon published messages in that channel.
It works okay for several minutes, but then it stops receiving any messages.
I registered the redis client to all known connection events (including the "error" event), I added a "retry_strategy" handler and also modified the configuration to have "socket_keepalive" and "socket_initialdelay" to 10 seconds (see code below).
Nevertheless, no event is triggered when the connection is interfered.
When the application stops receiving the messages, I see that the connection on the redis port is still valid:
dev#server:~> sudo netstat -tlnpua | grep 6379
tcp 0 0 10.43.22.150:52052 <server_ip>:6379 ESTABLISHED 27014/node
I also captured a PCAP on port 6379 on which I don't see any resets or TCP errors, and it seems that from the connection perspective everything is valid.
I tried running another nodejs application from within the LAN in which I create a client that connects to the AWS redis server, registers to all events and only publishes messages once in a while.
After several minutes (in which the connection breaks), I try publishing another command and the error event handler is indeed triggered:
> client.publish("channel", "ANOTHER TRY")
true
> Error: Redis connection to <server_hostname>:6379 failed - read ECONNRESET
Redis connection ended
Redis reconnecting
Redis connected
Redis connection is ready
So if I try publishing via the client after the connection was interfered, the connection event callbacks are indeed called and I can run some kind of reconnection logic.
But in the scenario in which I subscribe and wait for publishes to the channel, no connection event handler is called and the application is basically broken.
Application code:
const redis = require('redis');
const config = { "host": <hostname>, "port": 6379, "socket_keepalive": true,
"socket_initdelay": 10};
config.retry_strategy = function (options) {
console.log("retry strategy. error code: " + (options.error ?
options.error.code : "N/A"));
console.log("options.attempt", options.attempt, "options.total_retry_time",
options.total_retry_time);
return 2000;
}
const client = redis.createClient(config);
client.on('message', function(channel, message) {
console.log("Channel", channel, ", message", message);
});
client.on("error", function (err) {
console.log("Error " + err);
});
client.on("end", function () {
console.log("Redis connection ended");
});
client.on("connect", function () {
console.log("Redis connected");
});
client.on("reconnecting", function () {
console.log("Redis reconnecting");
});
client.on("ready", function () {
console.log("Redis connection is ready");
});
const channel = "channel";
console.log("Subscribing to channel", channel);
client.subscribe(channel);
I'm using redis#2.8.0 and node v8.11.3.
The solution for this issue is quite sad.
First, there is indeed some network device between the redis client and server, which drops inactive connections after some timeout. It seems that this timeout is really low (several minutes).
Redis has a socket_keepalive configuration which is enabled by default, and its default value is Node.js's default socket keep alive value (which is set for 2 hours if i'm not mistaken).
As can be seen above, I used a socket_initdelay configuration parameter that should have changed this default value, but unfortunately the code that uses this parameter isn't in the redis npm package but rather in node-redis.
To summarize:
There is no configuration setting to change the keep alive timeout value in redis#2.8.0 (latest version when writing this post).
You can either:
Use node-redis which accepts the socket_initdelay setting.
Modify the timeout manually by running the following:
const client = redis.createClient();
client.on("connect", function () {
client.stream.setKeepAlive(true, <timeout_value_in_milliseconds>);
}

How to reuse nodejs serverside tcp socket connection

I am using NodeJS net.socket module in a web application.
I have made a rest api which hits a method in webserver. That method creates a socket connection with another server to get data. This data is then sent as response to the Rest api request.
Issue is , whenever the Rest api hits the web server , it always creates a new socket connection. I want to re use the previous socket connection.
I have tried pushing the socket object in an array, but first of all it looses all the properties if i try to reuse the object from array. Secondly i don't know how to check whether that connection is alive or not.
var net = require('net').Socket();
var sockets = [];
module.exports.Socket = function (port, ip) {
var Client = net.connect(port, ip);
sockets.push(Client);
}
return Client;
}

Are sockets reused on reconnect event?

A socket is created when a user connects to the server.
The connection is broken because of interwebz malfunction.
Client reconnects automatically.
Will the socket connection be the same as when he first connected? Or will the socket be a new one?
Thanks!
A new connection is established on reconnect. It can be checked by printing the socket.id.
On server:
var io = require('socket.io)(server);
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
console.log('socket id is ' + socket.id); }
Excerpt from socket.io documentation
The property is present once the socket has connected, is removed when the socket disconnects and is updated if the socket reconnects.
I'd also like to preserve state following reconnects in an electron app (e.g. if the host gets suspended then resumed, socket.io gets disconnected).
I haven't tried this yet, but the following article discusses how to reuse socket id's across reconnects. I'll update if I have any success:
https://newbedev.com/reuse-socket-id-on-reconnect-socket-io-node-js

Node.JS net module handling unexpected connection loss

I can't figure out one problem I got.
I'm using the Net module on my Node.JS server which is used to listen to client connections.
The client do connect to the server correctly and the connection remains available to read/write data. So far, so good. But when the client unexpectedly disconnects (ed. when internet falls away at client side) I want to fire an event server side.
In socket.io it would be done with the 'disconnect' event, but this event doesn't seem to exist for the Net module. How is it possible to do?
I've searched on Google/StackOverflow and in the Net documentation (https://nodejs.org/api/net.html) but I couldn't find anything usefull. I'm sry if I did mis something.
Here is a code snippet I got:
var net = require('net');
var server = net.createServer(function(connection) {
console.log('client connected');
connection.wildcard = false;//Connection must be initialised with a configuration stored in the database
connection.bidirectional = true;//When piped this connection will be configured as bidirectional
connection.setKeepAlive(true, 500);
connection.setTimeout(3000);
connection.on('close', function (){
console.log('Socket is closed');
});
connection.on('error', function (err) {
console.log('An error happened in connection' + err.stack);
});
connection.on('end', function () {
console.log('Socket did disconnect');
});
connection.on('timeout', function () {
console.log('Socket did timeout');
connection.end();
});
connection.on('data', function (data) {
//Handling incoming data
});
});
serverUmrs.listen(40000, function () {
console.log('server is listening');
});
All the events(close, end, error, timeout) don't fire when I disconnect the client(by pulling out the UTP cable).
Thanks in advance!
EDIT:
I did add a timeout event in the code here above but the only thing that happens is that the socket does timeout after 3 seconds everytime the client does connect again. Isn't KeepAlive enough to make the socket not Idle? How is it possible to make the socket not idle without to much overhead. It may be possible that there are more than 10,000 connections at the same time which must remain alive as long as they are connected (ie respond to the keepalive message).
Update:
I think the KeepAlive is not related with the Idle state of socket, sort of.
Here is my test, I remove the following code in your example.
//connection.setKeepAlive(true, 500);
Then test this server with one client connect to it var nc localhost 40000. If there is no message sending to server after 3 seconds, the server logs as below
Socket did timeout
Socket did disconnect
Socket is closed
The timeout event is triggered without KeepAlive setting.
Do further investigation, refer to the Node.js code
function onread(nread, buffer) {
//...
self._unrefTimer();
We know timeout event is triggered by onread() operation of socket. Namely, if there is no read operation after 3 seconds, the timeout event will be emitted. To be more precisely, not only onread but also write successfully will call _unrefTimer().
In summary, when the write or read operation on the socket, it is NOT idle.
Actually, the close event is used to detect the client connection is alive or not, also mentioned in this SO question.
Emitted when the server closes. Note that if connections exist, this event is not emitted until all connections are ended.
However, in your case
disconnect the client(by pulling out the UTP cable).
The timeout event should be used to detective the connection inactivity. This is only to notify that the socket has been idle. The user must manually close the connection. Please refer to this question.
In TCP connection, end event fire when the client sends 'FIN' message to the server.
If the client side is not sending 'FIN' message that event is not firing.
For example, in your situation,
But when the client unexpectedly disconnects (ed. when internet falls away at client side) I want to fire an event server side.
There may not be a 'FIN' message because internet is gone.
So you should handle this situation in timeout without using keepAlive. If there is no data coming data, you should end or destroy the socket.
EDIT: I did add a timeout event in the code here above but the only
thing that happens is that the socket does timeout after 3 seconds
everytime the client does connect again. Isn't KeepAlive enough to
make the socket not Idle? How is it possible to make the socket not
idle without to much overhead. It may be possible that there are more
than 10,000 connections at the same time which must remain alive as
long as they are connected (ie respond to the keepalive message).
For your edit, your devices should send to the server some heartbeat message between a time period. So that, server understands that that device is alive and that timeout event will not fire because you get some data. If there is no heartbeat message such cases you cannot handle this problem.

How to keep a tcp connection always open with node.js

I'm building a tcp-message server with nodejs.
It just sits on my server waiting to accept a connection from lets say an Arduino.
As it, at connection-time, identifies itself with an unique ID (not an IP) I'm able to write data from server > arduino without knowing the IP address of the client-device.
But for that to be efficient, I want the connection to be open as long as possible, preferably as long as the client-device closes the connection. (eg on ip change or something)
This is the (relevant part of) the server:
var net = require('net'),
sockets = {};
var tcp = net.createServer(function(soc){
soc.setKeepAlive(true); //- 1
soc.on('connect', function(data){
soc.setKeepAlive(true); //- 2
});
soc.on('data', function(data) {
//- do stuff with the data, and after identification
// store in sockets{}
})
}).listen(1111);
Is soc.setKeepAlive(true) the right method to keep the connection alive?
If so, what is the right place to put it? In the connect event (1), or right in the callback (2).
If this is not the way to do it, what is?
Your best bet is to periodically send your own heartbeat messages.
Also, you don't need soc.on('connect', ...) because the client socket is already connected when that callback is executed.

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