Related
I am making an application with sockets and the need arises to broadcast information, but only to people who are inside a room.
This is my code from the server.ts
// Dependencies
import express from 'express'
import http from 'http'
import socket from 'socket.io';
import {connect, disconnect, orderChanged} from './sockets/socket';
import {config} from 'dotenv';
config ();
// Main class
export default class server {
_private static instance: server
public app: express.Application
public port: number
http: http.Server private
public io: socket.Server
// Initialize variables and methods
// Singleton pattern implementation
private constructor () {
this.app = express ()
this.port = Number (process.env.SRV_PORT)
this.http = new http.Server (this.app)
this.io = new socket.Server (this.http, {
cors: {
origin: true,
credentials: true
}
})
this.listenSockets ();
}
// Return the instance running Singleton pattern
public static get instance () {
returns this._instance || (this._instance = new Server ())
}
// Method to start the server
start (callback: any) {
this.http.listen (this.port, callback)
}
private listenSockets (): void {
console.log ('Listening Sockets');
this.io.on ('connection', client => {
console.log ('Connected to room', client.rooms, '-', client.id);
// User disconnected
disconnect (client);
connect (client);
});
}
}
Since node starts, an instance is created in DP Singleton and the socket listener is launched
When an operation happens in the database, anywhere in the app, I send it to call and send information to the front-end which is correctly received by the front-end and does what it has to do. Example url / edit-products
import server from '../core/server';
// Socket broadcast, new information
const __id = String (req.headers.id);
const updatedData = await getNewData (__id);
Server.instance.io.emit ('data changed', updatedData);
The problem is that this information is sent indiscriminately to all users connected to the socket. Now, I have a unique ID that brings multiple users together in a MongoDB model. You could use that ID to broadcast only to users with that ID. There is a logic that implies that if the user connects from Mexico, add it to an Array of people in MongoDB, otherwise it will add it to another MongoDB document, then they are two different IDs.
I would love the room to be that ID.
I saw that I could use the socket's join () method, but that function derives from the connected client, not from the server itself. I try to issue the information like this
// Socket broadcast, new information
const __id = String (req.headers.id);
const updatedData = await getNewData (__id);
Server.instance.io.in (updatedData._id) .emit ('data changed', updatedData);
But at no point did I set up that "ROOM". When the user login, he could add it but I don't know how to create a custom room, he tried something like this
const user = await UserModel.find (_data);
Server.instance.io.join (user.channel._id);
But that function within io does not exist.
It exists this way, but it doesn't work for me
Server.instance.io.on ('user-join', (socket: Socket) => {
console.log (plug);
socket.join (uuid);
});
Server.instance.io.emit ('user join');
What could I do?
.join() is a method on an individual socket. That's how you use it as socket.join(roomName). When the first user joins a room, the room is created automatically and other users can also join it. When the last user leaves the room, the room is removed automatically from the server. So, you join a user's socket to a room - you don't join something to the server.
Similarly, when you tried this:
Server.instance.io.on ('user-join', (socket: Socket) => {
console.log (plug);
socket.join (uuid);
});
That doesn't work because you don't listen for incoming messages from a socket on the server (except for the connection message - which introduces the socket object). You listen for incoming client messages on a socket itself:
Server.instance.io.on ('connection', (socket: Socket) => {
socket.on('user-join', () => {
// you will have to find the room name that goes with this socket
socket.join(someRoomName);
});
});
Also, note that this code:
private listenSockets (): void {
console.log ('Listening Sockets');
this.io.on ('connection', client => {
console.log ('Connected to room', client.rooms, '-', client.id);
// User disconnected
disconnect (client);
connect (client);
});
}
looks problematic. Why would you disconnect a client when they connect? You don't show those functions disconnect() and connect() so it's unclear what they actually do - I would guess they keep track of connected clients somehow. If you're just trying to clean up any state that might have been previously left hanging, then you should be doing something like this:
private listenSockets (): void {
console.log ('Listening Sockets');
this.io.on ('connection', client => {
console.log ('Connected to room', client.rooms, '-', client.id);
client.on('disconnect', () => {
// User disconnected
disconnect(client);
});
// user connected now
connect(client);
});
}
You don't have to worry about inaccurate housekeeping on whether a socket is connected or not. You will always get a disconnect event for a socket when it disconnects. This is for two reasons. For a browser window that closes or a page that the user navigates away from, the browser cleans up all objects associated with that page, including the open socket.io connection. This will always close the socket and cause a disconnect event. Second, socket.io uses ping and pong messages to regularly check if an existing connection is still working. If it's not, it will get disconnected. The client may or may not retry to open a new connection depending upon the circumstance. But, any disfunctional connection (one that isn't respond to ping messages) will get closed by the server and a disconnect event will occur for that too. So, those two circumstances make sure that a disconnect event always happens.
Server.instance.io.emit ('data changed', updatedData); The problem is that this information is sent indiscriminately to all users connected to the socket.
This sends to all users connected to your server and is how it was designed.
To send to a single socket, you would use:
socket.emit(...);
where socket is what you're code calls client, the object you get from the connection event.
To send to all sockets who have joined a room, you would use:
io.in(roomName).emit(...)
where io is the socket.io server instance.
And, there are many, many more variations of .emit() depending upon exactly what you're trying to send to.
Now, I have a unique ID that brings multiple users together in a MongoDB model. You could use that ID to broadcast only to users with that ID. There is a logic that implies that if the user connects from Mexico, add it to an Array of people in MongoDB, otherwise it will add it to another MongoDB document, then they are two different IDs. I would love the room to be that ID.
I don't completely follow what you're trying to do, but it seems like inside your connect(client) function, you could just call client.join(uniqueIDForMultipleUsers) and that would create a room with this uniqueID and add this client to that room. In the future, you can send to everyone in that room with io.in(uniqueIDForMultipleUsers).emit(...).
But at no point did I set up that "ROOM". When the user login, he could add it but I don't know how to create a custom room, he tried something like this
You don't create rooms manually. You just use socket.join(roomName) and the socket.io infrastructure automatically creates the room if it doesn't already exist. Similarly when the last socket in a room either leaves the room or disconnects, the room is automatically removed. So you just don't have to manage the room creation or deletion yourself. In fact, a room object is not something you ever deal with directly - it's a housekeeping item inside of the socket.io server that contains a list of sockets that are currently in the room. A socket can be in as many rooms as it wants to be. You use these on the server:
socket.join(roomName); // add a client's socket to a room
socket.leave(roomName); // remove a client's socket from a room
io.in(roomName).emit(...); // broadcast a message to every socket in a room
What is sometimes a bit confusing about the above logic is that socket.join() and socket.leave() are socket methods, but they actually modify a data structure in the server (where the list of rooms/sockets are kept). For whatever reason, that's just how they chose to originally design the API. Logically, it's more like io.join(socket, roomName) since it's modifying something on the server. But, since the socket knows the server object it's part of, they can leave that off and just do socket.join(roomName).
My server codes use io.to(socketId).emit('xxx'); to a message to a particular socket, refer to https://socket.io/docs/emit-cheatsheet/
But when the connection is bad and the client disconnects and connects again, socketId changes and io.to(socketId).emit('xxx'); then fails. So how do I implement a re-emit method to handle the reconnection ?
My question is kind of opposite to this one, socket.io stop re-emitting event after x seconds/first failed attempt to get a response, from it I learn that socket.io client can re-emit when it reconnects. But the server code seems to lack that support.
--- update ---
As the comment said I show here "the code context where you're saving the socketId value that gets stale."
First, each user has a unique id in our system, when socket connects the client will send a login message so I save the userId and socketId pair. When I get disconnect event I clear that info.
Second, the user will get messages through redis pubsub (from other service), and I will send that message to the client throught the socketid I record. So when socket connects I will subscribe a channel identified by userid and unsubscribe it in disconnect event.
Third, my problem happens when I get redis pub event while socketId value gets stale. Actually the value of socketid is the latest one but the socket may fail to send the message.
io.on('connection', async function (socket) {
socket.on('login', async function (user_id, fn) {
...
await redis
.multi()
.hset('websocket:socket_user', socket.id, user_id)
.hset(
`websocket:${user_id}`,
'socketid',
socket.id
)
.exec()
await sub.subscribe(user_id)
...
}
socket.on('disconnect', async function (reason) {
let user_id = await redis.hget('websocket:socket_user', socket.id)
await redis.del(`websocket:${user_id}`)
sub.unsubscribe(user_id)
...
}
//Here is what problem happens when socket is trying to reconnect
//while I got redis pub message
sub.on('message', async function (channel, message) {
let socketid = await redis.hget(`websocket:${channel}`, 'socketid')
if (!socketid) {
return
}
//so now I assume the socketid is valid,
//but it turns out clients still complain they didn't receive message
io.to(socketid).emit('msg', message) //When it fails how do I re-emit?
})
I would suggest you use your unique id as a room, that is the best solution I come up with, no matter how many times the user is joined the user will be joined in a single room only(with their unique id).
see my answer on
NodeJs Socket.io Rooms
You can generate custom socket.id for your socket clients by overwriting default method to generate socket id. in this case socket.id will be known for you and can be re-emit when same id comes online.
//The function is called with a node request object (http.IncomingMessage) as first parameter.
As per socket.io docs
io.engine.generateId = (req) => {
return "custom:id:" + user_unique_id; // custom id must be unique
}
I can't find any existing solution for that so this is what I come up with:
Record the messages that fail to send to the socket.
I can't figure out a way to deal with these failed messages, e.g. if they have failed I don't know if re-send will make any difference.
When I get a socket connect event I check if this is from the same client, if yes then check if I have failed messages for the old socket, if yes send those messages to the new socket.
How to record the failed message is another task I find socket.io doesn't support and this is what I do,
Record the message I want to send
use ack callback to delete the message, so the messages are not deleted are the failed ones.
to use ack I can't io.to(socketId).emit('xxx'); because "acknowledgements are not supported when emitting from namespace." so I need to first get socket object from id using io.sockets.connected[socketid]
I can start a timer to check if the message is still stored in redis, if yes I re-emit it. But I don't know if re-emit will make any difference. So I have not done that yet.
The codes to record failed one are somewhat like this
let socket = io.sockets.connected[socketid]
if (!socket) return
let list_key = `websocket:${socketid}`
await redis.sadd(list_key, message)
socket.emit('msg', message, async (ack) => {
await redis.srem(list_key, message)
})
If someone can come up with a better solution I am all ears! Thanks.
My goal is to create a one to one chat based on two different users. The only way that I could think of is to use socket.io rooms
But the problem right now is that how do i create unique room?
For example
socket.on('join', function(room) {
socket.join(room);
});
Do i need to emit the room from the client, if so , how do I make it unique. Imagine there are thousands of users.
The chat application, is similar like facebook chat application. Where you can chat one on one.
Do i need redis or mongodb to store the room? Anyone of you who have experience using socket.io in scale, please do share your opinion
Thanks!
A room always will be unique, when you do socket.join('roomname') if the room not exist it will created and this socket will join it, if exist the socket just will join it.
So if you want that client A join in the room where is client B for example, from client A you can send a event like:
socket.emit('joinroom', roomname);
On sever:
socket.on('joinroom', function(data){
socket.join(data)
})
Anyway when a socket connect , it create and join his own room automatically , the name of this room will be the id of the socket, so i think is not neccessary create new rooms for a chat based on two different users.
Everything that you need is link the socket id with a permanent property of the user.
EDIT:
I leave you here a simple chat app example where you can open multiple conversations:
server.js: https://gist.github.com/pacmanmulet/b30d26b9e932316f54b2
index.html: https://gist.github.com/pacmanmulet/6481791089effb79f25f
You can test it here :https://chat-socket-io-example.herokuapp.com/
I did not use rooms, it have more sense when you want emit to a group of sockets, not to a only one.
Hope you can understand better my idea with that.
you need to store the room number somewhere(any database).You have to do this because you have to keep your server stateless.
Let us assume that you are creating a private chat only for two people.The room number has to be unique. so one approach is to use the user's email id and join them to create a new string and emit it back to the users.this is tricky because we don't know the order in which the strings are joined. so we join them by a string not used in normal email name(eg :'"#!#!#!!#!#!#!').we can split it on the server side and compare emit the results.
The actual message body will be
{
room:a#gmail.comb#gmail.com,
from:a,
message:'hi buddy how are you?'
}
CLIENT side code
const roomName = a#gmail.com+'#!#!2!#!#"+b#gmail.com
socket.emit('room', { room: roomName });
this.socket.on('joined', data => {
console.log('i have joined', data.room)
store the room name room: data.room })
})
socket.on('chat',data=>console.log(`received chat from ${data.from} from the message room ${data.room}`)
used '#!#!2#!#' just because we can separate them on the server side and check if the room already exists.
SERVER side code
const room =[]//this variable you have store in database and retrieve it when needed.
socket.on('room',data=>{
if(room.length!=0){
const temp = data.room.split('!#!#2#!#!').reverse().join('!#!#2#!#!');
if(room.includes(temp)){
socket.join(temp)
console.log('joined room',temp)
socket.emit('joined',{room:temp})
console.log(room);
} else if(room.includes(data.room)){
socket.join(data.room)
console.log('joined room', data.room)
socket.emit('joined', { room: data.room})
console.log(room);
}
}else{
socket.join(data.room);
room.push(data.room)
console.log('joined room',data.room);
socket.emit('joined', { room: data.room })
console.log(room);
}
})
I tried to do a minimal example of where you can only be in one room at a time (apart from your default socket.id room) and only other sockets in the same room as you will receive your messages. Also you can change rooms.
The basic premise is, if socket A is in room 'xyz' and so is socket B, on the server side you can do socket.to('xyz').emit('message', 'hello') for socket A, and socket B will receive the message, but another connected socket C which isn't in room 'xyz' won't.
You can create room at server runtime, I used both users id as room id, Ex : '100-200' for demo purpose. May be you can use some more complex approach.
I just started learning NodeJS and Socket.io. Until now I have this demo code, from official socket.io site:
http://socket.io/demos/chat/
I am able to get the unique client's ID of each user (socket) which connects, I am still trying to figure out, How can I make my code to only connect with 1 random user at a time when somebody runs the application. I just want to make random chat like Omegle (http://www.omegle.com/).
Only two users should randomly connect and chat with each other till they re-run the app, if they come back they should get connected with someone else who is in the online queue.
What changes do I need to do to have a similar behaviour?
Update
Added Client site code, main.js
$(function() {
var FADE_TIME = 150; // ms
var TYPING_TIMER_LENGTH = 400; // ms
var COLORS = [
'#e21400', '#91580f', '#f8a700', '#f78b00',
'#58dc00', '#287b00', '#a8f07a', '#4ae8c4',
'#3b88eb', '#3824aa', '#a700ff', '#d300e7'
];
// Initialize variables
var $window = $(window);
var $usernameInput = $('.usernameInput'); // Input for username
var $messages = $('.messages'); // Messages area
var $inputMessage = $('.inputMessage'); // Input message input box
var $loginPage = $('.login.page'); // The login page
var $chatPage = $('.chat.page'); // The chatroom page
// Prompt for setting a username
var username;
var connected = false;
var typing = false;
var lastTypingTime;
var $currentInput = $usernameInput.focus();
//Own Global
var room = '';
var socket = io();
function addParticipantsMessage (data) {
var message = '';
if (data.numUsers === 1) {
// message += "there's 1 participant";
// Status Message
message += "Waiting to connect with someone";
} else {
// message += "there are " + data.numUsers + " participants";
//Status message update
message = "You are connected to a stranger! Say Hey!";
}
log(message);
}
// Sets the client's username
function setUsername () {
username = cleanInput($usernameInput.val().trim());
// If the username is valid
if (username) {
$loginPage.fadeOut();
$chatPage.show();
$loginPage.off('click');
$currentInput = $inputMessage.focus();
// Tell the server your username
socket.emit('add user', username);
// Own
socket.emit('login', {'username' : 'Faizan'});
}
}
Although I would close this question because it's too vague, I feel obliged to give you some insight since I worked way too much with websockets in the last years (although not that much with socketio & nodejs). I suppose some simple guide and relevant links could help you. So first,
Kind of relevant intro
You should already know that Socket.io is a WebSocket implementation.
WebSockets (WS) allow server to send data whenever it wants, as long as the connection is still open, as opposed to old way: client querying all the time asking, if there is an update on the server.
You can imagine a woman and a man at the end of a party: "Thanks for tonight, I'd love to repeat it sometimes soon. Would you give me your number?" - asks the old man. "Ughhh, you know what, better give me yours, I promise I will call you!"
If the girl were to give him her number, he'd call a few times a day asking if she'd go somewhere (and she'd reply no). The other way around, she would call him only if she wanted to go and he would go. Of course he would.
I got a bit carried away, but you get the picture. The woman is a server, the guy is a client.
What is important to understand
(Absolute basic, you should know this =>)
When client connect to your server, (s)he should be served a html page and some javascript, which establishes connection to your WS server. In the code you've posted, Express is used as http server. Check this example to see how you should give user html&js.
You'll also notice namespaces and rooms in most of these tutorials. These are used for separating users into subcategories. One server may contain multiple namespaces (by default only one) and each namespace may contain multiple rooms. You probably won't need to bother with namespaces, one is just enough for your case. You will, however, need to understand rooms (more on that later).
Next thing, taken from your code
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
It's important to know, that socket here basically represent one connected client (in one namespace, but possibly in multiple rooms). You can do all sort of stuff with it, most notably:
install event handlers on it (that's what you do when you call socket.on(event, handler(data))
send events to it with socket.emit(event, data)
send broadcast event to all users with socket.broadcast.emit(event, data)
add/remove it to/from room with socket.join(room), socket.leave(room) respectively.
work with it as with an ordinary variable - store it wherever you want and then reuse it
Do you see the definition of numUsers in your code? That's a global variable which is shared with all clients, since nodejs is single-threaded. In the example it is being incremented inside one of the event handlers. Think we could use something like that? YES.
We can define global variable, queue for example. Or Q if you want. Point is, it can be an array used to store sockets, or rather clients, which are not currently in chat room.
At the end of this section I'd like to point out another obvious thing.
io.on('connection', handler); defines an event handler for 'connection' event happening on the io object (WS server). This is triggered each time client makes connection to your WS server (in your case, through javascript ran inside client's browser). Argument to the method is socket and it is this method where you should add event listeners for each client (that you already do in the code, particularly handling events 'new message', 'add user', 'typing', 'stop typing' and 'disconnect').
What events shall you need
That really depends on how complex you want your app to be. In my opinion, the bare minimum would be (note that you can change the event names, but 'disconnect' should stay 'disconnect'):
event name -> data given
Events handled on server side
login -> username (how the user should be called), possibly password if you want to enable registration
message -> text (content of the message being sent)
leave room -> room name
disconnect
Event handled on client side
connect
chat start -> name (second client's name), room (so we can leave it)
chat end -> no data required if you want to allow only one chat at the same time. In case of multiple chats you should also include which chat got closed
disconnect
Last note before we get started
This is only a rough sketch. There are multiple different crossroads along the way and which path you take mostly depends on your idea of the app. If you want to have multiple chats opened at the same time, you'll need to do some modifications. The same goes if you want to have more than two people connected to the same chat. Here I'll describe the simplest case possible, one chat, to people, no registration. Possibly what you want, judging from your post. Could be wrong.
Workflow
User opens your page in their web browser. You serve them html and javascript. The javascript will start new connection to your websocket server. Also, handlers for desired events should be defined at this point.
When the connection is established, this will be happening:
ON SERVER SIDE
io.on('connection', handler) will be fired. Only appropriate handlers for new socket will be installed, not doing anything else at this point.
ON CLIENT SIDE
socket.on('connect', handler) will be fired. Client should at that point have username stored somewhere. If not, no problem. The connection will be alive for quite some time. You can just call socket.emit('login', {'username':name) any time you wish after you are connected (in the example below I set up variable connected, which defaults to false but will be set to true as soon as connection is established.)
After you send login event from client, server registers it and saves it somewhere. Possibilities are endless, in this case I'll create global dictionary which maps socket.id to username. After that, user socket should be either paired with another one or added to queue.
So, if the queue is empty, simply append socket to global variable (it doesn't have to be an array, since we will pair the first available sockets together, however you may want to implement some history of users so they won't get connected to the same person again). If the queue is not empty, we pull one socket out of the Q and add them to the same room. Room name can be random or whatever you want, I'll use (socket1.id+'#'+socket2.id (if you wanted to have more users in one chat, this would have to be changed).
After you add them both, you'll need to notify them that their chat has started and send them the other peer's name. You will emit event 'chat start'.
Clients will catch the event and open new window. After that, whenever user types something and sends it, client emits event 'message' with payload {'message': user_inserted_text}. Server will capture it in the .on('message' handler and broadcast it to the room. Note:
Broadcasting means sending a message to everyone else except for the socket that starts it.
Note: I am really confused about socketio code right now. Look at this and tell me, if socket.rooms is an array or an object (socket.rooms[room] = room; ?? why?)
To avoid dealing with this not-straightforward code, lets create another global object, rooms, which will store the room names for us. We will map socket.id -> roomName there.
So when message comes, we can get name of the room by calling rooms[socket.id]. Then we broadcast the message like this:
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('message', data);
Where data is what we received from the sender, therefore object {'text': 'some nice message'}. Your peer will then receive it (you won't) and display it (you should display it when you are sending it).
So the chat continues like this for a while, then one of the users decides (s)he wants to leave / chat with somebody else. They will close window and client will emit event 'leave room'. Server will capture it and send to the other party that her/his peer has disconnected. The same should happen if the client disconnects. After everything is closed, add both users to queue (or only one, if the other has disconnected from the server). In my code I will not make sure they won't get paired again. That is for the OP to code (can't be hard).
So, if you read this far, you deserve some actual code. Although I say actual, it's actually untested. But you know, it should work like this.
Some code
Client side
var connected = false;
var username = 'Faizan';
var room = '';
var socket = io('http://localhost');
socket.on('connect', function (data) { // we are connected, should send our name
connected = true;
if (username) socket.emit('login', {'username' : username});
});
socket.on('chat start', function(data) {
room = data.room;
show_chat_window(data.name); // some method which will show chat window
});
socket.on('chat end', function(data) {
hide_chat_window(); // this will close chat window and alert user that the peer ended chat
socket.leave(room); // it's possible to leave from both server and client, hoever it is better to be done by the client in this case
room = '';
});
socket.on('disconnect', function(data) { // handle server/connection falling
console.log('Connection fell or your browser is closing.');
});
var send_message = function(text) { // method, which you will call when user hits enter in input field
if (connected) socket.emit('message', {'text': text});
};
var leave_chat = function() { // call this when user want to end current chat
if (connected) {
socket.emit('leave room');
socket.leave(room);
room = '';
}
};
Server side
Not including initial requires and html/js serving., only global definitions and main io handler.
var queue = []; // list of sockets waiting for peers
var rooms = {}; // map socket.id => room
var names = {}; // map socket.id => name
var allUsers = {}; // map socket.id => socket
var findPeerForLoneSocket = function(socket) {
// this is place for possibly some extensive logic
// which can involve preventing two people pairing multiple times
if (queue) {
// somebody is in queue, pair them!
var peer = queue.pop();
var room = socket.id + '#' + peer.id;
// join them both
peer.join(room);
socket.join(room);
// register rooms to their names
rooms[peer.id] = room;
rooms[socket.id] = room;
// exchange names between the two of them and start the chat
peer.emit('chat start', {'name': names[socket.id], 'room':room});
socket.emit('chat start', {'name': names[peer.id], 'room':room});
} else {
// queue is empty, add our lone socket
queue.push(socket);
}
}
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
console.log('User '+socket.id + ' connected');
socket.on('login', function (data) {
names[socket.id] = data.username;
allUsers[socket.id] = socket;
// now check if sb is in queue
findPeerForLoneSocket(socket);
});
socket.on('message', function (data) {
var room = rooms[socket.id];
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('message', data);
});
socket.on('leave room', function () {
var room = rooms[socket.id];
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('chat end');
var peerID = room.split('#');
peerID = peerID[0] === socket.id ? peerID[1] : peerID[0];
// add both current and peer to the queue
findPeerForLoneSocket(allUsers[peerID]);
findPeerForLoneSocket(socket);
});
socket.on('disconnect', function () {
var room = rooms[socket.id];
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('chat end');
var peerID = room.split('#');
peerID = peerID[0] === socket.id ? peerID[1] : peerID[0];
// current socket left, add the other one to the queue
findPeerForLoneSocket(allUsers[peerID]);
});
});
P.S.
The code above got a bit messy in the end. It can be done better and I encourage you to do better job than I did. Having this material at hand, go through it step by step and try to understand. I think I commented most, if not all of it. Good luck.
Tl;dr
I am not even surprised. Here, read a comic
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I just recently built a chat, it's working pretty well, but I think I need to hook it up to redis.
From what I understand I need redis for scaling and holding some data if a client refreshes or a server goes down.
A core component of the 1on1 chat is that I store the users, and associate a socket.id to those users
var users = {};
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
// store the users & socket.id into objects
users[socket.handshake.headers.user.username] = socket.id;
});
Now on the client side I can say hey I want to chat with "Jack", as long as that is a valid user then I can pass that data to the server, i.e the user name and message just to jack like so.
var chattingWith = data.nickname; // this is Jack passed from the client side
io.to(users[chattingWith]).emit();
My question is, why should I use redis? What should I store in redis? How should I interact with that data?
I am using an io.adapter
io.adapter(redisIo({
host: 'localhost',
port: 6379,
pubClient: pub,
subClient: sub
}));
Also reading code from an example app I see when a socket connects they save the socket data into redis like so.
// store stuff in redis
redisClientPublish.sadd('sockets:for:' + userKey + ':at:' + room_id, socket.id, function(err, socketAdded) {
if(socketAdded) {
redisClientPublish.sadd('socketio:sockets', socket.id);
redisClientPublish.sadd('rooms:' + room_id + ':online', userKey, function(err, userAdded) {
if(userAdded) {
redisClientPublish.hincrby('rooms:' + room_id + ':info', 'online', 1);
redisClientPublish.get('users:' + userKey + ':status', function(err, status) {
io.sockets.in(room_id).emit('new user', {
nickname: nickname,
provider: provider,
status: status || 'available'
});
});
}
});
}
});
They use it when entering a room, to get information about the room.
app.get('/:id', utils.restrict, function(req, res) {
console.log(redisClientPublish);
utils.getRoomInfo(req, res, redisClientPublish, function(room) {
console.log('Room Info: ' + room);
utils.getUsersInRoom(req, res, redisClientPublish, room, function(users) {
utils.getPublicRoomsInfo(redisClientPublish, function(rooms) {
utils.getUserStatus(req.user, redisClientPublish, function(status) {
utils.enterRoom(req, res, room, users, rooms, status);
});
});
});
});
});
So again, I am asking because I am kind of confused if I need to store anything inside redis/why I need to, for instance we may have a few hundred thousand users and the node.js server "Jack" and "Mike" are chatting on goes down, it then changes to point to a new node.js instance.
Obviously I want the chat to still remember "Jack's" socket id is "12333" and "Mike's" socket id is "09278" so whenever "Jack" says hey I want to send "Mike/09278" a message the server side socket will direct it properly.
Would storing the username as a key and socket ID as a value be a wise use case for redis, would that socket.id still work?
Redis is a pretty good choice as a database for a chat as it provides a couple of data structures that are not only very handy for various chat use cases but also processed in a really performant way. It also comes along with a PubSub messaging functionality that allows you to scale your backend by spawning multiple server instances.
Scaling socket.io with the socket.io-redis adapter
When you want to run multiple instances of your server - be it because of one server not being able to handle increasing users any more or for setting up a high availablility cluster - then your server instances must communicate with each other in order to be able to deliver messages between users who are connected to different servers. The socket.io-redis adapter solves this by using the redis PubSub feature as a middleware. This won't help you if you are using only a single server instance (in fact I assume it will be slightly less performant) but as soon as you spawn a second server this will work out just fine without any headaches.
Want to get a feeling and some insight on how it's working? Monitor your dev redis while using it and you'll see the internal socket.io messages that are pushed through redis.
redis-cli
monitor
Use cases and their according redis data types
Save active conversations in a SET
A redis set is a collection of unique strings. I don't think storing socket.io id's would work out well as you can't assume that a user will get the same id on a reconnect. Better store his rooms and rejoin him on connect. You add every chat room (btw. direct messages can be defined as a room with two participiants so the handling is the same in both cases) that a user enters to their room set. On a server restart, a client reconnect or second client instance you can retrieve the whole set and rejoin users to their rooms.
/* note: untested pseudo code just for illustration */
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
rooms = await redis.smembers("rooms:userA");
rooms.foreach (function(room) {
socket.join(room);
}
socket.on('leave', room) {
socket.leave(room);
redis.srem("rooms:userA", room);
}
socket.on('join', room) {
socket.join(room);
redis.sadd("rooms:userA", room);
}
}
Save the last 10 messages of a conversation using a redis LIST
A redis list is somewhat of an persistent array of strings. You push a new message into a list and pop the oldest when the list size reaches your threshold. Conveniently the push command returns the size right away.
socket.on('chatmessage', room, message) {
if (redis.lpush("conversation:userA:userB", "Hello World") > 10) {
redis.rpop("conversation:userA:userB");
}
io.to(room).emit(message);
}
To get the message history use lrange:
msgHistory = redis.lrange("conversation:userA:userB", 0, 10)
Save some basic user details in a HASH
A hash is a key/value collection. Use it to store the online status along with avatar urls or whatever.
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
redis.hset("userdata:userA", "status", "online");
socket.on('disconnect', function () {
redis.hset("userdata:userA", "status", "offline");
}
}
Maintain a "recent conversations" list in a SORTED LIST
Sorted sets are similar to SETs but you can assign a score value to every element and retrieve the set ordered by this value. Simply use a timestamp as score whenever there is an interaction between two users and that's it.
socket.on('chatmessage', room, message) {
io.to(room).emit(message);
redis.zadd("conversations:userA", new Date().getTime(), room);
}
async function getTheTenLatestConversations() {
return await redis.zrange("conversations:userA", 0, 10);
}
References
socket.io-redis: https://github.com/socketio/socket.io-redis
redis PubSub docs: https://redis.io/topics/pubsub
redis data types: https://redis.io/topics/data-types-intro