A good solution for a WebSocket / Socket.IO server (I've tried Nginx, Node, etc.)

Question

I\'m interested in setting up a Socket.IO server + Rails web application. However, as many are aware, there are not many web servers that support WebSockets. Here have been

Answer 1

You can use bouncy, but I'd recommend HAProxy, which is a better solution for highly trafficked websites. Check this question for a sample configuration: HAProxy + WebSocket Disconnection

I would recommend using HAProxy + Nginx for serving static files + Node for dynamic stuff & websockets (Socket.IO).

node-http-proxy is having problems with WebSockets in Node 0.6.x, so you cannot use that at the moment unfortunately.

Answer 2

Here is a node.js socket.io server. note that this only handles websockets.

var app = require('http').createServer(handler)
  , io = require('socket.io').listen(app)
  , fs = require('fs')

app.listen(8080);

function handler (req, res) {}

io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
  socket.emit('news', { hello: 'world' });
  socket.on('my other event', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
  });
});

and the corresponding client:

<script src="/path/to/rails/static/files/socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
  var socket = io.connect('http://localhost:8080');
  socket.on('news', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
    socket.emit('my other event', { my: 'data' });
  });
</script>

run node server.js to start up the node server and request the index.html from rails.

If you need to call rails functions from the websocket server you can communicate over http using either the http node module or this library: https://github.com/mikeal/request

Answer 3

As per alessioalex's request, here's my configuration file. I deleted all the existing comments but added a few that I, myself, would not have figured to be important.

However, describing what all the parts of this config does is out of the scope of this post, but you can likely find the necessary documentation on the HAProxy website.

global
    maxconn 4096 
    pidfile /var/run/haproxy.pid

defaults
    mode    http

frontend all
    bind 0.0.0.0:80
    mode tcp

    maxconn 200000
    timeout client 86400000
    default_backend www_backend

    # Any URL beginning with socket.io will be flagged as 'is_websocket'
    acl is_websocket path_beg /socket.io
    acl is_websocket hdr(Upgrade) -i WebSocket
    acl is_websocket hdr_beg(Host) -i ws

    # The connection to use if 'is_websocket' is flagged
    use_backend socket_backend_http if is_websocket

    tcp-request inspect-delay 500ms
    tcp-request content accept if HTTP   

backend www_backend
    option httplog
    option httpclose
    balance roundrobin
    option forwardfor
    timeout server 30000
    timeout connect 4000
    server thin1 localhost:4001 weight 1 maxconn 1024 check
    server thin2 localhost:4002 weight 1 maxconn 1024 check
    server thin3 localhost:4003 weight 1 maxconn 1024 check

backend socket_backend_http
    mode http
    option httplog
    option http-server-close
    option forceclose
    no option httpclose
    balance roundrobin
    option forwardfor 
    timeout queue 5000
    timeout server 86400000
    timeout connect 86400000
    timeout check 1s
    server socket1 localhost:5001 weight 1 maxconn 1024 check