Migrating to Soketi: Improving Our Real- Time Communication Architecture

Our journey with real-time data communication has evolved significantly. Initially using Flask-SocketIO with Vue, we faced several challenges that led us to seek a more robust solution. After careful evaluation, we chose Soketi, an open-source WebSocket server that has greatly enhanced our real-time capabilities.

The Challenges We Faced

Our Flask application's direct WebSocket handling presented several technical hurdles:

Connection Management: Maintaining persistent WebSocket connections proved complex, especially when scaling horizontally.
Connection Stability: We experienced frequent connection drops that were difficult to diagnose and resolve.
Resource Allocation: Managing WebSocket infrastructure alongside our main application created additional complexity.

These issues led us to search for a more efficient solution.

Why We Chose Soketi

Soketi offered several key advantages:

Independent Architecture: Moving WebSocket handling to a dedicated service improved our system's modularity.
Developer-Friendly Interface: The intuitive API makes it easy to implement real-time features.
Performance: Built for scale, Soketi handles connection management efficiently.

This solution allows us to concentrate on building features while maintaining reliable real-time communication.

Implementation Guide

Here's how to get started with Soketi:

System Requirements

Note: Soketi requires Node.js LTS and is compatible with most modern operating systems except CentOS 7.

For Ubuntu-based systems, install the following dependencies:


apt install -y git python3 gcc build-essential

Basic Setup

Install Soketi through NPM:


npm install -g @soketi/soketi

Launch the server with default settings:


soketi start

The server will run on port 6001 with these default credentials:

App ID: app-id
App Key: app-key
App Secret: app-secret

These credentials are essential for secure communication between your applications.

Production Deployment

For production environments, use PM2 with a custom configuration:


{
  "debug": true,
  "port": 6001,
  "appManager.array.apps": [
      {
          "id": "YOUR_APP_ID",
          "key": "YOUR_APP_KEY",
          "secret": "YOUR_APP_SECRET"
      }
  ]
}

Start the server using:


pm2 start soketi -- start --config=soketi.json

Nginx Configuration

Serving soketi behind a web server such as Nginx can allow you to access the soketi server via a specific hostname, such as socket.example.com. If you wish, you may also choose to allow Nginx to negotiate your SSL connections instead of providing your SSL certificate information to soketi.

An example Nginx configuration is provided below; however, small adjustments may be required or desired for your specific server environment:


server {
    listen 6002 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:6002 ssl http2;
    server_name your-domain.com;
    server_tokens off;
    root /home/forge/default/public;

    # FORGE SSL (DO NOT REMOVE!)
    ssl_certificate /path/to/ssl/certificate.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /path/to/ssl/key.key;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers TLS13-AES-256-GCM-SHA384:TLS13-CHACHA20-POLY1305-SHA256:TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:TLS-AES-256-GCM-SHA384:TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256:TLS-CHACHA20-POLY1305-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/dhparams.pem;

    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

    index index.html index.htm index.php;

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        proxy_pass             <http://127.0.0.1:6001>;
        proxy_read_timeout     60;
        proxy_connect_timeout  60;
        proxy_redirect         off;

        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }

    access_log off;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/socket.example.com.log error;
}

Integration Examples

Server-side implementation (Flask):


from pusher import Pusher

pusher = Pusher(
    app_id='YOUR_APP_ID',
    key='YOUR_APP_KEY',
    secret='YOUR_APP_SECRET',
    host='your-domain.com',
    port=443,
    ssl=True,
)

pusher.trigger('channel-name', 'event-name', {'message': 'data'})

Client-side implementation (Vue):


import Pusher from 'pusher-js';

const pusher = new Pusher('YOUR_APP_KEY', {
    wsHost: 'your-domain.com',
    wssPort: 443,
    forceTLS: true,
    enabledTransports: ['ws', 'wss']
});

const channel = pusher.subscribe('channel-name');
channel.bind('event-name', data => {
    // Handle incoming data
});

Conclusion

Moving to Soketi has significantly improved our development process. The separation of WebSocket handling from our main application has reduced complexity and improved reliability. Using JSON configuration and PM2 management makes operations straightforward and maintainable.

Happy Coding…

About Author

Pratik Patel

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