Poosh

Simple websocket push messaging server.

Introduction

Poosh is a simple websocket push messaging server based on Express.js and Socket.io. It consists of an Express application which listens on two configurable ports.

A "client" port to which socket.io clients connect and through which messages are pushed.

And a "server" port which accepts token authenticated POST requests on which the push messages are based.

Configuration

Poosh uses Dotenv for configuration there are 3 configuration options stored in the .env file.

CLIENT_PORT (Default: 8000) - The port number on which the websocket clients should connect.

SERVER_PORT (Default: 1337) - The port number on which Poosh listens for POST requests.

SERVER_SECRET (Default: none) - The shared secret on which token authentication is based.

How it works

Clients connect to the server using the socket.io client library on the configured client port. This may look something like this in an html file.

<script src="https://cdn.socket.io/socket.io-1.3.4.js"></script>
	<script>
	  var socket = io.connect('http://pooshserver:8000');

	  socket.on('event-name',function(data){
	  	{... do something with the received payload ...}
	  });
</script>

Your application can then make POST requests to Poosh in the following manner.

The POST body must be a JSON object with the following prototype:

{
	room: "room name",
	event: "event-name",
	payload:{
		key1: "value1",
		key2: "value2"
		...
	}
}

The POST headers must contain an authorization header who's value is a token. The token should be an SHA1 hash of the SERVER_SECRET and the JSON encoded payload. In PHP this process would look like:

$secret = 'thisisthesharedsecret'
$payload = json_encode(['key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2']);
$token = sha1($secret.$payload);

This ensures that push message requests can only come from a server which has the shared secret, and that the payload cannot be modified in transit without the token being incorrect.

The POST request should also include a content-type: application/json header so the body is correctly decoded by Poosh.

Have a look at our Laravel package which makes sending messages with Poosh from Laravel apps, super easy

Running Poosh

Clone this repo git clone https://github.com/joearcher/poosh.git poosh.

Install the dependencies npm install.

Edit the .env file to suite your needs (remember you'll need the shared secret to make requests).

Run Poosh (we recommend using forever) with forever start --spinSleepTime 10000 poosh.js

Credits

Express.js

Socket.io

##License MIT