Socket Logger: JSON-parsable logging for Socket.IO

By default, socket logger is a simple logger that you can use with your Socket.IO-based node server. Depending on the log level used, you can log connections, disconnections, message requests, and the actual contents of messages.

Socket-logger expects your messages to be JSON (if you are using message-level logging) and outputs arrays to the log file.

Socket-logger also provides a you with a hook to set up a web client that gets your log messages in real-time. Simply create a Socket.IO client that connects to your server with a specified auth token, and now your client will get JSON messages pushed to it about your server activity. Check out the example for a demo of this.

How to use

You will need to install Socket.IO-node and have a socket-io server running. Then, clone this repo. Now put this in your server and smoke it:

var http = require('http'), 
logger = require('../lib/socket-logger').defaultLogger,
io = require('./socket.io'),
server = http.createServer(function(req, res){
});

server.listen(8080);

var socket = io.listen(server);

socket.on('connection', function(client){
    client.on('message', function(message) { 
	});
    client.on('disconnect', function() {
    });
});

logger.logLevel = 2;
logger.authToken = 'my_secret_token_for_the_dashboard_client';
logger.monitor(socket);

You can additionally specify a messageFormatter that outputs the information you care about (as a JSON object) if you are using log level 2.

Running the demo

1. Clone this repository. Be sure to use the --recursive flag.
2. Run "node server.js" in the example folder
3. Open example/client/index.html in your browser
4. Open example/dashboard/index.html in another windew
5. Start typing in the client asd watch the dashboard.

Screenshots of demo

Client

Dashboard

Caveats and Notes

• I haven't benchmarked this code. It's probably fine for many cases, but high-traffic socket servers will need to make sure this doesn't kill performance (especially at higher log levels).
• It'd be kind of cool to have the client-side be some kind of web service. Real-time socket-based analytics for all?

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2010 Saikat Chakrabarti saikat@gomockingbird.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.