WebSocket support

[nanoant]

Only missing feature that will make this Lua module (and openresty) ready to make realtime web apps is WebSocket support.

I dunno exactly how to do it, but it would be just awesome if we could also have sthing like websocket_by_lua that will launch script on new websocket, then this script could (somehow) install handlers (functions) for WebSocket frame and close events.

[chase]

You could also just use the Nginx Push Stream Module which supports EventSource, WebSocket, Long Polling, Forever Iframe, etc.

[nanoant]

Thanks a lot for pointing me to this module! Now I need to study it carefully.

[agentzh]

Hello!

On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Adam Strzelecki
notifications@github.comwrote:

Only missing feature that will make this Lua module (and openresty) ready
to make realtime web apps is WebSocket support.

I dunno exactly how to do it, but it would be just awesome if we could
also have sthing like websocket_by_lua that will launch script on new
websocket, then this script could (somehow) install handlers (functions)
for WebSocket frame and close events.

WebSocket has been on the TODO list of this module for long. But probably
it will not be implemented as a separate configure directive like
websocket_by_lua. I definitely need to think more about it :)

Thanks for bringing it up :)

Best regards,
-agentzh

[eoranged]

Looks like It requires nginx support for websockets, which is not planned to be implemented soon as far as I know.

But generally I like the Idea.

[tobyhede]

I think this would really open up openresty to some interesting use cases

[bungle]

Now that Nginx has a support for websockets, is there a possibility for running web sockets with this module?

[agentzh]

Hello!

On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 12:23 PM, Aapo Talvensaari wrote:

Now that Nginx has a support for websockets, is there a possibility for running web sockets with this module?

Yes, I've noticed that. So the support for WebSocket on the Nginx core
side is already there. It now makes sense to add this support on the
ngx_lua side :)

I'll look into this in the next week or so, probably in a git branch
named "websocket" in the ngx_lua repository. Thanks for reminding me
of this TODO item :)

I'll keep you posted :)

Best regards,
-agentzh

[cablehead]

Curious how this went?

[agentzh]

Haven't got the time to work on this. Being busy with other stuffs like the new timer API in ngx_lua and other small features and fixes.

[hendrik-schumacher]

Hi!
We would also be very interested in this feature. Since we would mainly use the websocket connection to continuously send data to the server the push stream module mentioned above does not help us.
Any progress on this?

[agentzh]

@hendrik-schumacher No progress yet. But it's still somewhere near the top of my TODO list :)

[hendrik-schumacher]

@agentzh Did you have time to look into this meanwhile? Is there any way to make you push this to the top of your list?

[agentzh]

@hendrik-schumacher Sorry, I've been busy with other things in the openresty project, mostly performance tuning and bug fixes.

To push this to the top of my list, you have to find someone to sponsor it so that I can consider working on it in my own time.

[agentzh]

I've implemented the first prototype of the websocket support for ngx_lua.

You need to use the "websocket" git branch in ngx_lua's repository for now. Also, you need to use the lua-resty-websocket library:

https://github.com/agentzh/lua-resty-websocket

Thanks Aapo Talvensaari for writing a nice blog post on the basic usage of this new feature:

https://medium.com/p/1778601c9e05

Please try it out and send feedback to me :) Thanks!

[agentzh]

The "websocket" git branch of ngx_lua has already been merged into "master". I've run the whole ngx_lua and lua-resty-websocket test suite on Amazon EC2 with various different testing modes:

http://qa.openresty.org

Fixed a bug leading to segfault exposed by the test suite.

The new websocket support of ngx_lua will be included in the next formal release. For now, please use the "master" branch instead of "websocket".