I am beginning to integrate WebSockets into my app for live updates, and it has lead me to wonder whether I should eliminate HTTP requests from the app altogether.
The downsides I have found so far would be:
Harder to split my back-end into MicroServices in the future.
Harder to expose an API to third party software in the future.
Harder to perform caching and background sync on post requests.
How would I achieve these things with WebSockets?
Also, how reliable is data received through WebSockets? Can I be sure the data is consistent? Can I be sure data I send gets processed correctly? Does it make sense to send "GET" requests through WebSockets?
Opening extra HTTP requests when I have an open WebSocket seems wasteful, but I have so many doubts and questions when it comes to eliminating HTTP.
Related
I am creating an application(Nuxtjs) and am having troubles determining a good approach for sending data to the API(expressjs) and retrieving real-time updates. It seems that i can create "bi-di" connections with both protocals [Server Sent Events(SSE) and Axios or Websocket(WS)].
Both technologies work with most of the browsers, so i do not see a need to add additional libraries such as socket.io - For those individuals that do not have a current browser (too bad).
The application is based on user input of form data/clicks. Other users are then notified/updated with the information. At which point, the user can respond and the chain goes on(Basic chat like flow some information will be exchanged quickly while some may not or ever).
In my experience, the user flow would rely more heavily on listening for changes than actually changing the data - hence why i'm considering SSE. Unfortunately, both protocols have their flaws.
Websockets:
Not all components will require a WS to get/post information as such it doesn't make sense to upgrade a basic http connection at the additional server expense. Therefore another method other than WS will be required(Axios/SSR). Example: Checking to see if a user name exists
Security firewalls may prevent WS for operating properly
express-ws makes sockets easy on the API end
I believe you can have more than 6 concurrent connections by one user (which may be pro and con)
Server Sent Events
Seems like the technology is fading in favor of WS
Listening to the events seem to be as easy as listening to events for WS
No need to upgrade the connection but will have to use node-spdy within the expressjs API - This may also be a good implementation for WS due to multiplexing
Little more backend code to setup http2 and emit the SSEs(Ugly code as well - so functions will be made)
Limited to HTTP limitations (6 concurrent connections) which is a problem as the users could easily max this out(ie. having multiple chat windows open)
TLDR
The application will be more "feed" orientated with occasional posting(which can be handled by Axios). However, users will be listening to multiple "feeds" and the HTTP limitations will be a problem. I do not know what the solution would be because SSE seem like the better option as i do not need to continually handshake. If this handshake is truly inconsequential(which from everything i have read isn't the case) than WS is likely a better alternative. Unfortunately, there is soooo much conflicting information regarding the two.
Thoughts?
SSE, Web Sockets, and normal HTTP requests (via AJAX or Fetch API) are all different tools for different jobs.
SSE
Unidirectional, from server to client.
Text-based data only. (Anything else must be serialized, i.e. JSON.)
Simple API, widely compatible, auto-reconnects, has built-in provision for catching up on possibly missed events.
Web Sockets
Bi-directional.
Text or binary data.
Requires you to implement your own meaning for the data sent.
Standard HTTP Requests
Client to Server or Server to Client, but only one direction at a time.
Text or binary data.
Requires extra effort to stream server-to-client response in realtime.
Streaming from client-to-server requires that the entire data be known at the time of the request. (You can't do an event stream, for example.)
How to decide:
Are you streaming event-like data from the server to the client? Use SSE. It's purpose-built for this and is a dead simple way to go.
Are you sending data in only one direction, and you don't need to spontaneously notify clients of something? Use a normal HTTP request.
Do you need to send bidirectional data with a long-term established connection? Use Web Sockets.
From your description, it sounds like either SSE or Web Sockets would be appropriate for your use case. I'd probably lean towards SSE, while sending the random API calls from the client with normal HTTP requests.
I do not know what the solution would be because SSE seem like the better option as i do not need to continually handshake. If this handshake is truly inconsequential(which from everything i have read isn't the case) than WS is likely a better alternative.
Keep in mind that you can simply configure your server with HTTP keep-alive, making this point moot.
I personally avoid using websockets as a 2-way communication between client and server.
I try to use sockets to broadcast data from server to users or a single user(socket), so they can get real-time updates, but for the post requests from client to server I tend to use axios or something similar, because I don't want to pass sensitive data (like access keys etc) from client to server.
My data flow goes something like
User posts data to the server using axios, SSE or whatever
Backend server does what it has to and notifies socket that an event has occured
Socket server then notifies who he has to
My problem with using sockets to send data from client to server is the authentication issue. Technically, you can't pass anything that is not available to client-side javascript through a socket, meaning that to authenticate the action you will have to send sensitive information through a websocket. This is an issue for multiple reasons - if your sensitive data can be accessed using client-side js, there is a bunch of attacks that can be done here. Also someone can listen to the communication between ws and client. This is why I use API calls (axios etc) and store sensitive data to http-only cookies.
So once server wants to notify the user that something has happened, you can easily do that by telling the websocket server to send the data to the user.
You also want to keep your API server stateless, meaning no sockets in your API. I use separate server just for websocket connections, and my API server and websocket server communicate using redis. Pub/sub is a really neat feature for internal server communication and state management.
And to answer your question regarding multiple connections - you can use a single connection between your websocket server and client, and broadcast data using channels. So one channel would be for notification feed, other channel could be for story feed etc.
I hope this makes sense to you. This stack has worked really good for me.
Simple question, are there any other options how to fetch data from server to client to achieve realtime refresh (For example realtime table) other than:
Call API request inside some loop
Subscribe to realtime websocket server
I mean it as core options. Sure there are many libraries or patterns but seems they using one of those two methods.
For Web Applications (browser clients):
There's SSE (Server Sent Events, a.k.a., EventSource), WebSockets and polling (short / long).
Other then that, you'll be working with non-standard solutions (i.e., flash sockets, etc').
IMHO, WebSockets are the best for realtime updates and there are plenty of tools to make the development easy enough.
I have just began using socket.io and I have some experience with express. I know socket.io has bidirectional communication while express is only client to server.
This made me think, why don't we just use socket.io with different namespaces and not use express at all?
In which cases should I use socket vs express?
In the case I need bidirectional communication, is it advisable to make the client -> server with express and then use socket for server -> client?
First off express and socket.io are pretty different things. Express is a full-blown web server framework. You use it for setting up a web-site, fielding http requests from a browser, fielding http requests for an API, etc...
socket.io is a communication layer that sits on top of the webSocket protocol and the webSocket protocol uses an http server to establish its initial connection. While there is a little bit of overlap between what you can do with socket.io and Express, they are more different than they overlap.
For example, if you're setting up a web-site, you couldn't do that with socket.io, one would use something like Express.
Now, if you have a specific programmatic need to communicate between an arbitrary client and a server, you have a zillion choices. If the client is in a browser and the programmatic interface is from Javascript in the browser, then you have fewer choices.
From the browser, using http ajax requests via Express is one choice. Setting up a socket.io connection and defining you own messages is another choice.
Reasons to pick socket.io over Ajax calls to Express from browser Javascript:
You need/want two-way communication over the same channel.
The client is sending a lot of requests to the server (the overhead for sending a socket.io message is lower than an ajax call, once the socket is already set up, so if you're sending a lot of messages, then socket.io messages are more efficient than http requests)
Reasons to pick Ajax calls to Express:
HTTP connections are stateless and short-lived which can make implementing high scale, multi-server implementations with failover and redundancy easier.
There are a wealth of tools to use for http connections from authentication libraries to data formats (MIME) to audio to video, etc...
You want your client to run in places where a long-connected socket.io during inactive periods of time may not be practical (perhaps mobile or battery operated devices).
You want to run in situations where there are proxies, firewalls or other network infrastructure that may not support long running webSocket connections or specifically disallow them.
You want a request/response model. HTTP is request/response where you get a specific response for each request and you know exactly which response goes with which request.
So, as you can see, there is no generic answer to this question. It really depends upon the specific of your communication, the interoperability you desire and the exact needs of your code.
Here are some other references on this topic:
Ajax vs Socket.io
Websocket vs REST when sending data to server
Using AJAX vs. socket.io socket messages
websocket vs rest API for real time data?
For an enterprise REST API (PHP in this case), is it a bad practice to include a web socket server along with a REST API? The pairing of the two makes a nice mix with event dispatching services, but I'm not sure if these two services are different enough where they warrant separation? I guess the only con I can see at the moment, would be that if the REST API were to go down, then your web socket servers are also down, which removes the possibility of having fail-over for any connected clients, or something to that degree.
If you're looking for a really robust way to manage web sockets, check out http://faye.jcoglan.com/ - it has libraries for JavaScript, Ruby, etc, and runs independently of your other servers.
If you don't need that kind of resilience, then I wouldn't worry about mixing your REST and web socket APIs on the same server.
I'm designing a REST web API, but noticed something weird lately.
Apparently some proxy servers are blocking specific HTTP request methods. In my case the PUT and PATCH methods which are crucial to modify resources. This partially breaks the functionality of the API I'm designing...
Is there a good way to bypass this problem without breaking the RESTful architecture constraints? In my opinion there isn't, because fully using the HTTP verbs is advocated when designing a REST web API over HTTP...
You have a few options:
Ignore it. People who willingly break the(ir) web (experience) using a malconfigured proxy server will have to deal with the consequences themselves.
Ask the proxy administrators to whitelist your host or the methods it accepts.
Rewrite your API, "breaking" REST principles.
Use HTTPS, so the proxy will only see the connect method.