actioncable-to-eventsource

This small server written in Go will convert an ActionCable websocket to the EventSource API, allowing wb clients to communicate with ActionCable even though in some circumstances WebSockets is not available (corporate environment, proxy, …)

HTTP API

A web client first need to generate a unique and secure identifier and generate a communication URL with it. For example, if the EventSource server is listening on http://localhost:8080 (the default) it should Generate an URL of the form http://localhost:8080/{generated-id}.

Note that CORS headers are automatically set and any cookie passed will be forwarded to the WebSocket server.

• GET http://{host}/{events-id}: Starts an EventSource session. The message event will be passed all the messages of the session.

  A command-line setting can allow multiple listeners to the same EventSource session.

  Each message event consist of a JSON object of one of the following types:

  - Join message, indicates that the EventSource channel received a new
    listener
  
        {
            "type": "joined",
            "id": the EventSource session identifier (URL path)
        }
  
  - ActionCable message
  
        {
            "type":       "connected" | "disconnected" | "rejected" | "received",
            "chan_id":    a unique identifier for the ActionCable channel (maps to the identifier)
            "identifier": the ActionCable identifier {"channel": "", ...}
            "message":    {...}
        }
  

• POST http://{host}/{events-id}: Manipulates the EventSource session with requests, allowing to connect to ActionCable channels. The request body must be a JSON array containing one or more requests. A request is a JSON object in the form of:

  - Subscribe requests: subscribe to an ActionCable channel
  
        {
          "identifier": {"channel": "...", ...},
          "subscribe":  true
        }
  
  - Unsubscribe requests: unsubscribe to an ActionCable channel
  
        {
          "identifier":  {"channel": "...", ...},
          "unsubscribe": true
        }
  
  - Send requests: send a message to an ActionCable channel
  
        {
          "identifier": {"channel": "...", ...},
          "send":       {...}
        }
  

  Note that the actual request body is an array of these requests, for example:

    [
      {
        "identifier": {"channel": "chat", "user_id": 123},
        "subscribe":  true
      },
      {
        "identifier": {"channel": "chat_presence", "user_id": 123},
        "subscribe":  true
      },
    ]
  

  The response is an array of responses mapping to each request, each individual response is of the form:

    {
      "error":   optional error,
      "chan_id": a unique identifier for the ActionCable channel (maps to the identifier) 
    }
  

Deployment

Use HTTPS behind a reverse proxy, and if possible serve it on the same hostname than the original application.

GitHub

View Github