WebSocket Connection Configuration

To configure websockets for your Oro applications, perform the following tasks with Oro application configuration and environment:

1. Configure a Web Server to ensure messages interaction between the WebSocket server and the clients.

2. Configure WebSocket-Related Environment Variables to provide interaction URLs for clients.

3. Run the WebSocket Server and make sure that it is always running.

Configure a Web Server

Web server configuration for WebSockets connections depends on whether a site uses secure (HTTPS) or non-secure (HTTP) mode. The type of mode used will determine whether WebSocket connections use a secure (WSS) or a non-secure (WS) protocol.

Configure a Regular (WS) Connection

For non-secure connections, there is no need to adjust the Oro application web server configuration to make WebSockets work. However, using a secure connection is strongly recommended for sites in production mode.

Configure a Secure (SSL/WSS) Connection

You have to make some adjustments for a secure (WSS) connection in the web server configuration because direct backend WebSocket SSL/WSS connections are currently not supported. Also, to achieve WSS connection for your WebSocket communication on frontend, you should configure additional reverse proxy before WebSocket server.

Below, you can find an example of this kind of configuration adjustment for Nginx (the recommended web server):

server {
    # This is your regular configuration for SSL connections to website
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com www.example.com

    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/example.com.key;
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/private/example.com.crt.fullchain;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
    ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES2;

    # ...
    # ... Other website instructions here ...
    # ...

    # You need to add additional "location" section for Websockets requests handling
    location /ws {
        # redirect all traffic to localhost:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/$is_args$args;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_read_timeout 86400;

        # enables WS support
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";

        # prevents 502 bad gateway error
        proxy_buffers 8 32k;
        proxy_buffer_size 64k;

        reset_timedout_connection on;

        error_log /var/log/nginx/oro_wss_error.log;
        access_log /var/log/nginx/oro_wss_access.log;
    }

    # ...

    error_log /var/log/nginx/oro_https_error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/oro_https_access.log;
 }

In this configuration example, you should replace the following values:

• example.com with your configured domain name.

• ssl_certificate_key and ssl_certificate with the actual values of your active SSL certificate.

• The ws value in the location /ws string with the value of the frontend_path option from the ORO_WEBSOCKET_FRONTEND_DSN environment variable value.

• URL and port in the proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/ string with the actual values of the host and port defined in the ORO_WEBSOCKET_BACKEND_DSN environment variables.

Configure WebSocket-Related Environment Variables

Configure a Regular (WS) Connection

Set host, port and path (optional) for WebSocket server using environment variables or in the .env-app.local file:

ORO_WEBSOCKET_SERVER_DSN=//0.0.0.0:8080
ORO_WEBSOCKET_FRONTEND_DSN=//*:8080/ws
ORO_WEBSOCKET_BACKEND_DSN=tcp://127.0.0.1:8080

Configure a Secure (SSL/WSS) Connection

Set WebSocket settings in the environment variables:

ORO_WEBSOCKET_SERVER_DSN=//0.0.0.0:8080
ORO_WEBSOCKET_FRONTEND_DSN=//*:443/ws
ORO_WEBSOCKET_BACKEND_DSN=tcp://127.0.0.1:8080

If you want to make backend work under secure connection as well, change the corresponding DSN in the next way:

ORO_WEBSOCKET_BACKEND_DSN=ssl://*:443/ws

If you use untrusted SSL certificate, use the following DSN:

ORO_WEBSOCKET_BACKEND_DSN=ssl://*:443/ws?context_options[verify_peer]=false&context_options[verify_peer_name]=false

Warning

Please keep in mind that having peer verification disabled is not recommended in production.

Configure a User Agent for Internal WebSocket Connections

If you use a custom User Agent identifier for internal WebSocket connections, use the following DSN:

ORO_WEBSOCKET_FRONTEND_DSN=//*:443/ws?user_agent=user-agent%2F1.2.3
ORO_WEBSOCKET_BACKEND_DSN=tcp://127.0.0.1:8080?user_agent=user-agent%2F1.2.3

Run the WebSocket Server

OroSyncBundle provides the gos:websocket:server console command that runs the WebSocket server:

php bin/console gos:websocket:server

Since the WebSocket server must be guaranteed to run all the time for the WebSockets functionality to work, it is strongly recommended to configure a supervisor to run the WebSocket server and ensure its availability.

For example, you can install Supervisord and configure it to run the WebSocket server with following configuration instructions:

Supervisord configuration file, e.g. /etc/supervisord.conf

 [program:oro_web_socket]
 command=php ./bin/console gos:websocket:server --env=prod
 numprocs=1
 autostart=true
 autorestart=true
 directory=/usr/share/nginx/html/oroapp
 user=nginx
 redirect_stderr=true

Logging Levels

The logging level for the websocket server can be specified with the -v|vv|vvv option of the gos:websocket:server console command.

Please note that logging levels are different in dev and prod modes by default.

Prod Mode Log Levels

• Normal: WARNING and higher

• Verbose (-v): NOTICE and higher

• Very verbose (-vv): INFO and higher

• Debug (-vvv): DEBUG and higher

Dev Mode Log Levels

• Normal: INFO and higher

• Verbose (-v): DEBUG and higher

The default output of log records is stdout.

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