is it possible to create server based unsolicited "events", "messages"
(e.g. message that is NOT a reply to a client's request, but generated
on behalf of the server) in gRPC?
[Tried googling for it, but couldn't find any relevant answer, mind me]
Thanks,
If you want the server to initiate the connection from the server and send a message with no prior interaction from the client, then no, you can't do that with gRPC.
However, this fits perfectly into the "subscriber" pattern that gRPC is intended to support: the client opens a server-streaming request (possibly indicating which messages or events they would like to receive), then the server responds with each message or event as it appears.
Related
I am trying to create a chat messaging application, which has text functionality. Right now, when a user sends an SMS message from their phone to a Twilio service number, there is a Twilio webhook which redirects to an endpoint in my backend server: sending HTTP POST request.
However, since it is a chat messaging application, I need the Twilio webhook to establish a Websocket connection (upgrading over HTTP) to my backend server, so that it can send websocket events back to my client.
Is there a way to establish a websocket connection using Twilio webhooks, or even Twilio functions? I can't find any resources online to solve this issue.
I tried Twilio Webhooks, and Twilio Functions, it hasn't worked so far.
WebSockets won't help you in this situation, as the webhook timeout limit is 15 seconds. This means you either need to return a TwiML response within 15 seconds or the request will fail.
It sounds like you want to build a stateful WebSocket connection instead of the stateless API callback. To achieve a stateful session, you either need to handle the state management over multiple incoming messages on your own, or you can use a Studio Flow which comes with state management baked in.
I need to add support for instant messages or reminders to my web application. I was reading that this could be accomplished with websockets.
The idea is that during the time the web app is been used, it could receive messages originated (not as a request response) from the server. For example, the server application might want to remind the user about and unpaid service.
As I understand, when the web app starts it connects to the websocket server through a standard HTTP Request call to announce itself as a client. My question is:
"If I have hundreds of clients connected at the same time, how do I call one in particular?"
Do I need to store every websocket object in an array or something so I can use it to send a message when it is required?
What would be the right approach?
Thanks.
Situation
Am trying to build a real-time chat toy app using the following technology stack
RethinkDB
Laravel 5
Ratchet
What I perceive to be the conceptual situation
The green arrows represent the real-time exchange of data.
The black arrows represent other non real-time requests and exchange of data.
My question
I was wondering if my understanding of the implementation of chat using the technology stack is correct based on the diagram?
if there are inaccuracies, what would they be?
Your interpretation seems correct, although I would not suggest using the websocket to send data to but only to distribute live data to all subscribers of a channel.
To do this, get an API(preferably) going to receive new posts/chats/users.
And use a push server to send the data received to the socket.
A push server is just an in between of the app and websocket that allows php(laravel) to access the socket easily.
Edit: to elaborate
To retry explaining this to you.
All clients listen to the WebScoket Server. This is a connection which is passive and they will only receive messages from the socket according to what topics/subscriptions they have.
When someone wants to send a message(in case of a chat application) they send it to an API to check if the right user sent it, maybe even use apikeys or other means of security.
Once the message is received in the API then the API wants to distribite it to all listening clients for that chat room/topic/subscription.
So the message is forwarded to the pushserver which is an in between of the backend (API, controllers) and the WebSocket (subscriptions, topics).
The pushserver forwards the message to the WebSocket afterwards and then the WebSocket distibutes the message to the correct listeners.
Advantages of using an API:
Security
Scalability
I am using spring/stomp/websocket framework to notify users of messages asynchronously. I have done this successfully. However, I would be get ACK from the client so that some server side action can take place when this is done.
The flow is roughly as flows:
Service notifies a specific user about a decision and updates a record in the DB with status = "notified"
Client receives the message (using stompClient.subscribe(...))
Client acknowledges that the message was received.
The service "knows" that this message was acknowledged and updates the status to "ACK" in the DB.
stompClient.connect({login:'guest', passcode:'guest'},
function(frame) {
setConnected(true);
**var headers = {ack: 'client'};**
...
stompClient.subscribe('/user/guest/response',function(notification) {
//doSomething
}), **headers**);
}
In the service, the message is sent:
this.messagingTemplate.convertAndSendToUser(user, "/response",msg, map);
Is there a way to handle the client ACK on the server side?
Alternatively, I tried to do a
stompClient.send("/app/response/ack/"+messageId);
on the client, in the method that handles the subscription, but in vain.
Can someone please tell me what is standard way to handle acknowledgments? I have been struggling with this for a a couple of days and any thoughts would be very helpful.
Thanks!
Use the ACK frame as per spec. The server sends an ack:some_id header, the client uses that some_id in the ACK frame.
The answer is no for simple broker.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/html/websocket.html
The simple broker is great for getting started but supports only a
subset of STOMP commands (e.g. no acks, receipts, etc.), relies on a
simple message sending loop, and is not suitable for clustering. As an
alternative, applications can upgrade to using a full-featured message
broker.
I have a Java application which I make available via RESTful web services. I want to create a mechanism so clients can register for notifications of events. The rub is that there is no guarantee that the client programs will be Java programs and hence I won't be able to use JMS for this (i.e. if every client was a Java app then we could allow the clients to subscribe to a JMS topic and listen there for notification messages).
The use case is roughly as follows:
A client registers itself with my server application, via a RESTful web service call, indicating that it is interested in getting a notification message anytime a specific object is updated.
When the object of interest is updated then my server application needs to put out a notification to all clients who are interested in being notified of this event.
As I mentioned above I know how I would do this if all clients were Java apps -- set up a topic that clients can listen to for notification messages. However I can't use that approach since it's likely that many clients will not be able to listen to a JMS topic for notification messages.
Can anyone here enlighten me as to how this problem is typically solved? What mechanism can I provide using a RESTful API?
I can think of four approaches:
A Twitter approach: You register the Client and then it calls back periodically with a GET to retrieve any notifications.
The Client describes how it wants to receive the notification when it makes the registration request. That way you could allow JMS for those that can handle it and fall back to email or similar for those that can't.
Take a URL during the registration request and POST back to each Client individually when you have a notification. Hardly Pub/Sub but the effect would be similar. Of course you'd be assuming that the Client was listening for these notifications and had implemented their Client according to your specs.
Buy IBM WebSphere MQ (MQSeries). Best IBM product ever. Not REST but it's great at multi-platform integration like this.
We have this problem and need low-latency asynchronous updates to relatively few listeners. Our two alternative solutions have been:
Polling: Hammer the list of resources you need with GET requests
Streaming event updates: Provide a monitor resource. The server keeps the connection open. As events occur, the server transmits a stream of event descriptions using multipart content-type or chunked transfer-encoding.
In the response to the RESTful request, you could supply an individualized RESTful URL that the client can monitor for updates.
That is, you have one URL (/Signup.htm, say), that accepts the client's information (id if appropriate, id of object to monitor) and returns a customized url (/Monitor/XYZPDQ), where XYZPDQ is a UUID created for that particular client. The client can poll that customized URL at some interval, and it will receive a notification if the update occurs.
If you don't care about who the client is (and don't want to create so many UUIDs) you could just have separate RESTful URLs for each object that might want to be monitored, and the "signup" URL would just return the correct one.
As John Saunders says, you can't really do a more straightforward publish/subscribe via HTTP.
If polling is not acceptable I would consider using web-sockets (e.g. see here). Though to be honest I like the idea suggested by user189423 of multipart content-type or chunked transfer-encoding as well.