how can I get sessions to work using redis, express & socket.io? - session

Question

So I am trying to get Sessions to work inside my socket.on('connection', ...)
I am trying to get this working using recent versions: Socket.io - 0.9.13, Express - 3.1.0 and latest versions of other modules.
Anyway I have tried using both modules 'connect-redis' and 'session.socket.io' and they both have similar problems.
In my code I have 2 redis stores (socketio.RedisStore and require('connect-redis')(express)), now this program all runs fine, but because express and socket.io need to share session data, I was wondering if this setup will use sessions correctly? do the session stores need to be the same object for express/socketio? A bit of a gray area to me, because the 2 RedisStore's will use the same db in the background?
I have tried using either the socket.io redisStore or the connect-redis redisStore in both places, but socket.io doesnt like the connect-redis redisStore and express doesnt like the socketio.redisStore.
If I use the connect-redis RedisStore then socket.io/lib/manager.js complains:
this.store.subscribe(...
TypeError Object # has no method 'subscribe'
If I use socketio.RedisStore then express/node_modules/connect/lib/middleware/session.js complains:
TypeError: Object # has no method 'get'
*Note I would rather get the session.socket.io plugin working, but when I do the same setup with that plugin, express (also) complains:
TypeError: Object # has no method 'get'
So is it ok that I use 2 different RedisStores for sessions, or do I need to somehow get one or the other working for both, and if so any ideas on how to fix?
My current code looks like this:
var
CONST = {
port: 80,
sessionKey: 'your secret sauce'
};
var
redis = require('redis');
var
express = require('express'),
socketio = require('socket.io'),
RedisStore = require('connect-redis')(express);
var
redisStore = new RedisStore(),
socketStore = new socketio.RedisStore();
var
app = express(),
server = require('http').createServer(app),
io = socketio.listen(server);
app.configure(function(){
app.use(express.cookieParser( CONST.sessionKey ));
app.use(express.session({ secret: CONST.sessionKey, store: redisStore }));
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/test'));
app.get('/', function (req, res) {res.sendfile(__dirname + '/test/' + 'index.htm');});
});
io.configure(function(){
io.set('log level', 1);
io.enable('browser client minification');
io.enable('browser client etag');
io.enable('browser client gzip');
io.set('store', socketStore);
});
io.sockets.on('connection', function(socket){
socket.emit('message', 'Test 1 from server')
});
server.listen( CONST.port );
console.log('running...');

Answer 1

inside the io.configure, you have to link the socket with the http session.
Here's a piece of code that extracts the cookie (This is using socket.io with xhr-polling, I don't know if this would work for websocket, although I suspect it would work).
var cookie = require('cookie');
var connect = require('connect');
var sessionStore = new RedisStore({
client: redis // the redis client
});
socketio.set('authorization', function(data, cb) {
if (data.headers.cookie) {
var sessionCookie = cookie.parse(data.headers.cookie);
var sessionID = connect.utils.parseSignedCookie(sessionCookie['connect.sid'], secret);
sessionStore.get(sessionID, function(err, session) {
if (err || !session) {
cb('Error', false);
} else {
data.session = session;
data.sessionID = sessionID;
cb(null, true);
}
});
} else {
cb('No cookie', false);
}
});
Then you can access the session using:
socket.on("selector", function(data, reply) {
var session = this.handshake.session;
...
}
This also has the added benefit that it checks there is a valid session, so only your logged in users can use sockets. You can use a different logic, though.

Answer 2

Looking at your last note (won't be able to share its state over multiple processes using redis) I had the same problem and found a solution:
var express = require("express.io");
var swig = require('swig');
var redis = require('redis');
var RedisStore = require('connect-redis')(express);
workers = function() {
var app = express().http().io();
app.use(express.cookieParser());
app.use(express.session({
secret: 'very cool secretcode',
store: new RedisStore({ client: redis.createClient() })
}));
app.io.set('store', new express.io.RedisStore({
redisPub: redis.createClient(),
redisSub: redis.createClient(),
redisClient: redis.createClient()
}));
app.get('/', function(req, res) {
res.render('index');
});
app.listen(3000);
app.io.route('ready', function(req){
//setup session stuff, use session stuff, etc. Or make new routes
});
};
cluster = require('cluster');
numCPUs = require('os').cpus().length;
if (cluster.isMaster)
{
for (var i = 0; i < numCPUs; i++)
{
cluster.fork();
}
}
else
{
workers();
}