Socket Broadcasting Server

Description

This is a simple socket broadcasting server. It is written in Python 3.9. It uses the socket.io module to create a TCP socket server. It uses the threading module to create a thread for each client that connects to the server. The server broadcasts event with data to all connected clients whitin a given channel. The server also runs a Fastapi server to retrieve the event, data and channel to broadcast to.

Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.9
• venv
• Docker
• Docker-compose

Setup local development environment

1. Clone the repository
2. Run cd Folder to go into the folder
3. Run pyton3 -m venv venv to create a new virtual environment
4. Run source venv/bin/activate to activate the virtual environment for unix like systems
5. Run pip install -r requirements.txt to install the required packages

Setup production environment

1. Clone the repository
2. Run cd Folder to go into the folder
3. Run docker-compose up -d --build to build and run the docker container

Usage

Sending a broadcast

The server runs a Fastapi server to receive the event, data and channel to broadcast to. the endpoint is http://localhost:8000/broadcast/{channel}/{event} and it accepts a POST request with the payload like:

JSON Payload:

{
   "data": "data_to_broadcast"
}

String Payload:

"data_to_broadcast"

Integer Payload:

123

Float Payload:

123.45

Array Payload:

["string", 123, 123.45, {"data": 12}]

When sending a False payload, the server will return a 422 error. but the booleans true and false are valid payloads.

Receiving a broadcast

The server runs a socket server on the following endpoint http://localhost:8000/socket.io. The server uses the socket.io module to create the socket server. to subscribe to a channel, you need to emit the subscribe event with the channel name as the payload. to unsubscribe from a channel, you need to emit the unsubscribe event with the channel name as the payload. to receive a broadcast, you need to listen to the event name that you want to receive. the server will broadcast the event with the data to all connected clients within the given channel.

Using Postman to test the server

1. Open Postman
2. Create a new request
3. Select the Websocket Request method (currently beta)
4. Select Socket.io as the protocol
5. Enter the following url http://localhost:8000
6. In Settings tab, select client_version as 4.0
7. In Events tab, add event names to listen to
8. Click on Connect
9. In the Messages tab, you enter a channel name as your message
10. on the bottom right, check Ack and enter subscribe as the event name
11. Click on Send

You now subscribed to the channel and you will receive all broadcasts to that channel.