monitor.io

Simple remote monitoring and debugging middleware for socket.io.

monitor.io is a module for Node.js that runs as a telnet server, giving a remote client control of and information about sockets connected to an instance of socket.io.

This makes it possible to disconnect, emit, or broadcast data to sockets in a remote terminal without interrupting the Node.js process running socket.io. monitor.io also provides a real-time display of any data attached to a socket with the socket#monitor method.

Installation

$ npm install monitor.io

Usage

var socketio = require('socket.io')(server),
  monitorio = require('monitor.io');

socketio.use(monitorio({ port: 8000 })); // monitor.io started on port 8000

Use telnet to connect to monitor.io and control a real-time list of sockets connected to socket.io.

$ telnet myapp.com 8000

Use hjkl to scroll verticall/horizontally through the list of sockets, e to emit data to a specific socket, and b to broadcast data to all sockets.

Options

localOnly

Enable to prevent connections from any IP except 127.0.0.1. Defaults to false.

To run monitor.io safely in production, enable localOnly and access it via telnet via an ssh connection to your box.

port

The port number for the telnet server to listen on.

remote

Disable to run monitor.io in the current terminal window, without starting a telnet server. Defaults to true.

Monitoring

monitor.io attaches a method named monitor to every socket object. This method attaches data to a socket and tells monitor.io to render this data in the monitor.io terminal window.

Here is an example of how to attach the time that a socket connected to socket.io:

io.on('connection', function(socket) {
  socket.monitor('timeConnected', Date.now());  
});

socket#monitor must be called whenever monitored information changes, such as the score of a player in a real-time game, to force a rerender in the monitor.io window.

socket.on('newHighScore', function(msg) {
  var score = msg.score;
  socket.monitor('highScore', msg.score);
});

The monitor method also accepts an object, and will display every key-value pair in an object.

socket.on('newPlayer', function(msg) {
  var newPlayer = game.createPlayer();
  socket.monitor(newPlayer); // every key-value pair in newPlayer will be shown in the monitor.io terminal window.
});

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2014 Drew Blaisdell drew.blaisdell@gmail.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.