Soketi

The server is built on top of uWebSockets.js - a C application ported to Node.js. uWebSockets.js is demonstrated to perform at levels 8.5x that of Fastify and at least 10x that of Socket.IO. (source)

Installing with NPM

Node.js LTS (14.x, 16.x, 18.x) is required due to uWebSockets.js build limitations.

Soketi may be easily installed via the NPM CLI:

npm install -g @soketi/soketi

If installation fails with error code 128 as shown, delete /root/.npm folder and try again.

npm ERR! code 128
npm ERR! An unknown git error occurred
npm ERR! command git --no-replace-objects clone -b v20.10.0 ssh://git@github.com/uNetworking/uWebSockets.js.git /root/.npm/_cacache/tmp/git-cloneOvhFm4 --recurse-submodules --depth=1
npm ERR! fatal: could not create leading directories of '/root/.npm/_cacache/tmp/git-cloneOvhFm4': Permission denied

After installation, a soketi server using the default configuration may be started using the start command:

soketi start

By default, this will start a server at 127.0.0.1:6001 with the following application credentials:

• App ID: app-id
• App Key: app-key
• Secret: app-secret

Laravel Broadcasting

When using Laravel's event broadcasting feature within your application, soketi is even easier to configure. First, replace the default pusher configuration in your application's config/broadcasting.php file with the following configuration:

'connections' => [

    // ...

    'pusher' => [
        'driver' => 'pusher',
        'key' => env('PUSHER_APP_KEY', 'app-key'),
        'secret' => env('PUSHER_APP_SECRET', 'app-secret'),
        'app_id' => env('PUSHER_APP_ID', 'app-id'),
        'options' => [
            'host' => env('PUSHER_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
            'port' => env('PUSHER_PORT', 6001),
            'scheme' => env('PUSHER_SCHEME', 'http'),
            'encrypted' => true,
            'useTLS' => env('PUSHER_SCHEME') === 'https',
        ],
    ],
],

To broadcast events using Pusher Channels, we need to install the Pusher Channels PHP SDK using the Composer package manager:

composer require pusher/pusher-php-server

Laravel Echo

To configure client side we need to install Laravel Echo ant PusherJS libraries:

npm install laravel-echo pusher-js -D

Laravel Echo is compatible with the PusherJS library. Therefore, its configuration resembles the typical configuration of a PusherJS client such as the example configuration in the previous section of documentation:

import Echo from 'laravel-echo';
import Pusher from 'pusher-js';

window.Pusher = Pusher;

window.Echo = new Echo({
    broadcaster: 'pusher',
    key: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY,
    wsHost: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_HOST ?? `ws-${import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER}.pusher.com`,
    wsPort: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_PORT ?? 80,
    wssPort: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_PORT ?? 443,
    forceTLS: (import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME ?? 'https') === 'https',
    enabledTransports: ['ws', 'wss']
});

Make sure that enabledTransports is set to ['ws', 'wss']. If not set, in case of connection failure, the client will try other transports such as XHR polling, which soketi doesn't support.

Excluding event recipients

In some situations, you want to stop the client that broadcasts an event from receiving it.

Each pusher connection is assigned a unique socket_id which can be accessed via

channel.pusher.connection.socket_id

Once the socket_id has been accessed it can be used when triggering an event on the server by passing it to the server.

button.addEventListener('click', function () {
  axios.post('/api/my-action', {
    socket_id: channel.pusher.connection.socket_id
  });
});

When you trigger an event from the server passing a socket_id, the Channels connection (client) with that socket_id will be excluded from receiving the event.

$payload = [
    'socket' => $request->socket_id
];

broadcast(new MyEvent($payload))->toOthers();

MyEvent might look like this:

use Illuminate\Support\Arr;

public $socket;

public function __construct(array $payload)
{
    $this->socket = Arr::pull($payload, 'socket');
}