Skip to main content

WebSocket Options

Try pusher first

It is recommended you keep running Pusher and switch to alternative methods only if Pusher free plan doesn't meet your needs.

In the Getting Started section we setup Pusher as our websocket server.

Pusher free tier provides 200k push messages per day and 100 concurrent connections. This might not be enough when your audience is large. Ofcoz you can opt for paid plan of Pusher to remove these limitations but that might get costly.

Here we are going to discuss about two self-hosted alternatives which won't have any limitations and support pusher protocol.

  1. Laravel Websockets
  2. Socketi
note

You need to install only of them in your server.

Laravel Websockets​

info

Visit Laravel Websocket docs for detailed explanation: https://beyondco.de/docs/laravel-websockets/

Laravel Websockets server is already bundled with minetrax. To use it instead of pusher all you need to do is run the server and change your broadcasting configurations.

Start the websocket server​

cd /var/www/minetrax
php artisan websockets:serve
tip

By default websocket server start on port 6001. You can change that by specifying port.

php artisan websockets:serve --port=3030

Running in SuperVisor​

The websockets:serve should always be running to accept connection. This is why it is recommended to use supervisor to keep it running and automatically restart on crashes.

Break the websocket server daemon by pressing Ctrl+C if its running, and follow the steps below to use it with supervisor.

Create a new supervisor conf file in /etc/supervisor/conf.d folder called minetrax-websocket.conf and paste below content in there.

/etc/supervisor/conf.d/minetrax-websocket.conf
[program:minetrax-websockets]
command=/usr/bin/php /var/www/minetrax/artisan websockets:serve
numprocs=1
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data

Update the supervisor and start the daemon

supervisorctl update
supervisorctl start minetrax-websockets

Change broadcasting configuration​

You need to add host and port config key in the config/broadcasting.php and add it to the pusher section. The default port of the Laravel WebSocket server is 6001

config/broadcasting.php
'pusher' => [
    'driver' => 'pusher',
    'key' => env('PUSHER_APP_KEY'),
    'secret' => env('PUSHER_APP_SECRET'),
    'app_id' => env('PUSHER_APP_ID'),
    'options' => [
        'cluster' => env('PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER'),
        'encrypted' => true,
        'host' => '127.0.0.1',
        'port' => 6001,
        'scheme' => 'http'
    ],
],

Change frontend asset settings​

Minetrax uses npm package called Echo for listening to broadcasts. To make Echo work with Laravel WebSockets, you need to make slight adjustments in resources/js/bootstrap.js file.

In Echo section of the file add wsHost, wsPort, disableStats and forceTLS as given below.

window.Echo = new Echo({
    broadcaster: 'pusher',
    key: 'your-pusher-key',
    wsHost: window.location.hostname,
    wsPort: 6001,
    forceTLS: false,
    disableStats: true
});

Rebuild assets & restart services​

cd /var/www/minetrax

npm install
npm run prod

php artisan queue:restart
supervisorctl restart minetrax-websockets
tip

For SSL support please read: https://beyondco.de/docs/laravel-websockets/basic-usage/ssl

Socketi​

info

Visit soketi docs for detailed explanation: https://docs.soketi.app/

Docs In Progress

If you want to use Socketi, for now you can follow their official docs here