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

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...');

Pastorale

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.

Globose

Thanks for the quick reply,so is this the same solution if I wanted to use the session.socket.io plugin? or is that a different problem alltogether? – Pastorale

This does not use the session.socket.io plugin and works on recent versions of socket.io and express. – Globose

Appears to be working, was hoping to use the session.socket.io but this works well, so thanks. – Pastorale

Note to get this working I had to remove 'io.set('store', socketStore);' which is really quite an unfortunate compromise as this means socket.io will not be able to share its state over multiple processes using redis :( Hopefully I will find a way in the future. – Pastorale

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();
}

Rely

The key here is app.io.set('store', new express.io.RedisStore({ using the express.io.RedisStore. Thanks! – Trimmer