WebSocket: Bringing TCP to the browser

The WebSocket standard is almost finalized. However, WebSocket itself is offering “just” a (data) pipe. WebSocket is well suited to bring event- or data-driven applications to the browser. A valid example would a Web UI for a JMS or AMQP application. With help of the Kaazing Gateway this is possible! As said before, you are basically able to bring any TCP- or UDP-based application to the web.

A simple TCP-based echo server

Since the WebSocket client API itself is not enough (to build a “real” application), we need some (existing) backend, or server. A very simple example would be to bring a (TCP) echo server to the browser, via WebSocket:

var net = require('net');

var server = net.createServer(function (socket) {
  socket.write("Echo server\r\n");
  socket.pipe(socket);
});

server.listen(1337, "127.0.0.1");

The above code is a VERY simple “EchoServer” that runs on port “1337″. It is in Node.js. The code is borrowed from their website.

Bring it to the Web

To be able to access this TCP server with a WebSocket application you need to add the following configuration to the Kaazing WebSocket Gateway:

<service>
  <accept>ws://localhost:8000/echo</accept>
  <connect>tcp://localhost:1337/</connect>
  <type>proxy</type>
  <cross-site-constraint>
    <allow-origin>*</allow-origin>
  </cross-site-constraint>
</service>

Read more: Matthias Wessendorf's Weblog
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