Action Cable Overview ===================== In this guide you will learn how Action Cable works and how to use WebSockets to incorporate real-time features into your Rails application. After reading this guide, you will know: * How to setup Action Cable * How to setup channels Introduction ------------ Action Cable seamlessly integrates WebSockets with the rest of your Rails application. It allows for real-time features to be written in Ruby in the same style and form as the rest of your Rails application, while still being performant and scalable. It's a full-stack offering that provides both a client-side JavaScript framework and a server-side Ruby framework. You have access to your full domain model written with Active Record or your ORM of choice. What is Pub/Sub --------------- Pub/Sub, or Publish-Subscribe, refers to a message queue paradigm whereby senders of information (publishers), send data to an abstract class of recipients (subscribers), without specifying individual recipients. What is Action Cable -------------------- Action Cable is a server which can handle multiple connection instances, with one client-server connection instance established per WebSocket connection. ## Server-Side Components ### Connections Connections form the foundaton of the client-server relationship. For every WebSocket the cable server is accepting, a Connection object will be instantiated. This instance becomes the parent of all the channel subscriptions that are created from there on. The Connection itself does not deal with any specific application logic beyond authentication and authorization. The client of a WebSocket connection is called the consumer. A single consumer may have multiple WebSockets open to your application if they use multiple browser tabs or devices. Connections are instantiated via the `ApplicationCable::Connection` class in Ruby. In this class, you authorize the incoming connection, and proceed to establish it if the user can be identified. #### Connection Setup ```ruby # app/channels/application_cable/connection.rb module ApplicationCable class Connection < ActionCable::Connection::Base identified_by :current_user def connect self.current_user = find_verified_user end protected def find_verified_user if current_user = User.find_by(id: cookies.signed[:user_id]) current_user else reject_unauthorized_connection end end end end ``` Here `identified_by` is a connection identifier that can be used to find the specific connection again or later. Note that anything marked as an identifier will automatically create a delegate by the same name on any channel instances created off the connection. This relies on the fact that you will already have handled authentication of the user, and that a successful authentication sets a signed cookie with the `user_id`. This cookie is then automatically sent to the connection instance when a new connection is attempted, and you use that to set the `current_user`. By identifying the connection by this same current_user, you're also ensuring that you can later retrieve all open connections by a given user (and potentially disconnect them all if the user is deleted or deauthorized). ### Channels A channel encapsulates a logical unit of work, similar to what a controller does in a regular MVC setup. By default, Rails creates a parent `ApplicationCable::Channel` class for encapsulating shared logic between your channels. #### Parent Channel Setup ```ruby # app/channels/application_cable/channel.rb module ApplicationCable class Channel < ActionCable::Channel::Base end end ``` Then you would create child channel classes. For example, you could have a **ChatChannel** and an **AppearanceChannel**: ```ruby # app/channels/application_cable/chat_channel.rb class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel end # app/channels/application_cable/appearance_channel.rb class AppearanceChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel end ``` A consumer could then be subscribed to either or both of these channels. #### Subscriptions When a consumer is subscribed to a channel, they act as a subscriber; This connection is called a subscription. Incoming messages are then routed to these channel subscriptions based on an identifier sent by the cable consumer. ```ruby # app/channels/application_cable/chat_channel.rb class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed end end ``` ## Client-Side Components ### Connections Consumers require an instance of the connection on their side. This can be established using the following Javascript: #### Connect Consumer ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable.coffee #= require action_cable @App = {} App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer("ws://cable.example.com") ``` The `ws://cable.example.com` address must point to your set of Action Cable servers, and it must share a cookie namespace with the rest of the application (which may live under http://example.com). This ensures that the signed cookie will be correctly sent. #### Subscriber When a consumer is subscribed to a channel, they act as a subscriber. A consumer can act as a subscriber to a given channel any number of times. For example, a consumer could subscribe to multiple chat rooms at the same time. (remember that a physical user may have multiple consumers, one per tab/device open to your connection). A consumer becomes a subscriber, by creating a subscribtion to a given channel: ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/chat.coffee # Assumes you've already requested the right to send web notifications App.cable.subscriptions.create { channel: "ChatChannel", room: "Best Room" } # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/appearance.coffee # Assumes you've already requested the right to send web notifications App.cable.subscriptions.create { channel: "AppearanceChannel" } ``` While this creates the subscription, the functionality needed to respond to received data will be described later on. ## Client-Server Interactions ### Streams Streams provide the mechanism by which channels route published content (broadcasts) to its subscribers. ```ruby # app/channels/application_cable/chat_channel.rb class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed stream_from "chat_#{params[:room]}" end end ``` If you have a stream that is related to a model, then the broadcasting used can be generated from the model and channel. The following example would subscribe to a broadcasting like `comments:Z2lkOi8vVGVzdEFwcC9Qb3N0LzE` ```ruby class CommentsChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed post = Post.find(params[:id]) stream_for post end end ``` You can then broadcast to this channel using: `CommentsChannel.broadcast_to(@post, @comment)` ### Broadcastings A broadcasting is a pub/sub link where anything transmitted by a publisher is routed directly to the channel subscribers who are streaming that named broadcasting. Each channel can be streaming zero or more broadcastings. Broadcastings are purely an online queue and time dependent; If a consumer is not streaming (subscribed to a given channel), they'll not get the broadcast should they connect later. Broadcasts are called elsewhere in your Rails application: ```ruby WebNotificationsChannel.broadcast_to current_user, title: 'New things!', body: 'All the news fit to print' ``` The `WebNotificationsChannel.broadcast_to` call places a message in the current subscription adapter (Redis by default)'s pubsub queue under a separate broadcasting name for each user. For a user with an ID of 1, the broadcasting name would be `web_notifications_1`. The channel has been instructed to stream everything that arrives at `web_notifications_1` directly to the client by invoking the `#received(data)` callback. ### Subscriptions When a consumer is subscribed to a channel, they act as a subscriber; This connection is called a subscription. Incoming messages are then routed to these channel subscriptions based on an identifier sent by the cable consumer. ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/chat.coffee # Assumes you've already requested the right to send web notifications App.cable.subscriptions.create { channel: "ChatChannel", room: "Best Room" }, received: (data) -> @appendLine(data) appendLine: (data) -> html = @createLine(data) $("[data-chat-room='Best Room']").append(html) createLine: (data) -> """
#{data["sent_by"]} #{data["body"]}
""" ``` ### Passing Parameters to Channel You can pass parameters from the client-side to the server-side when creating a subscription. For example: ```ruby # app/channels/chat_channel.rb class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed stream_from "chat_#{params[:room]}" end end ``` Pass an object as the first argument to `subscriptions.create`, and that object will become your params hash in your cable channel. The keyword `channel` is required. ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/chat.coffee # Client-side, which assumes you've already requested the right to send web notifications App.cable.subscriptions.create { channel: "ChatChannel", room: "Best Room" }, received: (data) -> @appendLine(data) appendLine: (data) -> html = @createLine(data) $("[data-chat-room='Best Room']").append(html) createLine: (data) -> """
#{data["sent_by"]} #{data["body"]}
""" ``` ```ruby # Somewhere in your app this is called, perhaps from a NewCommentJob ChatChannel.broadcast_to chat_#{room}, sent_by: 'Paul', body: 'This is a cool chat app.' ``` ### Rebroadcasting message A common use case is to rebroadcast a message sent by one client to any other connected clients. ```ruby # app/channels/chat_channel.rb class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed stream_from "chat_#{params[:room]}" end def receive(data) ChatChannel.broadcast_to "chat_#{params[:room]}", data end end ``` ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/chat.coffee # Client-side which assumes you've already requested the right to send web notifications App.chatChannel = App.cable.subscriptions.create { channel: "ChatChannel", room: "Best Room" }, received: (data) -> # data => { sent_by: "Paul", body: "This is a cool chat app." } App.chatChannel.send({ sent_by: "Paul", body: "This is a cool chat app." }) ``` The rebroadcast will be received by all connected clients, _including_ the client that sent the message. Note that params are the same as they were when you subscribed to the channel. ## Full-stack examples The following setup steps are common to both examples: 1. [Setup your connection](#connection-setup) 2. [Setup your parent channel](#parent-channel-setup) 3. [Connect your consumer](#connect-consumer) ### Example 1: User appearances Here's a simple example of a channel that tracks whether a user is online or not and what page they're on. (This is useful for creating presence features like showing a green dot next to a user name if they're online). #### Create the server-side Appearance Channel: ```ruby # app/channels/appearance_channel.rb class AppearanceChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed current_user.appear end def unsubscribed current_user.disappear end def appear(data) current_user.appear on: data['appearing_on'] end def away current_user.away end end ``` When `#subscribed` callback is invoked by the consumer, a client-side subscription is initiated. In this case, we take that opportunity to say "the current user has indeed appeared". That appear/disappear API could be backed by Redis, a database, or whatever else. #### Create the client-side Appearance Channel subscription: ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/appearance.coffee App.cable.subscriptions.create "AppearanceChannel", # Called when the subscription is ready for use on the server connected: -> @install() @appear() # Called when the WebSocket connection is closed disconnected: -> @uninstall() # Called when the subscription is rejected by the server rejected: -> @uninstall() appear: -> # Calls `AppearanceChannel#appear(data)` on the server @perform("appear", appearing_on: $("main").data("appearing-on")) away: -> # Calls `AppearanceChannel#away` on the server @perform("away") buttonSelector = "[data-behavior~=appear_away]" install: -> $(document).on "page:change.appearance", => @appear() $(document).on "click.appearance", buttonSelector, => @away() false $(buttonSelector).show() uninstall: -> $(document).off(".appearance") $(buttonSelector).hide() ``` ##### Client-Server Interaction 1. **Client** establishes a connection with the **Server** via `App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer("ws://cable.example.com")`. [*` cable.coffee`*] The **Server** identified this connection instance by `current_user`. 2. **Client** initiates a subscription to the `Appearance Channel` for their connection via `App.cable.subscriptions.create "AppearanceChannel"`. [*`appearance.coffee`*] 3. **Server** recognizes a new subscription has been initiated for `AppearanceChannel` channel performs the `subscribed` callback, which calls the `appear` method on the `current_user`. [*`appearance_channel.rb`*] 4. **Client** recognizes that a subscription has been established and calls `connected` [*`appearance.coffee`*] which in turn calls `@install` and `@appear`. `@appear` calls`AppearanceChannel#appear(data)` on the server, and supplies a data hash of `appearing_on: $("main").data("appearing-on")`. This is possible because the server-side channel instance will automatically expose the public methods declared on the class (minus the callbacks), so that these can be reached as remote procedure calls via a subscription's `perform` method. 5. **Server** receives the request for the `appear` action on the `AppearanceChannel` channel for the connection identified by `current_user`. [*`appearance_channel.rb`*] The server retrieves the data with the `appearing_on` key from the data hash, and sets it as the the value for the `on:` key being passed to `current_user.appear`. ### Example 2: Receiving new web notifications The appearance example was all about exposing server functionality to client-side invocation over the WebSocket connection. But the great thing about WebSockets is that it's a two-way street. So now let's show an example where the server invokesan action on the client. This is a web notification channel that allows you to trigger client-side web notifications when you broadcast to the right streams: #### Create the server-side Web Notifications Channel: ```ruby # app/channels/web_notifications_channel.rb class WebNotificationsChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel def subscribed stream_from "web_notifications_#{current_user.id}" end end ``` #### Create the client-side Web Notifications Channel subscription: ```coffeescript # app/assets/javascripts/cable/subscriptions/web_notifications.coffee # Client-side which assumes you've already requested the right to send web notifications App.cable.subscriptions.create "WebNotificationsChannel", received: (data) -> new Notification data["title"], body: data["body"] ``` #### Broadcast content to a Web Notification Channel instance from elsewhere in your application ```ruby # Somewhere in your app this is called, perhaps from a NewCommentJob WebNotificationsChannel.broadcast_to current_user, title: 'New things!', body: 'All the news fit to print' ``` The `WebNotificationsChannel.broadcast_to` call places a message in the current subscription adapter (Redis by default)'s pubsub queue under a separate broadcasting name for each user. For a user with an ID of 1, the broadcasting name would be `web_notifications_1`. The channel has been instructed to stream everything that arrives at `web_notifications_1` directly to the client by invoking the `#received(data)` callback. The data is the hash sent as the second parameter to the server-side broadcast call, JSON encoded for the trip across the wire, and unpacked for the data argument arriving to `#received`. ### More complete examples See the [rails/actioncable-examples](http://github.com/rails/actioncable-examples) repository for a full example of how to setup Action Cable in a Rails app and adding channels. ## Configuration Action Cable has three required configurations: a subscription adapter, allowed request origins, and the cable server URL. ### Subscription Adapter By default, `ActionCable::Server::Base` will look for a configuration file in `Rails.root.join('config/cable.yml')`. The file must specify an adapter and a URL for each Rails environment. See the "Dependencies" section for additional information on adapters. ```yaml production: &production adapter: redis # Optional as default is redis url: redis://10.10.3.153:6381 development: &development url: redis://localhost:6379 test: *development ``` This format allows you to specify one configuration per Rails environment. You can also change the location of the Action Cable config file in a Rails initializer with something like: ```ruby Rails.application.paths.add "config/redis/cable", with: "somewhere/else/cable.yml" ``` ### Allowed Request Origins Action Cable will only accept requests from specified origins, which are passed to the server config as an array. The origins can be instances of strings or regular expressions, against which a check for match will be performed. ```ruby Rails.application.config.action_cable.allowed_request_origins = ['http://rubyonrails.com', /http:\/\/ruby.*/] ``` To disable and allow requests from any origin: ```ruby Rails.application.config.action_cable.disable_request_forgery_protection = true ``` By default, Action Cable allows all requests from localhost:3000 when running in the development environment. ### Consumer Configuration Once you have decided how to run your cable server (see below), you must provide the server url (or path) to your client-side setup. There are two ways you can do this. The first is to simply pass it in when creating your consumer. For a standalone server, this would be something like: `App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer("ws://example.com:28080")`, and for an in-app server, something like: `App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer("/cable")`. The second option is to pass the server url through the `action_cable_meta_tag` in your layout. This uses a url or path typically set via `config.action_cable.url` in the environment configuration files, or defaults to "/cable". This method is especially useful if your WebSocket url might change between environments. If you host your production server via https, you will need to use the wss scheme for your ActionCable server, but development might remain http and use the ws scheme. You might use localhost in development and your domain in production. In any case, to vary the WebSocket url between environments, add the following configuration to each environment: ```ruby config.action_cable.url = "ws://example.com:28080" ``` Then add the following line to your layout before your JavaScript tag: ```erb <%= action_cable_meta_tag %> ``` And finally, create your consumer like so: ```coffeescript App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer() ``` ### Other Configurations The other common option to configure is the log tags applied to the per-connection logger. Here's close to what we're using in Basecamp: ```ruby Rails.application.config.action_cable.log_tags = [ -> request { request.env['bc.account_id'] || "no-account" }, :action_cable, -> request { request.uuid } ] ``` Your WebSocket URL might change between environments. If you host your production server via https, you will need to use the wss scheme for your ActionCable server, but development might remain http and use the ws scheme. You might use localhost in development and your domain in production. In any case, to vary the WebSocket URL between environments, add the following configuration to each environment: ```ruby config.action_cable.url = "ws://example.com:28080" ``` Then add the following line to your layout before your JavaScript tag: ```erb <%= action_cable_meta_tag %> ``` And finally, create your consumer like so: ```coffeescript App.cable = Cable.createConsumer() ``` For a full list of all configuration options, see the `ActionCable::Server::Configuration` class. Also note that your server must provide at least the same number of database connections as you have workers. The default worker pool is set to 100, so that means you have to make at least that available. You can change that in `config/database.yml` through the `pool` attribute. ## Running the cable server ### In App Action Cable can run alongside your Rails application. For example, to listen for WebSocket requests on `/websocket`, mount the server at that path: ```ruby # config/routes.rb Example::Application.routes.draw do mount ActionCable.server => '/cable' end ``` You can use `App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer()` to connect to the cable server if `action_cable_meta_tag` is included in the layout. A custom path is specified as first argument to `createConsumer` (e.g. `App.cable = ActionCable.createConsumer("/websocket")`). For every instance of your server you create and for every worker your server spawns, you will also have a new instance of ActionCable, but the use of Redis keeps messages synced across connections. ### Standalone The cable server(s) can be separated from your normal application server. It's still a Rack application, but it is its own Rack application. The recommended basic setup is as follows: ```ruby # cable/config.ru require ::File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__) Rails.application.eager_load! run ActionCable.server ``` Then you start the server using a binstub in bin/cable ala: ``` #!/bin/bash bundle exec puma -p 28080 cable/config.ru ``` The above will start a cable server on port 28080. ### Notes Beware that currently the cable server will _not_ auto-reload any changes in the framework. As we've discussed, long-running cable connections mean long-running objects. We don't yet have a way of reloading the classes of those objects in a safe manner. So when you change your channels, or the model your channels use, you must restart the cable server. The WebSocket server doesn't have access to the session, but it has access to the cookies. This can be used when you need to handle authentication. You can see one way of doing that with Devise in this [article](http://www.rubytutorial.io/actioncable-devise-authentication). ## Dependencies Action Cable provides a subscription adapter interface to process its pubsub internals. By default, asynchronous, inline, PostgreSQL, evented Redis, and non-evented Redis adapters are included. The default adapter in new Rails applications is the asynchronous (`async`) adapter. The Ruby side of things is built on top of [websocket-driver](https://github.com/faye/websocket-driver-ruby), [nio4r](https://github.com/celluloid/nio4r), and [concurrent-ruby](https://github.com/ruby-concurrency/concurrent-ruby). ## Deployment Action Cable is powered by a combination of WebSockets and threads. Both the framework plumbing and user-specified channel work are handled internally by utilizing Ruby's native thread support. This means you can use all your regular Rails models with no problem, as long as you haven't committed any thread-safety sins. The Action Cable server implements the Rack socket hijacking API, thereby allowing the use of a multithreaded pattern for managing connections internally, irrespective of whether the application server is multi-threaded or not. Accordingly, Action Cable works with all the popular application servers -- Unicorn, Puma and Passenger.