README.md

Realtime service

This service is based on Heroku, Websockets using Sockets.io, and Redis. It provides presence information, chat and other realtime communication services for Midspace.

Prerequisites

1. Auth0 Setup
2. Hasura Setup

Setting up

1. cd services/realtime
2. cp .env.example .env
3. Replace the placeholder values in .env for the environment variables listed in the table at the bottom of this page.
4. You should have already configured and started the Docker services. Open http://localhost:15672 in a web browser and log in with the default username and password, both admin.
5. Now, create the user that the realtime service will use to access RabbitMQ. Go to the Admin tab and add a new user with username services/realtime and password 1234. Click the username of the newly-created user, and then click the Set Permission button. This gives the user unrestricted read/write access.
   • You can choose a different username and password, but you will need to update the RABBITMQ_USERNAME and RABBITMQ_PASSWORD in .env to match.

Production: Heroku

1. We need "sticky sessions" to make websockets work: heroku features:enable http-session-affinity --app APP_NAME
2. We need Heroku Redis for maintaining state: heroku addons:create heroku-redis:premium-0 --app APP_NAME
3. We need Heroku Multiprocfile to handle our monorepo:
   • heroku buildpacks:add -a APP_NAME heroku-community/multi-procfile
   • heroku config:set -a APP_NAME PROCFILE=services/realtime/PROCFILE

Env vars

Name	Purpose	Example
REDIS_URL	The URI to your redis server. Heroku sets this automatically.	redis://localhost:6379
AUTH0_API_DOMAIN	As per other parts of Midspace.
SECRET_FOR_SUMMARY	same as PRESENCE_SUMMARY_SECRET in hasura/.env
SECRET_FOR_FLUSHING	same as PRESENCE_FLUSH_SECRET in hasura/.env