Question

How do I run a web service with websockets on app platform?

Posted on October 10, 2020
DigitalOcean App Platform
Asked by samueldevstiles

I’m trying to run a Node.js app that exposes a websocket server to the internet. I am unable to connect to my websocket server on the HTTP port that the app platform app has me specify.

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Steven Normore

DigitalOcean Employee

• October 12, 2020

Accepted Answer

@samueldevstiles 👋

Services that you run on the App Platform are exposed via app domains on port 443/HTTPS. So you should also use the wss:// scheme when connecting. This is not necessarily the same port as you would specify that your service is listening on internally.

I have a sample nodejs repo that uses websockets and can be forked + deployed to the App Platform without any changes if that helps as a reference: https://github.com/snormore/sample-websocket

Dikshith Shetty

DigitalOcean Employee

• October 10, 2020

Hey,

Services within the same application share a private network with one another. You should be able to communicate between the components using internal HTTP. Components can be referenced by their component name, for example: if you have two services with an app, api, and web. The web service could make requests to http://api for internal communication.

Regards,

Dikshith