Ask HN: How to use HTML5 websockets with HTTP reverse proxies?

3 points by roschdal 15y ago ↗ HN

I usually use a reverse proxy, such as Varnish or Nginx, to cache and gzip HTTP requests when developing HTML5 Web Apps.

Now, I'd like to implement HTML5 WebSockets support in some of my apps. However, it seems that neither Varnish nor Nginx support WebSockets. So how can I realistically use HTML5 WebSockets, if no HTTP proxies support it? Is there a workaround? I have submitted bugreports to both the Varnish and nginx projects, which have been mostly ignored so far.

This seems like a showstopper for HTML5 Web Sockets, in my opinion.

3 comments

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wmf 15y ago ↗

I guess the short-term solution is to connect to a different port.

HAProxy developer Willy Tarreau is participating in the IETF HyBi list, so I would expect HAProxy to add WebSocket support.

[deleted] 15y ago ↗

(comment deleted)

koen 15y ago ↗

I agree, the reverse proxies are becoming a bottle neck. Perhaps we need to team up and contribute it to nginx? It shouldn't be very hard unless their architecture really does not do persistent connections at all (they currently use HTTP 1.0 for requests to a backend) ... Do you have any experience with varnish ?