Presented at Open CF Summit 2012. Discusses options for adding WebSockets support to the different ColdFusion engines, both open source and commercial.

1. Open CF Summit 2012
Billy Cravens

2.  Billy Cravens
 ColdFusion since 4.0 (1999)
 Houston CFUG manager
 Former DFWCFUG board member
 Other languages: PHP, .NET; node.js ninja in
training
 Remember the Wrox book?
 Supporter of Cystic Fibrosis
 www.CureCF.com

3.  Full-blown training on WebSockets
 Limited to only open source engines
 A spectacular demo – we’ll look at bare bones
chat implementation
 “I hate chat app examples”
- Ray Camden
 In-depth knowledge of OSS roadmaps

4.  An overview of options in all available CFML
engines
 Highlight the role of open source solutions
across this entire space
 A review of the landscape on February 25,
2012

5.  Polling
 Long-polling / Comet
 Flash

6.  What are they?
▪ Bi-directional, full duplex TCP communication in the
browser
▪ Not finalized – multiple versions
▪ ws(s)://serviceURI(:port)(/optional/path)
▪ Client side: JavaScript

7.  Support
 Browsers that support WebSockets
▪ IE 10+, FF 6+, Chrome 14+, iOS 4.2+, BB OS7
 Using Flash and JavaScript as polyfill
▪ https://github.com/gimite/web-socket-js
▪ The code

8.  node.js/socket.io
 WebSockets + evented JavaScript
 Complexity
 PusherApp
 Hosted service
 Dependent

9.  ColdFusion < v.10
 Railo
 Open BlueDragon

10.  https://github.com/nmische/cf-websocket-
gateway
 Built on Netty, non-blocking IO framework
for Java (similar to node.js)
 Built on Webbit, a Java WebSocket server

11.  Event gateway
 Copy JARs and restart ColdFusion
 Configure gateway type
 Configure gateway instance
 Create CFC with WebSocket methods
▪ Open Connection
▪ Close Connection
▪ Incoming Message

12.  Event gateway
 Railo allows for gateways types to be written in
CFML (ACF=Java)
 Railo has extension API: add gateways, libraries,
etc, via Admin
 Gateway based on lightweight WebSockets server
▪ https://github.com/TooTallNate/Java-WebSocket

13.  More info
▪ http://wiki.getrailo.org/wiki/Extensions:WebSockets_Ga
teway

14.  I encountered some errors
 You can report – fast to respond
 You can fix – gateway is in CFML
 Install script is CFML – you can troubleshoot

15.  I almost made it work
 fix code in install.cfc:
(railo-root)/WEB-INF/railo/temp/compress/(random
string)/(UUID)/railo/install.cfc
▪ *** didn’t work ***
 manual copy
▪ (railo-root)/WEB-INF/railo/temp/compress/(random string)/(UUID)/railo
WebSocket.cfc and WebSocketListener.cfc
to (railo-root)/WEB-INF/railo/components/railo/extension/gateway/
▪ Then restart
▪ Still no WebSocket option in gateways screen
 Moved WebSocketGateway.cfc from (railo root)/WEB-
INF/railo/context/admin/cdriver to …../gdriver
▪ Restarted - this fixed it
 Had to add mapping to components/railo directory

16.  On to the code ….

17.  Current release (2.02) added socket functions
 Not so fast …
 Raw TCP Sockets, not WebSockets
 
 Options
 craft handshake yourself
 Use a wrapper:
https://github.com/kanaka/websockify
 Write a wrapper: tiny little node.js script

18.  Simple WebSockets support
 Configuration: CF Admin > Server Setting >
WebSocket
 Port: for WS client
 Socket Timeout
 Max Data Size: default OK for most apps
 Start Flash Policy Server: for Flash fallback

19.  The code

20.  Advantages
 Little code
 More open than other approaches (Flash, Blaze
DS, etc)
 Disadvantages
 Little analysis of the guts
 Beta 1 – probably summer before gold
 Commercial product