NodeJS chat server interacting with non-node hosted html page

Question

The node.js chat example is ubiquitous. However, they all serve the static html page with which the chat feature is integrated.

What about an html page that is served via apache, php, .net, or other which interacts with a node.js based chat server. How would this be implemented?

For instance, the html page contains a form used to login. The form's action points to the node server which provides the authentication and message handling. How does this chat server communicate with the client-side when it is not also providing the static html content?

It's doable, maybe even preferred in scaled applications. To do this you would use reverse proxies. I think WebSockets may be an issue with this technique though, at least with some servers. — Jack
– Jack, Commented Aug 15, 2014 at 18:52

markasoftware · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-15 21:02:57Z

Yes, it's possible. If I understand you correctly, you'll probably want to use this approach:

Run the apache server on a different port from the node.js server, and have the static server serve the chat page. Then, you have two main options for how to get data from the static page to the node.js server: either use XMLHttpRequest directly from the static page with CORS (you'll need it because you're running from different ports, but it's still possible to have CORS allow from different ports on the same domain but nothing else, so it can still be secure), or have an invisible iframe of the node.js page on the static page, and then send data to it with postMessage, and then the iframe (which is on the same port as the node.js server, as it's being served by node.js) will forward the data from the postMessage to the server with XMLHttpRequest

You can also do a proxy, but it won't be as good for this type of situation I think, because if Apache is running the proxy, it completely erases how node.js does well with comet and things, but if you run node.js as the main server proxying to Apache, it would be easier just to do everything with node, so I'm guessing you don't want that

lynnjwalker · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-27 16:59:00Z

0

Here is a simple solution I found that works to add socket.io real-time interactivity to any existing html page, even when that page is hosted on another server.

Include a reference to socket.io in the head of the html page. The IP address and port number should be the location of your node.js server that is running socket.io.

<script src="http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>

[NOTE: localhost doesn't work, you must use the actual IP address - don't forget the port]

Then, within a script block on the same html page, open a connection to the socket:

 <script>
     var socket = io.connect('http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx');
 </script>

That's it, you're connected!

answered Aug 27, 2014 at 16:59

lynnjwalker

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