# External websocket access from a 3rd party application **URL:** \ **Category:** Rancher 1.x\ **Created:** [July 21, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136 "2015-07-21T18:34:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RancherDave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/rancherdave/32/16_2.png) [@RancherDave](https://forums.suse.com/u/RancherDave)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/1 "2015-07-21T18:34:24Z")
This is RancherDave asking a questions on behalf of one of our beta customers. They would like their application to have a persistent websocket connection to Rancher so that their application could continually be updated instead of having to constantly poll via the API. For example, their application informs end users when an environment and containers are available for consumption and a websocket connection would be able to do this instantaneously. ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/2 "2015-07-21T19:02:15Z")
This is how the UI works, others can use it too. Example: [https://gist.github.com/vincent99/491afed2306ba448dd89](https://gist.github.com/vincent99/491afed2306ba448dd89) ---
**Author:** ![AnalogJ](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/analogj/32/540_2.png) [@AnalogJ](https://forums.suse.com/u/AnalogJ)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/3 "2015-12-10T02:23:05Z")
Is embedding the access key and access secret in the URI still a valid way of authenticating a third party application against the websocket api? I just tried this with a few different api keys and it always fails with “invalid\_status\_code” “ws://#{access\_key}:#{secret\_key}@localhost:5000/v1/subscribe?eventNames=resource.change” ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:35am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/4 "2015-12-10T07:35:49Z")
There’s nothing Rancher-specific about the `proto://user:pass@host/path` syntax, it’s just a standard URI that browsers/node.js libraries accept. The user and pass part gets turned into a header for HTTP Basic auth. Not sure what language you’re using but your client library may not support that syntax and have a different way to set HTTP headers instead. The equivalent is to base64 encode the string `username+":"+password` and send a `Authorization: Basic the_resulting_base64_string` header. ---
**Author:** ![tobowers](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/tobowers/32/22_2.png) [@tobowers](https://forums.suse.com/u/tobowers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/5 "2015-12-30T15:16:47Z")
Is there a list of event subscriptions somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/6 "2015-12-30T17:36:46Z")
The only useful event right now is the `resource.change` that I mentioned (and `ping`s that you also get every 5 seconds). ---
**Author:** ![sarlindo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@sarlindo](https://forums.suse.com/u/sarlindo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/7 "2016-01-13T17:20:13Z")
I put together a small microservice POC container for dynamic integration between Rancher and Consul, using the websocket events from Rancher. This is no way is production ready, but I think the concept works. > **[sarlindo/rancherconsul](https://github.com/sarlindo/rancherconsul)** > > Contribute to sarlindo/rancherconsul development by creating an account on GitHub. ---
**Author:** ![jmls](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jmls/32/1419_2.png) [@jmls](https://forums.suse.com/u/jmls)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/8 "2016-06-14T18:54:06Z")
I am trying to get the example running, but I am getting the error ``` Error: unexpected server response (404) at ClientRequest.response (/projects/myapp/node_modules/ws/lib/WebSocket.js:719:10) at ClientRequest.g (events.js:260:16) at emitOne (events.js:77:13) at ClientRequest.emit (events.js:169:7) at HTTPParser.parserOnIncomingClient [as onIncoming] (_http_client.js:415:21) at HTTPParser.parserOnHeadersComplete (_http_common.js:88:23) at TLSSocket.socketOnData (_http_client.js:305:20) at emitOne (events.js:77:13) at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:169:7) at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:146:16) ``` something I’m doing wrong ? I used **npm install ws** ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/9 "2016-06-14T18:57:31Z")
There’s no input validation in the example, so make sure you’re passing the address, access key, secret key and a project id. You can add `console.log('URL:',url);` below where the url is constructed to check what it produced. ---
**Author:** ![jmls](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jmls/32/1419_2.png) [@jmls](https://forums.suse.com/u/jmls)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 6:59pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/10 "2016-06-14T18:59:08Z")
I was trying `var url = 'https://'+accessKey+':'+secretKey+'@'+host+'/v1/subscribe?eventNames=resource.change';` as I wanted to subscribe to all activity in app projects - is that no possible ? ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/11 "2016-06-14T19:00:11Z")
No; you can connect to them all individually but subscription is only per-project. ---
**Author:** ![jmls](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jmls/32/1419_2.png) [@jmls](https://forums.suse.com/u/jmls)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/12 "2016-06-14T19:18:11Z")
ok, forgive this old man - what is a “project” ? Is it a stack ? (I know the api and the UI use different terms) Hoping that a project is not a stack, otherwise I have to create a websocket connection for _every_ stack which seems, well, silly … ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/13 "2016-06-14T19:19:57Z")
API `project` = UI Environment API `environment` = UI Stack We’ll fix this in API v2 someday… ---
**Author:** ![jmls](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jmls/32/1419_2.png) [@jmls](https://forums.suse.com/u/jmls)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/14 "2016-06-14T19:25:11Z")
_phew_ - thanks for the help . I’ll go and try get environments^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hprojects monitoring working 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jmls](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jmls/32/1419_2.png) [@jmls](https://forums.suse.com/u/jmls)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/15 "2016-06-14T20:04:52Z")
is there any documentation on the websocket api ? Events, commands etc ? ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/16 "2016-06-15T00:38:08Z")
What is shown in that gist is pretty much all the subscribe websocket does. You get a frame with a change event, which has a field called `data` that contains an updated copy of the changed resource. ---
**Author:** ![jmls](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/jmls/32/1419_2.png) [@jmls](https://forums.suse.com/u/jmls)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 8:51am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/17 "2016-06-15T08:51:14Z")
I’ve been logging all the results of the changes. However, I can’t seem to find anything “simple” that tells me that an environment / project has been created, stopped or started. For example, when shutting down a simple environment (1 container) I get this [snipped out all the nulls for space] ``` ENV { id: 'c706deaa-cc4c-4abc-9f81-19f36eb143df', name: 'resource.change', resourceId: '1e213', resourceType: 'environment', data: { resource: { id: '1e213', type: 'environment', links: [Object], actions: [Object], name: 'ubuntu', state: 'active', accountId: '1a9', created: '2016-06-14T09:26:54Z', createdTS: 1465896414000, externalId: '', healthState: 'unhealthy', kind: 'environment', startOnCreate: true, transitioning: 'no', uuid: '3e0e1e4c-bb25-40f1-a3f9-154aa1dc131d' } }, time: 1465980136651, ``` } with the exception of **healthState: ‘unhealthy’** , I can’t see much in there to tell me why this environment triggered the change event on the socket. Likewise, when I startup I get 2 events ``` ENV { id: 'c5638893-6a1c-4beb-a932-09aa4b4154b7', name: 'resource.change', resourceId: '1e213', resourceType: 'environment', data: { resource: { id: '1e213', type: 'environment', links: [Object], actions: [Object], name: 'ubuntu', state: 'active', accountId: '1a9', created: '2016-06-14T09:26:54Z', createdTS: 1465896414000, externalId: '', healthState: 'unhealthy', kind: 'environment', startOnCreate: true, transitioning: 'no', uuid: '3e0e1e4c-bb25-40f1-a3f9-154aa1dc131d' } }, time: 1465980348700, } ``` and ``` ENV { id: 'eb47b739-ea4a-4e0d-8da8-105e6b48181b', name: 'resource.change', resourceId: '1e213', resourceType: 'environment', data: { resource: { id: '1e213', type: 'environment', links: [Object], actions: [Object], name: 'ubuntu', state: 'active', accountId: '1a9', created: '2016-06-14T09:26:54Z', createdTS: 1465896414000, externalId: '', healthState: 'healthy', kind: 'environment', startOnCreate: true, transitioning: 'no', uuid: '3e0e1e4c-bb25-40f1-a3f9-154aa1dc131d' } }, time: 1465980352703, } ``` I don’t understand the purpose of the first event (it’s the same as the last event when shutting down) and the second event only tells me that the env is healthy So, I can “guess” that when an environment has started, it gets the “healthy” event - but this can be the case if one of the services is down for a while and then brought back up I suppose I’m looking for simple ENV events, much like the container events start, kill, die and stop ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/18 "2016-06-15T17:27:40Z")
There is no concept of a “stopped” or “started” Stack (`environment`), they do not have an inactive state. When you say “Stop Services” we just stop the individual services within it. While they’re stopping they are temporarily unhealthy, which bubbles up to the stack and triggers a change event. The purpose of this websocket is to allow the UI to keep an up-to-date copy of each resource in memory so that the screen is always up to date. So a change is sent whenever the record is changed with a new copy of the resource, but it doesn’t tell you what about the resource has changed or why it was sent. To determine if an stack/`environment` is “new”, you would need to have a list of all of the known ones and see if the change event is for one you don’t know about. Or look at the `created` date if approximate is close enough. Or watch for events for auditLog resources with `eventType: "api.stack.create"`. ---
**Author:** ![CrystalMethod](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/crystalmethod/32/827_2.png) [@CrystalMethod](https://forums.suse.com/u/CrystalMethod)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:19am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/19 "2016-06-28T08:19:13Z")
What needs to be done to connect to websocket from external application? Can you give me a hint. ---
**Author:** ![vincent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/vincent/32/7156_2.png) [@vincent](https://forums.suse.com/u/vincent)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136/20 "2016-07-05T22:52:54Z")
@CrystalMethod the link farther up in this thread ( [https://gist.github.com/vincent99/491afed2306ba448dd89](https://gist.github.com/vincent99/491afed2306ba448dd89) ) is actual code that connects to it. [Next page](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-websocket-access-from-a-3rd-party-application/136.md?page=2)