Django channels using secured WebSocket connection - WSS://

Question

When I tried to run the Django application using sslserver as shown below,

python manage.py runsslserver

Errors:

Traceback:

Validating models...

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
November 08, 2019 - 11:17:26
Django version 2.0.7, using settings 'dashboard_channels.settings'
Starting development server at https://127.0.0.1:8000/
Using SSL certificate: \lib\site-packages\sslserver\certs\development.crt
Using SSL key: \lib\site-packages\sslserver\certs\development.key
Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK.
[08/Nov/2019 11:18:33] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 1299
[08/Nov/2019 11:18:34] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 1299
[08/Nov/2019 11:18:35] "GET /static/js/jquery.js HTTP/1.1" 200 270575
Not Found: /ws/home
[08/Nov/2019 11:18:36] "GET /ws/home HTTP/1.1" 404 2134

Browser Console:

(index):31 WebSocket connection to 'wss://127.0.0.1:8000/ws/home' failed: Error during WebSocket handshake: Unexpected response code: 404
(index):41 error Event
(index):44 close CloseEvent

Code:

Javascript:

 var loc = window.location;
 var wsStart = 'ws://';
 if (loc.protocol == 'https:') {
     wsStart = 'wss://'
 }
 var endpoint = wsStart + loc.host + '/ws/home';

 var socket = new WebSocket(endpoint);

It's working fine with python manage.py runserver command, means for http it's working but not with https.

How to resolve this issue? (How to debug to sort out this issue?)

Is there any other way to deploy WebSockets on https portal?

Still facing this issue. Can anyone please help?

_{Anyhow this is for testing purposes, finally, I need to deploy it on Apache2.4 in the windows server machine. Where I have already set up for https but not for web sockets.}

It says *Not Found: /ws/home*. Does it say the same for http? — ege, Nov 12 '19 at 08:45
@shaikmoeed Please check if you configured CHANNEL_LAYERS in settings.py — wowkin2, Dec 05 '19 at 10:22
@wowkin2 `CHANNEL_LAYERS` was configured and it's working totally fine with `http`. How to run on `https`? — shaik moeed, Dec 05 '19 at 10:25
@shaikmoeed have you tried to use Daphne for that? If not - really recommend to do that: https://github.com/django/daphne — wowkin2, Dec 05 '19 at 13:15

shaik moeed · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17T04:02:43.733

I found the answer, the runserver command correctly detects asgi.py file and run the Django channels application on WebSockets using daphne. Somehow runsslserver is not doing the same job, It's running the wsgi.py file instead of asgi.py file.

After reading different approaches, I get to know that we can handle HTTPS request using our normal development server (i.e., using wsgi.py file) and wss request by using Daphne(i.e., using asgi.py file).

Daphne was an officially designed server to handle django-channels(built on the top of the twisted module).

So, finally, we need to run two servers to handle https and wss separately.

# In command prompt 1 (For production, use Apache or Nginx to serve HTTP requests)
python manage.py runsslserver 0.0.0.0:8000

# In command prompt 2 (This works for production as well).
daphne -e ssl:8001:privateKey=cert\\private.pem:certKey=cert\\public.pem real_time_table.asgi:application

We should use the same SSL certificates used by runsslserver for testing.

Finally, in JavaScript:

var loc = window.location;
var wsStart = 'ws://';
if (loc.protocol == 'https:') {
     wsStart = 'wss://'
}
// var endpoint = wsStart + 'your_ip_address:port_given_to_daphne_server' + '/ws/home';
// For above command, it look like this
var endpoint = wsStart + 'xxx.xx.xx.xxx:8001' + '/ws/home';
// Note the websocket port is 8001
var socket = new WebSocket(endpoint);

I hope, this will save someone's time.

Does command from prompt 2 use the certification keys generated by the first command `runsslserver`? — Miguel, May 23 '20 at 23:32
Yes, we need to use same certificates for both servers i.e., `wsgi` and `asgi` servers. — shaik moeed, May 25 '20 at 03:07

Django channels using secured WebSocket connection - WSS://

1 Answers1