Proxy websocket connection via apache

22 Sep 2015

When I connect the websocket from my PHP application, I always wanted to use the same URL of webapp for the websocket connection. I was not happy with seperate url with a port to connect with websockets.

Recently I figured out how to proxy my websocket connection with apache. In order to proxy it, I need to enable mod_proxy_wstunnel module in apache.

sudo a2enmod mod_proxy_wstunnel

Next is to specify the endpoint which the websocket will connect, so we can proxy it to our websocket server. This needs to be specified in virtual host using ProxyPass directive.

ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPass "/ws/"  "ws://localhost:9030/"
ProxyPass "/wss/"  "wss://localhost:9030/"

This configuration in my virtual host will proxy my websocket connection to websocket server through apache.

Now I can connect my websocket to the same URL as my webapp.


var connection = new WebSocket('ws://localhost/ws');

Now I don’t need to specify the port which websocket is running, instead I specify the endpoint.

If you find my work helpful, You can buy me a coffee.