npm ws was the answer for me. I found it less intrusive and more straight forward. With it was also trivial to mix websockets with rest services. Shared simple code on this post.
var WebSocketServer = require("ws").Server;
var http = require("http");
var express = require("express");
var port = process.env.PORT || 5000;
var app = express();
app.use(express.static(__dirname+ "/../"));
app.get('/someGetRequest', function(req, res, next) {
console.log('receiving get request');
});
app.post('/somePostRequest', function(req, res, next) {
console.log('receiving post request');
});
app.listen(80); //port 80 need to run as root
console.log("app listening on %d ", 80);
var server = http.createServer(app);
server.listen(port);
console.log("http server listening on %d", port);
var userId;
var wss = new WebSocketServer({server: server});
wss.on("connection", function (ws) {
console.info("websocket connection open");
var timestamp = new Date().getTime();
userId = timestamp;
ws.send(JSON.stringify({msgType:"onOpenConnection", msg:{connectionId:timestamp}}));
ws.on("message", function (data, flags) {
console.log("websocket received a message");
var clientMsg = data;
ws.send(JSON.stringify({msg:{connectionId:userId}}));
});
ws.on("close", function () {
console.log("websocket connection close");
});
});
console.log("websocket server created");