Socket.IO can't connect through https

Question

I have a node.js app, that uses socket.IO. It works fine on http, but when trying to connect to the socket through https - nothing happens.
Here's some part of the code:

var fs = require('fs');  

var ioHttp = require('socket.io').listen(8899, {  
    'flash policy port': -1  
});  

initSocket(ioHttp);  

var ioHttps = require('socket.io').listen(8895, {  
    key: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/file/file.key'),  
    cert: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/file/file.crt'),  
    ca: [  
        fs.readFileSync('/path/to/file/sub.class1.server.ca.pem'),  
        fs.readFileSync('/path/to/file/ca.pem')  
    ],  
    'flash policy port': -1   
});  

initSocket(ioHttps);  

and the initSocket function:

function initSocket(io) {  
    io.enable('browser client minification');  
    io.enable('browser client etag');  
    io.enable('browser client gzip');  

    io.set('transports', [  
        'websocket',  
        'htmlfile',
        'flashsocket',
        'jsonp-polling'  
    ]);  

    io.sockets.on('connection', function (client) {
        //the connnection is handled here
    });
}

The client connect like this:

var secureConnection = false;  
var port = 8899;
if (window.location.protocol === 'https:') {  
    port = 8895;
    secureConnection = true;
}

var socket = io.connect('domain.org', {port: port, secure: secureConnection});

As I said everything works fine on http, but connecting on https gives me "The connection was interrupted". What am I doing wrong?

Solution

You cannot initalize socket.io server like https server. You have to start a separate https server and then attach socket.io server to it.

var https = require('https'),     
    fs =    require('fs');        

var options = {
    key:    fs.readFileSync('ssl/server.key'),
    cert:   fs.readFileSync('ssl/server.crt'),
    ca:     fs.readFileSync('ssl/ca.crt')
};
var app = https.createServer(options);
io = require('socket.io').listen(app);     //socket.io server listens to https connections
app.listen(8895, "0.0.0.0");

Comments

[Titan]

Can you self sign or does socket.io behave like normal HTTP in browsers where it checks the certificates and warns you?

[Adrian Salazar]

Hey, where do you get the server.key, server.crt and ca.crt? is it self-made? will it work on production if self made?

[user568109]

@GreenGiant Look for the requestCert and rejectUnauthorized inside options in the documentation

[user568109]

@AdrianSalazar Yes, I used self-made files, with openssl commandline tool. For production it will not work as certificates needs to be verified by the cert. authority -web of trust. Luckily for you, now there is a way to do this. The EFF recently announced Let's Encrypt which helps devs in acquiring and maintaining certificates easily and free of cost. Use their library node-acme. I cant give detailed instructions as this is the limit of my knowledge, maybe others can.

[undefined]

@DarkNeuron Yes, here's a link to the Let’s Encrypt website