Boost C++ Libraries

Client Role

A WebSocket session begins when a client sends the HTTP/1.1 Upgrade request for WebSocket on an established connection, and the server sends an appropriate response indicating that the request was accepted and that the connection has been upgraded. The Upgrade request must include the Host field, and the target of the resource to request. A typical HTTP Upgrade request created and sent by the implementation will look like this:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Upgrade: websocket
Connection: upgrade
Sec-WebSocket-Key: 2pGeTR0DsE4dfZs2pH+8MA==
Sec-WebSocket-Version: 13
User-Agent: Boost.Beast/216

The websocket::stream member functions handshake and async_handshake are used to send the request with the required host and target strings. This code connects to the IP address returned from a hostname lookup, then performs the WebSocket handshake in the client role.

stream<tcp_stream> ws(ioc);
net::ip::tcp::resolver resolver(ioc);
get_lowest_layer(ws).connect(resolver.resolve("www.example.com", "ws"));

// Do the websocket handshake in the client role, on the connected stream.
// The implementation only uses the Host parameter to set the HTTP "Host" field,
// it does not perform any DNS lookup. That must be done first, as shown above.

ws.handshake(
    "www.example.com",  // The Host field
    "/"                 // The request-target
);

When a client receives an HTTP Upgrade response from the server indicating a successful upgrade, the caller may wish to perform additional validation on the received HTTP response message. For example, to check that the response to a basic authentication challenge is valid. To achieve this, overloads of the handshake member function allow the caller to store the received HTTP message in an output reference argument of type response_type as follows:

// This variable will receive the HTTP response from the server
response_type res;

// Perform the websocket handshake in the client role.
// On success, `res` will hold the complete HTTP response received.

ws.handshake(
    res,                // Receives the HTTP response
    "www.example.com",  // The Host field
    "/"                 // The request-target
);

Server Role

For servers accepting incoming connections, the websocket::stream can read the incoming upgrade request and automatically reply. If the handshake meets the requirements, the stream sends back the upgrade response with a 101 Switching Protocols status code. If the handshake does not meet the requirements, or falls outside the range of allowed parameters specified by stream options set previously by the caller, the stream sends back an HTTP response with a status code indicating an error. Depending on the keep alive setting, the connection may remain open for a subsequent handshake attempt. A typical HTTP Upgrade response created and sent by the implementation upon receiving an upgrade request handshake will look like this:

HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols
Upgrade: websocket
Connection: upgrade
Sec-WebSocket-Accept: s3pPLMBiTxaQ9kYGzzhZRbK+xOo=
Server: Boost.Beast

The stream member functions accept and async_accept are used to read the WebSocket HTTP Upgrade request handshake from a stream already connected to an incoming peer, and then send the WebSocket HTTP Upgrade response, as shown:

// Perform the websocket handshake in the server role.
// The stream must already be connected to the peer.

ws.accept();

Handshake Buffering

It is possible for servers to read data from the stream and decide later that the buffered bytes should be interpreted as a WebSocket upgrade request. To address this usage, overloads of accept and async_accept which accept an additional buffer sequence parameter are provided.

In this example, the server reads the initial HTTP request header into a dynamic buffer, then later uses the buffered data to attempt a websocket upgrade.

// This buffer will hold the HTTP request as raw characters
std::string s;

// Read into our buffer until we reach the end of the HTTP request.
// No parsing takes place here, we are just accumulating data.

net::read_until(sock, net::dynamic_buffer(s), "\r\n\r\n");

// Now accept the connection, using the buffered data.
ws.accept(net::buffer(s));

Inspecting HTTP Requests

When implementing an HTTP server that also supports WebSocket, the server usually reads the HTTP request from the client. To detect when the incoming HTTP request is a WebSocket Upgrade request, the function is_upgrade may be used.

Once the caller determines that the HTTP request is a WebSocket Upgrade, additional overloads of accept and async_accept are provided which receive the entire HTTP request header as an object to perform the handshake. By reading the request manually, the program can handle normal HTTP requests as well as upgrades. The program may also enforce policies based on the HTTP fields, such as Basic Authentication. In this example, the request is first read in using the HTTP algorithms, and then passed to a newly constructed stream:

// This buffer is required for reading HTTP messages
flat_buffer buffer;

// Read the HTTP request ourselves
http::request<http::string_body> req;
http::read(sock, buffer, req);

// See if its a WebSocket upgrade request
if(websocket::is_upgrade(req))
{
    // Construct the stream, transferring ownership of the socket
    stream<tcp_stream> ws(std::move(sock));

    // Clients SHOULD NOT begin sending WebSocket
    // frames until the server has provided a response.
    BOOST_ASSERT(buffer.size() == 0);

    // Accept the upgrade request
    ws.accept(req);
}
else
{
    // Its not a WebSocket upgrade, so
    // handle it like a normal HTTP request.
}

Subprotocols

The WebSocket protocol understands the concept of subprotocols. If the client is requesting one of a set of subprotocols it will set the header Sec-WebSocket-Protocol in the initial WebSocket Upgrade HTTP request. It is up to the server to parse the header and select one of the protocols to accept. The server indicates the selected protocol by setting the Sec-WebSocket-Protocol header in the accept header.

This is accomplished with a decorator.

The code that follows demonstrates how a server reads an HTTP request, identifies it as a WebSocket Upgrade, and then checks for a preferred matching subprotocol before performing the WebSocket handshake:

// a function to select the most preferred protocol from a comma-separated list
auto select_protocol = [](string_view offered_tokens) -> std::string
{
    // tokenize the Sec-Websocket-Protocol header offered by the client
    http::token_list offered( offered_tokens );

    // an array of protocols supported by this server
    // in descending order of preference
    static const std::array<string_view, 3>
        supported = {
        "v3.my.chat",
        "v2.my.chat",
        "v1.my.chat"
    };

    std::string result;

    for (auto proto : supported)
    {
        auto iter = std::find(offered.begin(), offered.end(), proto);
        if (iter != offered.end())
        {
            // we found a supported protocol in the list offered by the client
            result.assign(proto.begin(), proto.end());
            break;
        }
    }

    return result;
};


// This buffer is required for reading HTTP messages
flat_buffer buffer;

// Read the HTTP request ourselves
http::request<http::string_body> req;
http::read(sock, buffer, req);

// See if it's a WebSocket upgrade request
if(websocket::is_upgrade(req))
{
    // we store the selected protocol in a std::string here because
    // we intend to capture it in the decorator's lambda below
    std::string protocol =
        select_protocol(
            req[http::field::sec_websocket_protocol]);

    if (protocol.empty())
    {
        // none of our supported protocols were offered
        http::response<http::string_body> res;
        res.result(http::status::bad_request);
        res.body() = "No valid sub-protocol was offered."
                      " This server implements"
                      " v3.my.chat,"
                      " v2.my.chat"
                      " and v1.my.chat";
        http::write(sock, res);
    }
    else
    {
        // Construct the stream, transferring ownership of the socket
        stream<tcp_stream> ws(std::move(sock));

        ws.set_option(
            stream_base::decorator(
                [protocol](http::response_header<> &hdr) {
                    hdr.set(
                        http::field::sec_websocket_protocol,
                        protocol);
                }));

        // Accept the upgrade request
        ws.accept(req);
    }
}
else
{
    // Its not a WebSocket upgrade, so
    // handle it like a normal HTTP request.
}