Intro to the Hookbox Comet Server.

1. Hookbox
• NoVa Python Meetup • Salman (Shaq) Haq
• Nov. 17th 2011

2. Hookbox
…is a COMET server and message
queue that tightly integrates with your
application via web hooks and a REST
interface.

3. Highlights
• Eventlet-based server
• RESTful server API
• Javascript pub/sub API
• “Channel”
– Name
– List of active subscribers/users
– State information

4. Architecture
HTTP WS
HTTP HTTP

5. Data Flow
Browser(s)
Browser Hookbox App
publish(,…-)

6. More about Channels
• Channel:
– Name
– List of subscribers
– History/state
• Other properties:
– history: events that previously occurred (list).
– history_size (int).
– presenceful: share subscriber info (bool).
– moderated: trigger webhook callback for any action (bool).
– reflective: sender receives its own publications (bool).
– polling: options to configure polling the app (dict).
– … and a few others.

7. Javascript API
<script src=“hookbox.min.js”></script>
<script>
var conn = hookbox.connect(‘http://host:port’);
conn.error = function ….;
conn.onSubscribed = function (channel_name, subscription) {
subscription.onPublish = function (frame) {
// frame.payload contains the published data
}
};
conn.subscribe(‘foo’);
</script>

8. Publishing (server-side)
import urllib, urllib2
if __name__ == ‘__main__’:
u = ‘http://localhost:51515/rest/publish’
p = dict(channel_name=‘foo’, payload=,‘samples’: *1,2,3,4,5+-, ....)
p = urllib.urlencode(p)
req = urllib2.Request(u, p)
resp = urllib2.urlopen(req)

9. Configuration
• Port, Interface
• Callback port, hostname, path, security token
• API security token
• admin password

10. Admin Backend

11. Limitations?
• File-based vs command-line configuration
• WSS:// support?
• More docs
• Scalable to millions of concurrent
connections?

12. Thanks…
QUESTIONS?