WebSocket Error in connection establishment: net::ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED

Question

I am getting this error when I attempt to establish a wss connection with my server:

WebSocket connection to 'wss://mydomain:3000/' failed: Error in connection establishment: net::ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED

I currently have a apache2 virtual host configuration setup to listen for requests on port 443 and 80:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName otherdomainname.co.uk
        ServerAlias www.otherdomainname.co.uk

        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ /app/$1 [l,PT]

        JkMount /* worker2

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost _default_:443>
        ServerName otherdomainname.co.uk
        ServerAlias www.otherdomainname.co.uk

        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ /app/$1 [l,PT]

        SSLEngine On
        SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key

        <Location />
        SSLRequireSSL On
        SSLVerifyClient optional
        SSLVerifyDepth 1
        SSLOptions +StdEnvVars +StrictRequire
        </Location>

        JkMount /* worker2

</VirtualHost>

As you can see it uses the JkMount to pass the request to Tomcat which serves the webpage correctly on both HTTP and HTTPS.

When I visit the site using the HTTP protocol on port 80 a WebSocket connection can be made using the ws protocol.

When I visit the site using the HTTPS protocol on port 443 the site is served correctly but no WebSocket connection is made using wss.

I am using the "ws" node.js module to provide the WebSocket server:

var WebSocketServer = require('ws').Server
  , wss = new WebSocketServer({ port: 3000 }),
  fs = require('fs');

wss.on('connection', function connection(ws) {
  ws.on('message', function incoming(message) {
    console.log('received: %s', message);

    ws.send(message);
  ws.send('something');
});

Why am I not able to successful connect to the WebSocket server using the wss protocol over https?

Answer 1

I was having a similar problem, turns out I was using CloudFlare who only allows very specific ports through.

So meteor running on port 3000 was instantly blocked.

Reconfiguring my Reverse Proxy settings and running Meteor on an allowed port solved my problem.

But, in the end, I turned off sockets on my Meteor deploy. It doesn't seem to have affected performance. Good luck,

UPDATE 4 YEARS LATER LOL

So we're using Apache2 and listening for a domain on port 80, but we're going to take the port 80 traffic and redirect it to localhost port 3020 in this case. It can really be any port. Hope this helps! Come check out www.StarLordsOnline.com if you wanna see it :)

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin info@starlordsonline.com
ServerName starlordsonline.com
ServerAlias www.starlordsonline.com

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP:UPGRADE} ^WebSocket$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:CONNECTION} ^Upgrade$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* ws://localhost:3020%{REQUEST_URI} [P]

ProxyRequests off

<Proxy *>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
</Proxy>

<Location />
        ProxyPass http://localhost:3020/
        ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:3020/
</Location>

Answer 2

The problem was that I was not configure the WebSocket server for https/wss.

Here is the secure version of my insecure WebSocket server using "ws" from node.js.

var WebSocketServer = require('ws').Server,
  fs = require('fs');


var cfg = {
        ssl: true,
        port: 3000,
        ssl_key: '/path/to/apache.key',
        ssl_cert: '/path/to/apache.crt'
    };

var httpServ = ( cfg.ssl ) ? require('https') : require('http');

var app      = null;

var processRequest = function( req, res ) {

    res.writeHead(200);
    res.end("All glory to WebSockets!\n");
};

if ( cfg.ssl ) {

    app = httpServ.createServer({

        // providing server with  SSL key/cert
        key: fs.readFileSync( cfg.ssl_key ),
        cert: fs.readFileSync( cfg.ssl_cert )

    }, processRequest ).listen( cfg.port );

} else {

    app = httpServ.createServer( processRequest ).listen( cfg.port );
}

var wss = new WebSocketServer( { server: app } );

wss.on('connection', function connection(ws) {
  ws.on('message', function incoming(message) {
    console.log('received: %s', message);

    ws.send(message);

  });

  ws.send('something');
});