# WebSocket The **websocket** output plugin allows to flush your records into a WebSocket endpoint. For now the functionality is pretty basic and it issues a HTTP GET request to do the handshake, and then use TCP connections to send the data records in either JSON or [MessagePack](http://msgpack.org) (or JSON) format. ## Configuration Parameters | Key | Description | default | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------- | | Host | IP address or hostname of the target WebScoket Server | 127.0.0.1 | | Port | TCP port of the target WebScoket Server | 80 | | URI | Specify an optional HTTP URI for the target websocket server, e.g: /something | / | | Format | Specify the data format to be used in the HTTP request body, by default it uses *msgpack*. Other supported formats are *json*, *json\_stream* and *json\_lines* and *gelf*. | msgpack | | json\_date\_key | Specify the name of the date field in output | date | | json\_date\_format | Specify the format of the date. Supported formats are *double* and *iso8601* (eg: *2018-05-30T09:39:52.000681Z*) | double | | idle\_interval | The interval that websocket output plugin would keep to decide if it is OK to reconnect to Websocket Server | 20 | ## Getting Started In order to insert records into a HTTP server, you can run the plugin from the command line or through the configuration file: ### Command Line The **websocket** plugin, can read the parameters from the command line in two ways, through the **-p** argument (property) or setting them directly through the service URI. The URI format is the following: ``` http://host:port/something ``` Using the format specified, you could start Fluent Bit through: ``` $ fluent-bit -i cpu -t cpu -o websocket://192.168.2.3:80/something -m '*' ``` ### Configuration File In your main configuration file, append the following *Input* & *Output* sections: ```python [INPUT] Name cpu Tag cpu [OUTPUT] Name websocket Match * Host 192.168.2.3 Port 80 URI /something Format json Idle_interval 21 ``` Suggested configuration for Idle Interval is 20. Websocket plugin is working with tcp keepalive mode, please refer to [networking](https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/v/master/administration/networking#configuration-options) section for details. By default, if there is no traffic for about 30 seconds, fluent-bit would abort the tcp connection. As a result, if websocket would like to send data to the same server again, it has to reconnect. This parameter is to help to determine if websocket need to reconnect or not. ## Testing ### Configuration File ``` [INPUT] Name tcp Listen 0.0.0.0 Port 5170 Format json [OUTPUT] Name websocket Match * Host 127.0.0.1 Port 9000 URI / Format json Idle_interval 21 ``` Once Fluent Bit is running, you can send some messages using the *netcat*: ```bash $ echo '{"key 1": 123456789, "key 2": "abcdefg"}' | nc 127.0.0.1 5170; sleep 35; echo '{"key 1": 123456789, "key 2": "abcdefg"}' | nc 127.0.0.1 5170 ``` In [Fluent Bit](http://fluentbit.io) we should see the following output: ```bash bin/fluent-bit -c ../conf/out_ws.conf Fluent Bit v1.5.0 * Copyright (C) 2019-2020 The Fluent Bit Authors * Copyright (C) 2015-2018 Treasure Data * Fluent Bit is a CNCF sub-project under the umbrella of Fluentd * https://fluentbit.io [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [storage] version=1.0.4, initializing... [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [storage] in-memory [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [storage] normal synchronization mode, checksum disabled, max_chunks_up=128 [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [engine] started (pid=12734) [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [input:tcp:tcp.0] listening on 0.0.0.0:5170 [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [out_ws] we have following parameter /, 127.0.0.1, 9000, 22 [2020/07/07 03:39:31] [ info] [sp] stream processor started [2020/07/07 03:39:36] [ info] [out_ws] handshake for ws [2020/07/07 03:40:11] [ warn] [engine] failed to flush chunk '12734-1594107609.72852130.flb', retry in 6 seconds: task_id=0, input=tcp.0 > output=websocket.0 [2020/07/07 03:40:17] [ info] [out_ws] handshake for ws [2020/07/07 03:40:17] [ info] [engine] flush chunk '12734-1594107609.72852130.flb' succeeded at retry 1: task_id=1, input=tcp.0 > output=websocket.0 ``` ### Scenario Description From the output of fluent-bit log, we see that once data has been ingested into fluent bit, plugin would perform handshake. After a while, no data or traffic is undergoing, tcp connection has been abort. And then another piece of data arrived, a try fro websocket plugin has been triggered, following with another handshake and data flush. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/1.7/pipeline/outputs/websocket.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.