Chat

Multi-rooms chat service.

Chat is organized into "rooms". Each room has a type and a list of players allowed to participate.

Relations

• "AuthDB" (Redis) -> to check authentication status of user making requests
  • see https://github.com/j3k0/node-authdb
• "ChatDB" (Redis) -> store rooms messages
• Notification service -> notify users when a chat message was added to a room
  • see https://github.com/j3k0/ganomede-notifications

Configuration

Variables available for service configuration (see config.js):

• PORT
• ROUTE_PREFIX
• API_SECRET - Give access to private APIs
• NODE_ENV — Antything except production means that app is running in development (debug) mode
• MAX_MESSAGES - Max number of messages stored in a room (default 100)

Links with DBs and other services:

• REDIS_AUTH_PORT_6379_TCP_ADDR - IP of the AuthDB redis
• REDIS_AUTH_PORT_6379_TCP_PORT - Port of the AuthDB redis
• REDIS_CHAT_PORT_6379_TCP_ADDR - IP of the ChatDB redis
• REDIS_CHAT_PORT_6379_TCP_PORT - Port of the ChatDB redis
• NOTIFICATIONS_PORT_8080_TCP_ADDR - IP of the notifications service
• NOTIFICATIONS_PORT_8080_TCP_PORT - Port of the notifications service

Optional link to the usermeta database containing user policies (see policies.md)

• REDIS_USERMETA_PORT_6379_TCP_ADDR - IP of the UsermetaDB redis
• REDIS_USERMETA_PORT_6379_TCP_PORT - Port of the UsermetaDB redis
• If any of these options are missing, no ban or block check will be performed — every user account will be considered to be in good standing (no bans)

Statsd options (used for monitoring).

• STATSD_HOST - host that runs the statsd server
• STATSD_PORT - port to connect to statsd server
• STATSD_PREFIX - prefix for data stored in stats (default to ganomede.chat.)

AuthDB

• Contains a store "authToken" -> { "username": "someusername", ... }
• Access it using node-authdb (https://github.com/j3k0/node-authdb)

UsermetaDB

Contains the policies (banned, blocked users, chat disabled, etc)

• userA:$blocked -> user1,user2,user3
  • List of users that "userA" has blocked. Messages from users in this list won't be sent to "userA".
• userA:$banned -> timestamp
  • A timestamp indicated the user is banned.
• userA:$chatdisabled-> "true"
  • the string "true" indicates that the chat is disabled for this user (disabled by the user).
• userA:$muted-> "true"
  • the string "true" indicates that this user cannot chat (disabled by admin).

API

All "room" related calls require a valid authToken, either:

• the token for one of the room participants.
• API_SECRET, in which case messages are posted as pseudo-user "$$"

Rooms [/chat/v1/auth/:authToken/rooms]

Create a room [POST]

Create a room with a given configuration (or return the one that already exists and update its ttl).

body (application/json)

{
    "type": "triominos/v1",
    "users": [ "alice", "bob" ]
}

response [200] OK

{
    "id": "triominos/v1/alice/bob",
    "type": "triominos/v1",
    "users": [ "alice", "bob" ],
    "messages": []
}

response [403] Forbidden

When linked to users service, will perform ban check. Banned :usernames will receive 403 error no matter validity of a token.

design note

Room is gonna expire 60 days after last POST.

Room's id is formed using following code:

"#{body.type}/#{body.users.sort().join('/')}"

Room [/chat/v1/auth/:authToken/rooms/:roomId]

+ Parameters
    + authToken (string, required) ... Authentication token
    + roomId (string, required) ... URL encoded Room ID

Retrieve content of a room [GET]

response [200] OK

{
    "id": "triominos/v1/alice/bob",
    "type": "triominos/v1",
    "users": [ "alice", "bob" ],
    "messages": [{
        "timestamp": 1429084002258,
        "from": "alice",
        "type": "text",
        "message": "Hey bob! How are you today?"
    }, {
        "timestamp": 1429084002258,
        "from": "bob",
        "type": "text",
        "message": "Hi Alice :)"
    }, {
        "timestamp": 1429084002258,
        "from": "bob",
        "type": "text",
        "message": "Good thanks, let's play"
    }, {
        "timestamp": 1429084002258,
        "from": "$$",
        "type": "event",
        "message": "game_started"
    }]
}

response [404] Not found

No room found with given ID.

response [401] Unauthorized

If authToken is invalid or user isn't a participant in the room, and not API_SECRET.

Messages [/chat/v1/auth/:authToken/rooms/:roomId/messages]

+ Parameters
    + authToken (string, required) ... Authentication token
    + roomId (string, required) ... URL encoded Room ID

Add a message [POST]

Append a new message to the room and updates room's TTL. If the number of messages in the room exceeds MAX_MESSAGES, the oldest will be discarded.

body (application/json)

{
    "timestamp": 1429084016939,
    "type": "txt",
    "message": "Hey bob! How are you today?"
}

response [200] OK

response [401] Unauthorized

If authToken is invalid or user isn't a participant in the room, and not API_SECRET.

response [403] Forbidden

When linked to users service, will perform ban check. Banned :usernames will receive 403 error no matter validity of a token.

response [404] Not Found

No room found with given ID.

design note

A notification will be sent to all users in the room (except the sender of the message and those that blocked him).

{
    "from": "chat/v1",
    "type": "message",
    "data": {
        "timestamp": 1429084002258,
        "from": "bob",
        "type": "text",
        "message": "Good thanks, let's play"
    }
    "push": {…} // optional, will contain whatever is in `req.body.push`.
}

System Messages [/chat/v1/auth/:apiSecret/system-messages]

Add a message [POST]

Join a room, append a new message and updates its TTL. If the number of messages in the room exceeds MAX_MESSAGES, the oldest will be discarded.

body (application/json)

{
    "type": "triominos/v1",
    "users": [ "alice", "bob" ]
    "timestamp": 1429084016939,
    "message": "ALICE_DISCONNECTED"
}

response [200] OK

design note

Response codes and design notes as for the /messages entrypoint.