When you configure SignalR to use a SQL Backplane and you send to a group, does SignalR create in the backplane one message for the group or one message for each client ID in the group.
I need two instances of my SignalR, but because clients have different connectionIds between instances, I need to send message to a unique identifier which could be the group.
Can anyone please answer this ?
Thanks
Each server instance connects to the backplane through the bus. When a message is sent, it goes to the backplane, and the backplane sends it to every server. When a server gets a message from the backplane, it puts the message in its local cache. The server then delivers messages to clients from its local cache.
As per: http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/performance/scaleout-in-signalr
This means that the server (hub) would decide how to handle the message so you can do either.
This might help. http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/performance/scaleout-with-sql-server
Related
I use SignalR in order to expose RabbitMQ messages to browsers. This works fine with one app instance obviously. The question is if it could work with multiple instances too without a backplane. I understand that SignalR client could be disconnected from the pod A and connected back to the pod B but what exactly is the issue here? I am fine to lose some messages during reconnection. Is it the only issue? Is reconnection to the pod B treated as a regular new connection so that the client is just subscribed again as it was subscribed normally without reconnection? Or the system doesn't have input parameters it had during initial subscription and therefore it cannot resubscribe without hints?
As long as all of your SignalR servers are getting the same data from RabbitMQ or getting only the data for the clients connected to them, you don't need a backplane.
You will need a backplane if you have one of the following:
Clients can communicate with one another.
One one SignalR server is connected to RabbitMQ but clients can connect to multiple SignalR servers.
SignalR servers are connected to different queues or getting different data from the same queue.
I have a similar setup with a database instead of RabbitMQ and need a backplane to either have only one of the SignalR servers access the database (and have data be sent to all clients) or to share the database load between servers (and have data be sent to all clients). This way, the server getting the data can have it sent to a client connected to a different server.
I am using SignalR for ASP.NET and the servers do not know who is subscribed to the other servers. All messages are sent over the backplane and each server determines if they apply to their connected clients. This works well with broadcasts for example or if the same user has multiple clients to make sure they all get the same data regardless of the server.
I'm using SignalR and a web farm in IIS, currently with 3 servers and requests are load balanced via ARR.
There are certain external events that happen which I want to be processed by the server to which the client is connected. So I want to track which of the 3 servers the client is currently connected.
I thought that I could do this using OnConnected and within that method store the MachineName against the ConnectionID in redis.
The problem is that OnConnected seems to get called an a different server to the one that the client is connected to.
Upon investigating, it seems that there are three calls, one to /negiotate one to /connect and one to /start. The /connect seems to be the websocket connection that is kept up for the duration, the others are just transient.
These three connections can happen on different servers, and it seems that the websocket connection can be to server A (so that's the server that the client's SignalR connection is going to), but the OnConnected gets fired on server B.
I was wondering if I'm overlooking something that will let me see which server the SignalR connection is actually connected to?
Thanks,
Will
If you are going to use a web farm, then you need to implement a backplane to track all of the messaging.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/signalr/overview/performance/scaleout-in-signalr
Without a proper backplane implementation its impossible to do what you want to do.
I believe that is something you would have to save. Assuming you are using a database for mapping users, you could have an additional field such as "LoggedInOn" and store the server host name or other identifier.
However, other than some aspect of troubleshooting your are looking to do, proper send/receive of messages should cross the backplane to all servers. This way no matter which server they are connected to, messages are received.
If you have external events as you say, once they complete and a message is ready to be sent back to a client, the backplane should push that to all servers.
If that's not happening I would review the docs as Kelso Sharp stated.
As I went through the documentaion of signalr scaleout options having a backpane, i see the backpane job is to send the message from one server to all signalr servers. If so, if Server 1 wants to send message to particular client, the message goes to backpane and from there to all other servers(ex. server 2,3)..where the client 1 is connected with Server 1. So can we restrict this to send only from server1 to client 1. Also the other question, are the events like connected, reconnected also will be routed to backpane and to all other servers ?
thanks
If you are using a SignalR backplane, all messages will be sent to all servers. There is no way to configure a SignalR scaleout provider to only send messages to specific servers. It's all or nothing.
If you choose to forgo a backplane, you could of course configure SignalR to use its default in-memory message store and then manually send inter-server messages.
Events like connected/reconnected/disconnected do not involve publishing messages so no messages will be routed to all other servers.
In the SignalR (server) hub I want do a license check. If the check negativ then I want in the OnConnected of the Hub block the connection. The client should get in the Hub start the Task as canceled with a message (no valid licence).
When I return a Task with a Aggregate Exception in the OnConnected of the SignalR Hub then the client gets a fault state, with a timeout exception.
How can I block the connection to the SignalR hub and give the client a message why I have block the connection?
As far as I know you can't just start or stop connections already on the server. The client has to disconnect itself. If you want to use the hub for licence check you need to have the client connect - send licence info - server checks and if it is invalid call $client.disconnect on the client.
The other option like blorkfish mentions is to allow them to connect, add them to a list and check this when they call methods on the server.
I don't think that you should block the connection with an Exception. Your client would then not be able to tell if there was a genuine error in the SignalR connection.
Rather send a specific SignalR message back that there is no license - and then manage the connection object on the server side.
Keep a list of licensed connections, and a list of unlicensed connections.
So instead of using Clients.All to broadcast, use Clients.Client("< client_connection_id >") to broadcast.
Hope this helps.
I've been looking into SignalR implementation incorporated with a load balancer
and have a few basic (if not simple sounding) questions.
I must preface this by saying I've got zero (0) experience with load balancers.
We will have 2 servers sitting behind a load balancer.
The client is an ASP .Net application.
We've been told that the load balancer maintains session affinity.
Consider the following scenario:
Client1 & Client2 -- connect to GroupA--> Server1
Client3 & Client4 -- connect to GroupA--> Server2
1) Server1 makes a client call to GroupA - this assumes that
Clients 1-4 will get the notification, correct?
2) How does the processing occur on this?
3) Is it a function of SignalR itself, or the load balancer?
4) When sending messages at the group level, do messages only get delivered to the client
apps associated with the group on that specific server, or will messages get forwarded
to all clients of that group?
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
JB
I believe the scenario you're looking at requires a SignalR Backplane to be setup.
Here's a relevant selection from the article but you'll want to read the full thing to answer your specific questions:
Each server instance connects to the backplane through the bus. When a
message is sent, it goes to the backplane, and the backplane sends it
to every server. When a server gets a message from the backplane, it
puts the message in its local cache. The server then delivers messages
to clients from its local cache.