WebSocket

WebSocket is a computer communications protocol, providing full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection. The WebSocket protocol was standardized by the IETF as RFC 6455 in 2011, and the WebSocket API in Web IDL is being standardized by the W3C. WebSocket is a computer communications protocol, providing full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection. The WebSocket protocol was standardized by the IETF as RFC 6455 in 2011, and the WebSocket API in Web IDL is being standardized by the W3C. WebSocket is distinct from HTTP. Both protocols are located at layer 7 in the OSI model and depend on TCP at layer 4. Although they are different, RFC 6455 states that WebSocket 'is designed to work over HTTP ports 80 and 443 as well as to support HTTP proxies and intermediaries,' thus making it compatible with the HTTP protocol. To achieve compatibility, the WebSocket handshake uses the HTTP Upgrade header to change from the HTTP protocol to the WebSocket protocol. The WebSocket protocol enables interaction between a web browser (or other client application) and a web server with lower overhead than half-duplex alternatives such as HTTP polling, facilitating real-time data transfer from and to the server. This is made possible by providing a standardized way for the server to send content to the client without being first requested by the client, and allowing messages to be passed back and forth while keeping the connection open. In this way, a two-way ongoing conversation can take place between the client and the server. The communications are done over TCP port number 80 (or 443 in the case of TLS-encrypted connections), which is of benefit for those environments which block non-web Internet connections using a firewall. Similar two-way browser-server communications have been achieved in non-standardized ways using stopgap technologies such as Comet. Most browsers support the protocol, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Unlike HTTP, WebSocket provides full-duplex communication.Additionally, WebSocket enables streams of messages on top of TCP. TCP alone deals with streams of bytes with no inherent concept of a message. Before WebSocket, port 80 full-duplex communication was attainable using Comet channels; however, Comet implementation is nontrivial, and due to the TCP handshake and HTTP header overhead, it is inefficient for small messages. The WebSocket protocol aims to solve these problems without compromising security assumptions of the web. The WebSocket protocol specification defines ws (WebSocket) and wss (WebSocket Secure) as two new uniform resource identifier (URI) schemes that are used for unencrypted and encrypted connections, respectively. Apart from the scheme name and fragment (# is not supported), the rest of the URI components are defined to use URI generic syntax. Using browser developer tools, developers can inspect the WebSocket handshake as well as the WebSocket frames. WebSocket was first referenced as TCPConnection in the HTML5 specification, as a placeholder for a TCP-based socket API. In June 2008, a series of discussions were led by Michael Carter that resulted in the first version of the protocol known as WebSocket. The name 'WebSocket' was coined by Ian Hickson and Michael Carter shortly thereafter through collaboration on the #whatwg IRC chat room, and subsequently authored for inclusion in the HTML5 specification by Ian Hickson, and announced on the cometdaily blog by Michael Carter. In December 2009, Google Chrome 4 was the first browser to ship full support for the standard, with WebSocket enabled by default. Development of the WebSocket protocol was subsequently moved from the W3C and WHATWG group to the IETF in February 2010, and authored for two revisions under Ian Hickson.