To set up your RhoConnect server application for delivering push messages, you need to either:
To set up your RhoConnect application for pushing to an iOS client, you will need to update settings/settings.yml to include the following:
:development: :redis: localhost:6379 :iphonecertfile: settings/apple_push_cert.pem :iphonepassphrase: #=> empty or put password for your certificate :iphoneserver: gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com :iphoneport: 2195 :syncserver: http://localhost:9292/application/ :licensefile: settings/license.key
This is for running your application in development mode; for production, you will need all of the iphone settings, and you change the :iphoneserver: to:
:iphoneserver: gateway.push.apple.com
To set up your RhoConnect application for pushing to a BlackBerry client, you will need to update settings/settings.yml to include the following:
:development: :redis: localhost:6379 :mdsserver: 192.168.1.110 :mdsserverport: 8080 :syncserver: http://localhost:9292/application/ :licensefile: settings/license.key
Replace :mdsserver: and :mdsserverport: with the hostname/IP and port of your machine (default port is 8080).
To set up your RhoConnect application for Android Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), you need to obtain a GCM API key.
To do so, set up GCM developer access. Follow the Getting Started instructions in the GCM documentation. You can optionally stop in these instructions once you complete the Obtaining an API Key section.
Your GCM API key will be found in your Google apis dashboard.
Update settings/settings.yml to include your GCM API key:
:development: :redis: localhost:6379 :syncserver: http://localhost:9292/application/ :licensefile: settings/license.key :gcm_api_key: your_gcm_api_key_here
Google has officially deprecated the C2DM service and requires that you now use Google Cloud Messaging (GCM). Please see Google’s announcement for more details. Follow the instructions at Setting up RhoConnect Server Push for Android (GCM) to set up your RhoConnect Application for GCM push.
To set up your RhoConnect application for Android C2DM push, you will need to update settings/settings.yml to include the following:
:development: :redis: localhost:6379 :syncserver: http://localhost:9292/application/ :licensefile: settings/license.key :c2dm_username: username :c2dm_passwd: passwd :authtoken: authtoken
In order to push messages to an Android device, your server needs to obtain Google’s C2DM authentication token associated with the trusted google account.
For this purpose, you can specify C2DM Google account’s username/password combo via the :c2dm_username and :c2dm_passwd settings.
At run-time, the system will use these credentials to obtain the C2DM token and store it in the Redis for the future use.
Once the token is expired, the system will automatically connect to the Google C2DM service to renew the token.
Alternatively, you can use :authtoken setting to specify the pre-defined authentication token. This token MUST be related to the role-based google account registered for your application. See the Rhodes client push instructions for more details. To retrieve this token, use sample script c2dm.rb. Uncomment last two lines and put your google account specific data, then run it. It will print token to stdout.
However, this approach will not allow the server to connect to the C2DM service and renew the token once it is expired.
For those who interested in what this token means, the description is here.
RhoConnect v3.3 introduces the RhoConnect Push Service (RPS) which supports efficient messaging for both Android and Windows Mobile. This service can be used instead of Google GCM or C2DM on Android.
The typical flow of a message using RPS:
Device RPS RhoConnect Backend App
+ + + +
| | | |
| | | POST |
| | POST |/rc/v1/users/ping|
| |/instanceId |<----------------+
| |<-----------+ |
|<----------+ | |
|{"content"}| | |
| | | |
+ + + +
If you are using a Macintosh, go to the Node.js website, and download and install Node.js. (Zebra RhoMobile Suite for Windows includes Node.js in its installation.)
RhoConnect Push Service is a separate process that will run on your machine and broker push messages between your RhoConnect server and registered devices.
Assuming you’ve installed the latest RhoMobile Suite, start redis by runing the following command:
$ rhoconnect redis-start
Now start RhoConnect push by running the following command:
$ rhoconnect-push RhoConnect push server started...
You can also start the server with more verbose logging (see next section for more details):
$ rhoconnect-push -d 3
Next, make sure you have the following option in your RhoConnect application’s settings/settings.yml file in the :development:, :production: and :test: sections:
:push_server: http://someappname@localhost:8675/
Where you edit someappname to be a shared secret name between your RhoConnect application and your mobile application.
This shared secret name ensures that only your RhoConnect application can send push messages to the RPS instance you started up in the previous step. Use this shared secret name in your mobile app’s ‘rhoconnect_push_appname’ setting.
Now setup push notifications in your Android or Windows Mobile RhoElements application, then start up your RhoConnect application.
You can control basic settings for RhoConnect push using command line arguments.
$ rhoconnect-push --help Usage: rhoconnect-push [options] Available options: -c, --config FILE Path to configuration (config.json) file -d, --debug LEVEL Specify server debug level: 0 (errors) - 3 (everything) -e, --rcPort PORT Specify RhoConnect instance port -h, --help Print this help message -i, --rcHost HOST Host for the RhoConnect instance -k, --keyFile FILE Path to private SSL keyfile (https only) -p, --port Run the server on this port (defaults to 8675) -r, --redis REDIS Redis connection string (i.e. redis://localhost:6379) -s, --httpSecure Specify if this server is running over https or http -t, --timeout TIMEOUT Time (in ms) before timeout is sent to client -T, --registrationTimeout Expiration limit for client registration tokens -v, --version Display server version
You can also configure more advanced settings in RhoConnect push by creating a config.json file.
{
"httpSecure": "n",
"devAuthHost": "localhost",
"devAuthUrl": "/rc/v1/app/ans_login",
"devAuthPort": "9292",
"userAuthHost": "localhost",
"userAuthUrl": "/rc/v1/app/ans_login",
"userAuthPort": "9292",
"appAuthHost": "localhost",
"appAuthUrl": "/rc/v1/app/ans_login",
"appAuthPort": "9292",
"ansResponseTimeout": "300000",
"ansServerPort": "8675",
"registrationTimeout": "2592000",
"clearDataBase": "n",
"socketPoolSize": 1,
"debugLevel": "3"
}
To start the server using a config.json file, run the following command.
$ rhoconnect-push -c /path/to/config.json
The JSON file has the following parameters.
httpSecure - Specify whether the push server will be an https or http server (y/n).devAuthHost - RhoConnect instance used to handle device credentials.devAuthUrl - Path used on the RhoConnect instance to handle device credentials.devAuthPort - Port used on the RhoConnect instance to handle device credentials.userAuthHost - RhoConnect instance used to handle user credentials.userAuthUrl - Path used on the RhoConnect instance to handle user credentials.userAuthPort - Port used on the RhoConnect instance to handle user credentials.appAuthHost - RhoConnect instance used to handle application credentials.appAuthUrl - Path used on the RhoConnect instance to handle application credentials.appAuthPort - Port used on the RhoConnect instance to handle application credentials.ansResponseTimeout - Time (in ms) that the push server will allow a message request from the client to go without a response. Upon expiration of this time, a 204 response will be issued and the request will be considered satisfied. If this parameter is set to 0, then this time limit will not be in effect - there is no limit to how long a client request will go without a response.ansServerPort - Push server listening portregistrationTimeout - Expiration limit for registration tokens (in seconds), the client-side application is automatically unregistered if there is no activity related to its token for the registrationTimeout period. Activity related to its token consists of either attempted fetches of messages on its behalf by the push client or messages sent to the push server by RhoConnect.clearDataBase - Clear the redis database containing tokens, instanceIds, etc. at the start of the push server (y/n).socketPoolSize - The maximum number of sockets the push server will use when connecting to each of the authorization servers. This essentially caps the number of http requests to each authorization server that the push server can have outstanding at any given time.debugLevel - Print additional information to console to aid in debugging:
The RhoConnect Web Console includes a utility for testing push to make sure everything is wired up correctly.
First, make sure you’ve logged in and performed a sync on the device/simulator you are going to test.
Next, once you’ve logged into the web console, navigate to the user’s page you used to login in the Rhodes application. For example, if you logged in as user ’t', the url would be:
http://localhost:9292/console/user?user_id=t
You should see a registered device for this user, for example: “c92e36874bc74f39a8fbd7c1a86f9e0e”. Click on the link for this device and you will see the device attributes:
device_type: APPLE device_pin: 10fd92abfa8ee48155d9af6e7329086322b323fd0d18fdbd19e92d03c0fef7c8 device_port: 100 user_id: t app_id: application
If you don’t see all of these attributes, then something is incorrect in your Rhodes application settings. Please verify you followed the Rhodes application push setup.
Now that the device is registered, go back to the user page and click ‘Ping User’.
Here you can specify an alert message, sources array to sync, badge value (iOS only), sound file to play, and duration to vibrate.
Enter in some values or try the defaults, you should see a push message on the device when you click “Ping!”.
By default, the sources list will be a comma-separated list of your RhoConnect application’s sources. This sources list will be sent in the push message to trigger a sync. You can specify one or more sources, or ‘all’ to trigger a sync of all sources.