Self Hosted Websockets with Laravel

From this article, you will learn how to use self-hosted Websockets with Laravel. I am assuming you have already setup Laravel on the server.

Step 1. Install Laravel WebSockets via composer

composer require beyondcode/laravel-websockets

It will install laravel-websockets package to your Laravel. This package replates all APIs of Pusher on PHP and JavaScript side.

Step 2. Publish the migration file

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="BeyondCode\LaravelWebSockets\WebSocketsServiceProvider" --tag="migrations"

This package comes with a migration to store statistic information while running your WebSocket server

Step 3. Run the migrations with

php artisan migrate

Step 4. Publish the WebSocket configuration

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="BeyondCode\LaravelWebSockets\WebSocketsServiceProvider" --tag="config"

Step 5. Set environment variables
Open Laravel .env file and make following changes

Set Broadcast driver

BROADCAST_DRIVER=pusher

we can use pusher because Laravel Websockets use the same APIs as Pusher.

Set Socket server details

PUSHER_HOST=<server host name>
PUSHER_PORT=<socket port>
PUSHER_SCHEME=><scheme>
PUSHER_APP_ID=<you can set anything here>
PUSHER_APP_KEY=<you can set anything here>
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=<you can set anything here>
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=<we are not using cluseter, null>

Step 6. Run Laravel Websockets 🛰

php artisan websockets:serve

Open WebSocket dashboard

<Host Name>/laravel-websockets

If you are on localhost try

http://localhost/laravel-websockets

Let's celebrate. You just did it 😎