WebSockets binary data

Websockify supports all versions of the WebSockets protocol (Hixie and HyBI). The older Hixie versions of the protocol only support UTF-8 text payloads. In order to transport binary data over UTF-8 an encoding must used to encapsulate the data within UTF-8. Websockify uses base64 to encode all traffic to and from the client. This does not affect the data between websockify and the server.

Encrypted WebSocket connections (wss://)

To encrypt the traffic using the WebSocket 'wss://' URI scheme you need to generate a certificate for websockify to load. By default websockify loads a certificate file name self.pem but the --cert=CERT option can override the file name. You can generate a self-signed certificate using openssl. When asked for the common name, use the hostname of the server where the proxy will be running:

openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out self.pem -keyout self.pem

Additional websockify features

These are not necessary for the basic operation.

• Daemonizing: When the -D option is specified, websockify runs in the background as a daemon process.

• SSL (the wss:// WebSockets URI): This is detected automatically by websockify by sniffing the first byte sent from the client and then wrapping the socket if the data starts with '\x16' or '\x80' (indicating SSL).

• Session recording: This feature that allows recording of the traffic sent and received from the client to a file using the --record option.

• Mini-webserver: websockify can detect and respond to normal web requests on the same port as the WebSockets proxy. This functionality is activate with the --web DIR option where DIR is the root of the web directory to serve.

• Wrap a program: see the "Wrap a Program" section below.

Wrap a Program

In addition to proxying from a source address to a target address (which may be on a different system), websockify has the ability to launch a program on the local system and proxy WebSockets traffic to a normal TCP port owned/bound by the program.

The is accomplished with a small LD_PRELOAD library (rebind.so) which intercepts bind() system calls by the program. The specified port is moved to a new localhost/loopback free high port. websockify then proxies WebSockets traffic directed to the original port to the new (moved) port of the program.

The program wrap mode is invoked by replacing the target with -- followed by the program command line to wrap.

`./websockify 2023 -- PROGRAM ARGS`

The --wrap-mode option can be used to indicate what action to take when the wrapped program exits or daemonizes.

Here is an example of using websockify to wrap the vncserver command (which backgrounds itself) for use with noVNC:

`./websockify 5901 --wrap-mode=ignore -- vncserver -geometry 1024x768 :1`

Here is an example of wrapping telnetd (from krb5-telnetd). telnetd exits after the connection closes so the wrap mode is set to respawn the command:

`sudo ./websockify 2023 --wrap-mode=respawn -- telnetd -debug 2023`

The wstelnet.html page demonstrates a simple WebSockets based telnet client.

Use client certificate verification

This feature requires Python 2.7.9 or newer or Python 3.4 or newer.

The --verify-client option makes the server ask the client for a SSL certificate. Presenting a valid (not expired and trusted by any supplied certificate authority) certificate is required for the client connection. With -auth-plugin=ClientCertCNAuth, the client certificate can be checked against a list of authorised certificate users. Non-encrypted connection attempts always fail during authentication.

Here is an example of a vncsevrer with password-less, certificate-driven authentication:

`./websockify 5901 --cert=fullchain.pem --key=privkey.pem --ssl-only --verify-client --cafile=ca-certificates.crt --auth-plugin=ClientCertCNAuth --auth-source='jane@example.com Joe User9824510' --web=noVNC/ --wrap-mode=ignore -- vncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768 -SecurityTypes=None`

The --auth-source option takes a white-space separated list of common names. Depending on your clients certificates they can be verified email addresses, user-names or any other string used for identification.

The --cafile option selects a file containing concatenated certificates of authorities trusted for validating clients. If this option is omitted, system default list of CAs is used. Upon connect, the client should supply the whole certificate chain. If your clients are known not to send intermediate certificates, they can be appended to the ca-file as well.

Note: Most browsers ask the user to select a certificate only while connecting via HTTPS, not WebSockets. Connecting directly to the SSL secured WebSocket may cause the browser to abort the connection. If you want to connect via noVNC, the --web option should point to a copy of noVNC, so it is loaded from the same host.