User connections API

Centrifugo PRO provides an additional API call user_connections. It allows getting all active sessions of the user (by user ID) without turning on presence feature for channels at all. It's also possible to attach any JSON payload to a connection which will be then visible in the result of user_connections call. The important thing is that this additional meta information won't be exposed to a client-side (unlike connection info for example).

This feature can be useful to manage active user sessions – for example in a messenger application. Users can look at a list of own current sessions and close some of them (possible with Centrifugo disconnect server API).

Below is a feature showcase using admin web UI, but this call is available over HTTP or GRPC server API.

Let's look at example. Generate a JWT for user 42:

centrifugo genconfig
centrifugo gentoken -u 42
HMAC SHA-256 JWT for user 42 with expiration TTL 168h0m0s:
eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiI0MiIsImV4cCI6MTYyNzcxMzMzNX0.s3eOhujiyBjc4u21nuHkbcWJll4Um0QqGU3PF-6Mf7Y

Run Centrifugo with uni_http_stream transport enabled (it will allow us to connect from console):

CENTRIFUGO_UNI_HTTP_STREAM=1 centrifugo -c config.json

Create new terminal window and run:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/connection/uni_http_stream --data '{"token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiI0MiIsImV4cCI6MTYyNzcxMzMzNX0.s3eOhujiyBjc4u21nuHkbcWJll4Um0QqGU3PF-6Mf7Y", "name": "terminal"}'

In another terminal create one more connection:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/connection/uni_http_stream --data '{"token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiI0MiIsImV4cCI6MTYyNzcxMzMzNX0.s3eOhujiyBjc4u21nuHkbcWJll4Um0QqGU3PF-6Mf7Y", "name": "terminal"}'

Now let's call user_connections over HTTP API:

curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: apikey <API_KEY>" \
  --request POST \
  --data '{"method": "user_connections", "params": {"user": "42"}}' \
  http://localhost:8000/api

The result:

{
    "result": {
        "connections": {
            "db8bc772-2654-4283-851a-f29b888ace74": {
                "app_name": "terminal",
                "transport": "uni_http_stream",
                "protocol": "json"
            },
            "4bc3ca70-ecc5-439d-af14-a78ae18e31c7": {
                "app_name": "terminal",
                "transport": "uni_http_stream",
                "protocol": "json"
            }
        }
    }
}

Here we can see that user has 2 connections from terminal app.

Each connection can be annotated with meta JSON information which is set during connection establishment (over meta claim of JWT or by returning meta in connect proxy result).

User connections params

Parameter name	Parameter type	Required	Description
user	string	yes	User ID

User connections result

Field name	Field type	Optional	Description
connections	map of string to UserConnectionInfo	no	active user connections map where key is client ID and value is UserConnectionInfo

UserConnectionInfo

Field name	Field type	Optional	Description
app_name	string	yes	client app name (if provided by client)
app_version	string	yes	client app version (if provided by client)
transport	string	no	client connection transport
protocol	string	no	client connection protocol (json or protobuf)
token_uid	string	yes	client JWT unique ID (if set)
token_issued_at	int	yes	client JWT issued at time as Unix seconds (if set)
meta	JSON	yes	meta information attached to a connection