PHP/Ratchet websockets - Failed to listen on "tcp://0.0.0.0:443"

Question

I have created a websocket with PHP and Ratchet library which works locally on WAMP and I have a server on AWS running Ubuntu Debian 18.04.

I am trying to move what I created locally to the server but am getting two errors.

The first is on the client saying: WebSocket connection to 'wss://localhost/socket' failed: WebSocket opening handshake timed out

The second is on the server saying: PHP Fatal error: Uncaught RuntimeException: Failed to listen on "tcp://0.0.0.0:443": Permission denied in /var/www/html/vendor/react/socket/src/TcpServer.php:165

A simplified version of my client would be:

<input type="hidden" value="'.$account_id.'" id="account_id">
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    var conn = new WebSocket('wss://localhost:443/socket');

    conn.onopen = function(e){
        console.log("Connection Opened!");
        var account_id = $("#account_id").val();
        var data = {account_id: account_id};
        conn.send(JSON.stringify(data));
    }
    conn.onclose = function(e){
        console.log("Connection Closed!");
    }
    conn.onmessage = function(e) {
        var data = JSON.parse(e.data);
        console.log(data);
    };
    conn.onerror = function(e){
        var data = JSON.parse(e.data);
        console.log(data);
    }
})
</script>

And my server is like this:

set_time_limit(0);

use Ratchet\MessageComponentInterface;
use Ratchet\ConnectionInterface;
use Ratchet\Server\IoServer;
use Ratchet\Http\HttpServer;
use Ratchet\WebSocket\WsServer;
require dirname(__DIR__) . '/vendor/autoload.php';

class socket implements MessageComponentInterface{
    protected $clients;

    public function __construct(){
        $this->clients = new \SplObjectStorage;
        echo 'Server Started.'.PHP_EOL;
    }

    public function onOpen(ConnectionInterface $socket){
        $this->clients->attach($socket);
        echo 'New connection '.$socket->resourceId.'!'.PHP_EOL;
    }
    public function onClose(ConnectionInterface $socket) {
        $this->clients->detach($socket);
        echo 'Connection '.$socket->resourceId.' has disconnected'.PHP_EOL;
    }
    public function onError(ConnectionInterface $socket, \Exception $e) {
        echo 'An error has occurred: '.$e->getMessage().'!'.PHP_EOL;
        $socket->close();
    }
    public function onMessage(ConnectionInterface $from, $json){
        echo 'Connection '.$from->resourceId.' sent '.$json.PHP_EOL;
        $data = json_decode($json, true);
        $account_id = $data['account_id'];
        
        foreach ($this->clients as $client) {
            if ($from == $client) {
                $client->send(json_encode($data));
            }
        }
    }
}

$server = IoServer::factory(
    new HttpServer(
        new WsServer(
            new socket()
        )
    ),
    443
);

$server->run();

I'm more of a front end developer so I'm lost when it comes to networking and apache config stuff, so here is what I've checked so far:

• Apache Modules enabled

   a2enmod proxy
   a2enmod proxy_http
   a2enmod proxy_wstunnel
  

• Apache Config

   /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
   <VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName dev.example.com
  
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}  ^/socket            [NC]
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} transport=websocket    [NC]
   RewriteRule /(.*)           wss://localhost:443/$1 [P,L]
  
   ProxyPass / https://localhost:443/
   ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:443/
  
   </VirtualHost>
  

• AWS security settings

Edit

Output of sudo netstat -ltpn

Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      12993/mysqld
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.53:53           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      913/systemd-resolve
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      1159/sshd
tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      30191/apache2
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      1159/sshd
tcp6       0      0 :::443                  :::*                    LISTEN      30191/apache2

Edit 2

I've changed to port 8080 and had to allow traffic on AWS for this.

I also realized I was editing the wrong apache config file, /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf instead of /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf.

The full file is as follows:

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost _default_:443>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        # Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
        # error, crit, alert, emerg.
        # It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
        # modules, e.g.
        #LogLevel info ssl:warn

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        # For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
        # enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
        # include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
        # following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
        # after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
        #Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf

        #   SSL Engine Switch:
        #   Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host.
        SSLEngine on

        #   A self-signed (snakeoil) certificate can be created by installing
        #   the ssl-cert package. See
        #   /usr/share/doc/apache2/README.Debian.gz for more info.
        #   If both key and certificate are stored in the same file, only the
        #   SSLCertificateFile directive is needed.
        SSLCertificateFile  /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

        #   Server Certificate Chain:
        #   Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the
        #   concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the
        #   certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively
        #   the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile
        #   when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server
        #   certificate for convinience.
        #SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/server-ca.crt

        #   Certificate Authority (CA):
        #   Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA
        #   certificates for client authentication or alternatively one
        #   huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded)
        #   Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks
        #        to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
        #        Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
        #SSLCACertificatePath /etc/ssl/certs/
        #SSLCACertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt

        #   Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL):
        #   Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client
        #   authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all
        #   of them (file must be PEM encoded)
        #   Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks
        #        to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
        #        Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
        #SSLCARevocationPath /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/
        #SSLCARevocationFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl

        #   Client Authentication (Type):
        #   Client certificate verification type and depth.  Types are
        #   none, optional, require and optional_no_ca.  Depth is a
        #   number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate
        #   issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid.
        #SSLVerifyClient require
        #SSLVerifyDepth  10

        #   SSL Engine Options:
        #   Set various options for the SSL engine.
        #   o FakeBasicAuth:
        #    Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation.  This means that
        #    the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control.  The
        #    user name is the `one line' version of the client's X.509 certificate.
        #    Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user
        #    file needs this password: `xxj31ZMTZzkVA'.
        #   o ExportCertData:
        #    This exports two additional environment variables: SSL_CLIENT_CERT and
        #    SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of the
        #    server (always existing) and the client (only existing when client
        #    authentication is used). This can be used to import the certificates
        #    into CGI scripts.
        #   o StdEnvVars:
        #    This exports the standard SSL/TLS related `SSL_*' environment variables.
        #    Per default this exportation is switched off for performance reasons,
        #    because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is usually
        #    useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the
        #    exportation for CGI and SSI requests only.
        #   o OptRenegotiate:
        #    This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when SSL
        #    directives are used in per-directory context.
        #SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +StrictRequire
        <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </FilesMatch>
        <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </Directory>

        #   SSL Protocol Adjustments:
        #   The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown
        #   approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't wait for
        #   the close notify alert from client. When you need a different shutdown
        #   approach you can use one of the following variables:
        #   o ssl-unclean-shutdown:
        #    This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. no
        #    SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received.  This violates
        #    the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers. Use
        #    this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach where
        #    mod_ssl sends the close notify alert.
        #   o ssl-accurate-shutdown:
        #    This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. a
        #    SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close notify
        #    alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but in
        #    practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead browsers. Use
        #    this only for browsers where you know that their SSL implementation
        #    works correctly.
        #   Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the HTTP
        #   keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable
        #   keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for this.
        #   Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to workaround
        #   their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0" and
        #   "force-response-1.0" for this.
        # BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
        #       nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
        #       downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0

    </VirtualHost>
    
    <VirtualHost *:80>
        
        ServerName dev.demixer.com

        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}  ^/socket            [NC]
        RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} transport=websocket    [NC]
        RewriteRule /(.*)           wss://localhost:443/$1 [P,L]
        
    </VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet

Now when I start the server I don't get any errors but on the client I see:

WebSocket connection to 'wss://dev.example.com:8080/socket' failed: WebSocket opening handshake timed out

Answer 1

I'm assuming here that you are trying to get websocket working on dev.demixer.com. Although you are trying to mask it elsewhere with dev.example.com. I noticed the domain name on second config you posted. :)

First part

Exposing actual domain helped me figure out that you are using let's encrypt for SSL. I guess you used certbot for configuring it on apache ? If so, you still are configuring the wrong file. The file should be something like dev.demixer.com-le-ssl.conf under /etc/apache2/sites-available/. The file should have configuration like below.

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
    ServerName dev.example.com

Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
#LogLevel warn rewrite:trace5
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/dev.example.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/dev.example.com/privkey.pem

## <-------------------- You need to add all your configuration in this section 
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

Second part

If you want wss:// on client you shouldn't add your configuration on <VirtualHost *:80> section. Although its technically possible to specify websocket url like wss://dev.example.com:80/socket. This would be a non standard practice as TCP port 80 is registered for plain HTTP. So, lets use port 443.

Third part

you don't need RewriteRule unless you want fancy URL. For a simpler socket sever configuration you can skip this config all together.

        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}  ^/socket            [NC]
        RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} transport=websocket    [NC]
        RewriteRule /(.*)           wss://localhost:443/$1 [P,L]

Coming back to your Ratchet server configuration it should be started on other port which apache will not be using. So, port other then 80 or 443.

$server = IoServer::factory(
    new HttpServer(
        new WsServer(
            new socket()
        )
    ),
    8080
);

Apache should be configured as a Reverse Proxy for your Ratchet server running at port 8080. The final configuration should look something like below.

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
    ServerName dev.example.com

    Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/dev.example.com/fullchain.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/dev.example.com/privkey.pem

    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyPass /socket/ ws://0.0.0.0:8080/
    ProxyPassReverse /socket/ ws://0.0.0.0:8080/

</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

And, your client socket url would be wss://dev.example.com/socket

Explanation

A simple diagram how connection is flowing

Browser wss://dev.example.com/socket ---> Apache port 443 /socket ---> Rachet running on 8080

The rachet server should be running plain ws:// connection all the SSL layer will be handled by Apache. Apache would act similar to stunnel for websocket

Bonus Content

If you want to skip apache reverse proxy all together php ratchet websocket SSL connect?