Configuring Reverb in Laravel with Apache

Reverb is a practical alternative to Pusher for real-time event broadcasting in Laravel. This guide focuses on configuring Reverb in Laravel 11 for a live production system hosted behind Cloudflare with Flexible SSL.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the setup, ensure you have the following:

1. Laravel 11 installed: You can set up a fresh Laravel 11 application using Composer.
2. Apache web server: Ensure Apache is installed and running.
3. Cloudflare account: Your application should be set up behind Cloudflare with Flexible SSL enabled.

Install Reverb

To start, you need to install Reverb in your Laravel project. Run the following Composer command:

composer require laravel/reverb

After installation, publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Laravel\Reverb\ReverbServiceProvider"

This will create a config/reverb.php file where you can adjust Reverb’s settings.

Reverb Configuration Example

The following is an example configuration for Reverb:

<?php

return [

    'default' => env('REVERB_SERVER', 'reverb'),

    'servers' => [

        'reverb' => [
            'host' => env('REVERB_HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
            'port' => env('REVERB_PORT', 6001),
            'hostname' => env('REVERB_HOST'),
            'options' => [
                'tls' => [],
            ],
            'max_request_size' => env('REVERB_MAX_REQUEST_SIZE', 10_000),
            'scaling' => [
                'enabled' => env('REVERB_SCALING_ENABLED', false),
                'channel' => env('REVERB_SCALING_CHANNEL', 'reverb'),
                'server' => [
                    'url' => env('REDIS_URL'),
                    'host' => env('REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
                    'port' => env('REDIS_PORT', '6379'),
                    'username' => env('REDIS_USERNAME'),
                    'password' => env('REDIS_PASSWORD'),
                    'database' => env('REDIS_DB', '0'),
                ],
            ],
            'pulse_ingest_interval' => env('REVERB_PULSE_INGEST_INTERVAL', 15),
            'telescope_ingest_interval' => env('REVERB_TELESCOPE_INGEST_INTERVAL', 15),
        ],

    ],

    'apps' => [

        'provider' => 'config',

        'apps' => [
            [
                'key' => env('REVERB_APP_KEY'),
                'secret' => env('REVERB_APP_SECRET'),
                'app_id' => env('REVERB_APP_ID'),
                'options' => [
                    'host' => env('REVERB_HOST'),
                    'port' => env('REVERB_PORT', 443),
                    'scheme' => env('REVERB_SCHEME', 'https'),
                    'useTLS' => env('REVERB_SCHEME', 'https') === 'https',
                ],
                'allowed_origins' => ['*'],
                'ping_interval' => env('REVERB_APP_PING_INTERVAL', 60),
                'activity_timeout' => env('REVERB_APP_ACTIVITY_TIMEOUT', 30),
                'max_message_size' => env('REVERB_APP_MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE', 10_000),
            ],
        ],

    ],

];

.env Settings

Ensure the following environment variables are correctly configured in your .env file:

BROADCAST_CONNECTION=reverb 
QUEUE_CONNECTION=database

REVERB_HOST=127.0.0.1 
REVERB_PORT=6001
REVERB_APP_ID=<app-key>
REVERB_APP_KEY=<app-key>
REVERB_APP_SECRET=<app-secret>
REVERB_SCHEME=http

VITE_REVERB_APP_KEY="${REVERB_APP_KEY}"
VITE_REVERB_HOST="example.com"
VITE_REVERB_PORT=443
VITE_REVERB_SCHEME=https 

Creating an Event

Use the following Artisan command to generate a new event class:

php artisan make:event MessageSent

Here is an example implementation of the MessageSent event:

<?php

namespace App\Events;

use Illuminate\Broadcasting\InteractsWithSockets;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Broadcasting\ShouldBroadcast;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Events\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use Illuminate\Broadcasting\Channel;

class MessageSent implements ShouldBroadcast
{
    use Dispatchable, InteractsWithSockets, SerializesModels;

    public $message;

    public function __construct($message)
    {
        $this->message = $message;
    }

    public function broadcastOn(): Channel
    {
        return new Channel('chat-channel');
    }

    public function broadcastAs(): string
    {
        return 'message-sent';
    }
}

Laravel Blade Example

Create a simple Blade template to test Reverb functionality (welcome.blade.php):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta name="csrf-token" content="{{ csrf_token() }}">
    <title>Laravel Reverb WebSocket Test</title>
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/pusher/8.3.0/pusher.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/laravel-echo/1.17.1/echo.iife.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Laravel Reverb WebSocket Test</h1>
    <p>Open the console to see WebSocket messages.</p>
    <button>



<h2>
  
  
  Defining Routes
</h2>

<p>Below is the code to define the required routes:<br>
</p>

<pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false"><?php

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use App\Events\MessageSent;

Route::post('/send-message', function (\Illuminate\Http\Request $request) {

    event(new MessageSent($request->input('message')));

    return response()->json(['success' => true]);

});

Route::get('/', function () { return view('welcome'); });

Apache Configuration

Run the following commands to enable the necessary Apache modules:

sudo a2enmod proxy
sudo a2enmod proxy_wstunnel 
sudo a2enmod rewrite

Below is an example configuration for your Apache VirtualHost setup:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@example.com
    ServerName example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public

    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyPass /app ws://127.0.0.1:6001/app
    ProxyPassReverse /app ws://127.0.0.1:6001/app

    SetEnvIf X-Forwarded-Proto https HTTPS=on

    ErrorLog /var/www/logs/example.com_error.log
    CustomLog /var/www/logs/example.com_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

<Directory /var/www/example.com>
    Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Running Services

To start the services, you'll need to launch the event worker and the Rebel server.
Run the following command to initiate the event worker:

php artisan queue:work

Use the command below to start the Rebel server on the specified port and host:

php artisan reverb:start --port=6001 --host=0.0.0.0

Conclusion

If you do not use the CDN for Laravel Echo and Pusher, you will need to install the required npm libraries (pusher-js and laravel-echo) to integrate real-time event broadcasting into your application. This setup requires a frontend build process to manage and bundle the libraries within your project.

For applications hosted behind Cloudflare with Full SSL, a separate VirtualHost must be configured with properly defined SSL certificates. This ensures secure WebSocket communication and avoids issues with SSL/TLS mismatches, which can prevent WebSocket connections from functioning correctly.

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