lipp/lua-websockets

---

lipp/lua-websockets.json

{
  "createdAt": "2012-02-23T08:57:12Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "Websockets for Lua.",
  "fullName": "lipp/lua-websockets",
  "homepage": "http://lipp.github.com/lua-websockets/",
  "language": "Lua",
  "name": "lua-websockets",
  "pushedAt": "2022-11-14T21:32:49Z",
  "stargazersCount": 415,
  "topics": [],
  "updatedAt": "2025-11-09T14:54:59Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/lipp/lua-websockets"
}

Not maintained / maintainer wanted !!!!

If someone wants to maintain / take ownership of this project, reach out to me (issue, email). I like Lua very much, but I don’t have enough time / resources to stay engaged with it.

About

This project provides Lua modules for Websocket Version 13 conformant clients and servers.

The minified version is only ~10k bytes in size.

Clients are available in three different flavours:

• synchronous
• coroutine based (copas)
• asynchronous (lua-ev)

Servers are available as two different flavours:

• coroutine based (copas)
• asynchronous (lua-ev)

A webserver is NOT part of lua-websockets. If you are looking for a feature rich webserver framework, have a look at orbit or others. It is no problem to work with a “normal” webserver and lua-websockets side by side (two processes, different ports), since websockets are not subject of the ‘Same origin policy’.

Usage

copas echo server

This implements a basic echo server via Websockets protocol. Once you are connected with the server, all messages you send will be returned (‘echoed’) by the server immediately.

local copas = require'copas'

-- create a copas webserver and start listening
local server = require'websocket'.server.copas.listen
{
  -- listen on port 8080
  port = 8080,
  -- the protocols field holds
  --   key: protocol name
  --   value: callback on new connection
  protocols = {
    -- this callback is called, whenever a new client connects.
    -- ws is a new websocket instance
    echo = function(ws)
      while true do
        local message = ws:receive()
        if message then
           ws:send(message)
        else
           ws:close()
           return
        end
      end
    end
  }
}

-- use the copas loop
copas.loop()

lua-ev echo server

This implements a basic echo server via Websockets protocol. Once you are connected with the server, all messages you send will be returned (‘echoed’) by the server immediately.

local ev = require'ev'

-- create a copas webserver and start listening
local server = require'websocket'.server.ev.listen
{
  -- listen on port 8080
  port = 8080,
  -- the protocols field holds
  --   key: protocol name
  --   value: callback on new connection
  protocols = {
    -- this callback is called, whenever a new client connects.
    -- ws is a new websocket instance
    echo = function(ws)
      ws:on_message(function(ws,message)
          ws:send(message)
        end)

      -- this is optional
      ws:on_close(function()
          ws:close()
        end)
    end
  }
}

-- use the lua-ev loop
ev.Loop.default:loop()

Running test-server examples

The folder test-server contains two re-implementations of the libwebsocket test-server.c example.

cd test-server
lua test-server-ev.lua

cd test-server
lua test-server-copas.lua

Connect to the from Javascript (e.g. chrome’s debugging console) like this:

var echoWs = new WebSocket('ws://127.0.0.1:8002','echo');

Dependencies

The client and server modules depend on:

• luasocket
• luabitop (if not using Lua 5.2 nor luajit)
• luasec
• copas (optionally)
• lua-ev (optionally)

Install

$ git clone git://github.com/lipp/lua-websockets.git
$ cd lua-websockets
$ luarocks make rockspecs/lua-websockets-scm-1.rockspec

Minify

A squishy file for squish is provided. Creating the minified version (~10k) can be created with:

$ squish --gzip

The minifed version has be to be installed manually though.

Tests

Running tests requires:

• busted with async test support
• Docker

docker build .

The first run will take A WHILE.