Laravel Reverb Production Guide

Production WebSocket deployments require careful planning for reliability and scale. Laravel Reverb simplifies real-time features but needs proper infrastructure. At ZIRA Software, our Reverb deployments handle thousands of concurrent connections.

Production Architecture

                    ┌─────────────────┐
                    │   Load Balancer │
                    │    (nginx)      │
                    └────────┬────────┘
                             │
            ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
            │                │                │
            ▼                ▼                ▼
    ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐
    │  Reverb #1    │ │  Reverb #2    │ │  Reverb #3    │
    └───────┬───────┘ └───────┬───────┘ └───────┬───────┘
            │                │                │
            └────────────────┼────────────────┘
                             │
                    ┌────────▼────────┐
                    │     Redis       │
                    │  (pub/sub)      │
                    └─────────────────┘

Environment Configuration

# .env (Production)
BROADCAST_CONNECTION=reverb

REVERB_APP_ID=your-app-id
REVERB_APP_KEY=your-secure-key
REVERB_APP_SECRET=your-secure-secret

# Server settings
REVERB_HOST=0.0.0.0
REVERB_PORT=8080
REVERB_HOSTNAME=ws.yourdomain.com
REVERB_SCHEME=https

# Scaling with Redis
REVERB_SCALING_ENABLED=true
REVERB_SCALING_CHANNEL=reverb

# Connection limits
REVERB_MAX_REQUEST_SIZE=10000
REVERB_PING_INTERVAL=60

# Frontend
VITE_REVERB_APP_KEY="${REVERB_APP_KEY}"
VITE_REVERB_HOST="ws.yourdomain.com"
VITE_REVERB_PORT=443
VITE_REVERB_SCHEME=https

Nginx Configuration

# /etc/nginx/sites-available/reverb
upstream reverb_servers {
    # Sticky sessions for WebSocket connections
    ip_hash;

    server 127.0.0.1:8080;
    server 127.0.0.1:8081;
    server 127.0.0.1:8082;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name ws.yourdomain.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/privkey.pem;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://reverb_servers;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        # Timeouts for long-lived connections
        proxy_read_timeout 86400s;
        proxy_send_timeout 86400s;
        proxy_connect_timeout 60s;

        # Buffer settings
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_buffer_size 4k;
    }

    # Health check endpoint
    location /health {
        proxy_pass http://reverb_servers/health;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
    }
}

Supervisor Configuration

# /etc/supervisor/conf.d/reverb.conf
[program:reverb-1]
command=php /var/www/app/artisan reverb:start --host=127.0.0.1 --port=8080
directory=/var/www/app
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/app/storage/logs/reverb-1.log
stopwaitsecs=3600
stopsignal=SIGTERM

[program:reverb-2]
command=php /var/www/app/artisan reverb:start --host=127.0.0.1 --port=8081
directory=/var/www/app
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/app/storage/logs/reverb-2.log
stopwaitsecs=3600
stopsignal=SIGTERM

[group:reverb]
programs=reverb-1,reverb-2
priority=999

Redis Scaling Configuration

// config/reverb.php
'servers' => [
    'reverb' => [
        'host' => env('REVERB_HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
        'port' => env('REVERB_PORT', 8080),
        'scaling' => [
            'enabled' => env('REVERB_SCALING_ENABLED', true),
            'channel' => env('REVERB_SCALING_CHANNEL', 'reverb'),
            'server' => [
                'url' => env('REDIS_URL'),
                'host' => env('REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
                'port' => env('REDIS_PORT', 6379),
                'database' => env('REDIS_REVERB_DB', 0),
            ],
        ],
    ],
],

Monitoring with Pulse

// config/reverb.php
'pulse_ingest_interval' => env('REVERB_PULSE_INGEST_INTERVAL', 15),

// Dashboard shows:
// - Connected clients
// - Messages per second
// - Memory usage
// - Connection errors

Health Checks

// routes/api.php
Route::get('/reverb/health', function () {
    $redis = Redis::connection('reverb');

    try {
        $redis->ping();
        $redisStatus = 'connected';
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        $redisStatus = 'disconnected';
    }

    return response()->json([
        'status' => 'healthy',
        'redis' => $redisStatus,
        'timestamp' => now()->toISOString(),
    ]);
});

Graceful Deployment

#!/bin/bash
# deploy-reverb.sh

# Graceful restart - one at a time
supervisorctl stop reverb-1
sleep 5
git pull
composer install --no-dev
php artisan config:cache
supervisorctl start reverb-1

# Wait for connections to migrate
sleep 30

supervisorctl stop reverb-2
supervisorctl start reverb-2

Client Reconnection Strategy

// resources/js/echo.js
window.Echo = new Echo({
    broadcaster: 'reverb',
    key: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_APP_KEY,
    wsHost: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_HOST,
    wsPort: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_PORT,
    wssPort: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_PORT,
    forceTLS: true,
    enabledTransports: ['ws', 'wss'],

    // Reconnection settings
    enableLogging: false,
    reconnectAttempts: 10,
    reconnectDelay: 3000,
});

// Handle disconnection
window.Echo.connector.pusher.connection.bind('disconnected', () => {
    console.log('WebSocket disconnected, attempting reconnect...');
});

window.Echo.connector.pusher.connection.bind('connected', () => {
    console.log('WebSocket connected');
    // Re-subscribe to channels if needed
});

Rate Limiting Connections

// app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php
use Laravel\Reverb\Contracts\ConnectionManager;

public function boot(): void
{
    // Limit connections per IP
    app(ConnectionManager::class)->limitConnectionsPerIp(100);
}

Conclusion

Production Laravel Reverb requires proper scaling, monitoring, and failover strategies. Redis pub/sub enables horizontal scaling while nginx handles SSL termination and load balancing.

Deploying real-time features? Contact ZIRA Software for WebSocket infrastructure.