Push notifications with MongoosePush

MongoosePush is a simple RESTful service written in Elixir. It provides the ability to send push notifications to FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and/or APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) via their HTTP/2 API.

To take advantage of MongoosePush's functionality, you will need to enable the mod_push_service_mongoosepush module: this module acts as a bridge between the push_notifications hook and MongoosePush itself.

Getting started

To enable integration with MongoosePush, it is as simple as the next two steps. First, you need to define a pool of HTTPS connections to MongoosePush in the outgoing_pools section:

[outgoing_pools.http.mongoose_push_http]
  scope = "global"
  strategy = "available_worker"

  [outgoing_pools.http.mongoose_push_http.connection]
    host = "https://localhost:8443"

And second, you need to add mod_push_service_mongoosepush to the modules section in the config file:

[modules.mod_push_service_mongoosepush]
  pool_name = "mongoose_push_http"
  api_version = "v3"

Here, we assume that MongoosePush will be available on the localhost on port 8443, which is the default one — note the server option in the outgoing pool definition. Next we enable mod_push_service_mongoosepush. The first option is the name of the HTTP pool to use and the second one is the version of MongoosePush's API ("v2" or "v3" are supported).

And that's it, we've just completed the entire MongooseIM configuration. All we need to do now is to set up MongoosePush.

Starting MongoosePush

The easiest way to start MongoosePush is using its docker image. But before you can set MongoosePush up, you need a FCM application token and/or an APNS application certificate. You can get the FCM token here and the easiest way of getting an APNS application certificate is by running this script (please note that you need the certificate in pem format).

After you get the FCM application token and/or the APNS application certificate, you can prepare to start MongoosePush. Firstly, prepare the following files structure:

• priv/
  • ssl/
    • rest_cert.pem - The REST endpoint certificate
    • rest_key.pem - private key for the REST endpoint certificate
  • apns/
    • prod_cert.pem - Production APNS app certificate
    • prod_key.pem - Production APNS app certificate's private key
    • dev_cert.pem - Development APNS app certificate
    • dev_key.pem - Development APNS app certificate's private key
  • fcm/
    • token.json - FCM service account JSON file

If your FCM app token is MY_FCM_SECRET_TOKEN and you have the priv directory with all certificates in the current directory, start MongoosePush with the following command:

docker run -v `pwd`/priv:/opt/app/priv \
  -e PUSH_FCM_APP_FILE="MY_FCM_SECRET_TOKEN" \
  -e PUSH_HTTPS_CERTFILE="/opt/app/priv/ssl/rest_cert.pem" \
  -e PUSH_HTTPS_KEYFILE="/opt/app/priv/ssl/rest_key.pem" \
  -it --rm mongooseim/mongoose-push:2.0.0

If you don't want to use either APNS or FCM, you simply need to pass PUSH_APNS_ENABLED=0 or PUSH_FCM_ENABLED=0 respectively as additional env variables in your docker run command. For more advanced options and configuration please refer to "Quick start / Configuring" in MongoosePush's README.md.

When your MongoosePush docker is up and running, Push Notifications can be used in your MongooseIM instance.