apn

#node-apn

A Node.js module for interfacing with the Apple Push Notification service.

Features

• Fast
• Maintains a connection to the server to maximise notification batching and throughput.
• Enhanced binary interface support, with error handling
• Automatically sends unsent notifications if an error occurs
• Feedback service support
• Complies with all best practises laid out by Apple

Installation

Via npm:

$ npm install apn

As a submodule of your project (you will also need to install q)

$ git submodule add http://github.com/argon/node-apn.git apn
$ git submodule update --init

Quick Start

This is intended as a brief introduction, please refer to the documentation in doc/ for more details.

Load in the module

var apn = require('apn');

Connecting

Create a new connection to the APN gateway server, passing a dictionary of options to the constructor. If you name your certificate and key files appropriately (cert.pem and key.pem) then the defaults should be suitable to get you up and running.

	var options = { };

	var apnConnection = new apn.Connection(options);

By default, if the environment variable NODE_ENV=production is set, the module will connect to the production gateway. Otherwise it will connect to the sandbox. This along with many other settings can be overriden with the options object.

For more information about configuration options consult the documentation.

Help with preparing the key and certificate files for connection can be found in the wiki

Sending a notification

To send a notification first create a Device object. Pass it the device token as either a hexadecimal string, or alternatively as a Buffer object containing the token in binary form.

var myDevice = new apn.Device(token);

Next, create a notification object, set the relevant parameters (See the payload documentation for more details.) and use the pushNotification method on the connection to send it.

var note = new apn.Notification();

note.expiry = Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000) + 3600; // Expires 1 hour from now.
note.badge = 3;
note.sound = "ping.aiff";
note.alert = "\uD83D\uDCE7 \u2709 You have a new message";
note.payload = {'messageFrom': 'Caroline'};

apnConnection.pushNotification(note, myDevice);

The above options will compile the following dictionary to send to the device:

{"messageFrom":"Caroline","aps":{"badge":3,"sound":"ping.aiff","alert":"\uD83D\uDCE7 \u2709 You have a new message"}}

You should only create one Connection for each certificate/key pair you have, you do not need to create a new one for each notification. If you are only sending notifications to one app then there is no need for more than one Connection, if throughput is a problem then look at the maxConnections property.

Setting up the feedback service

Apple recommends checking the feedback service periodically for a list of devices for which there were failed delivery attempts.

Using the Feedback object it is possible to periodically query the server for the list. Many of the options are similar to that of Connection, including the authentication configuration. It is recomended that you share the same configuration object between Connection and Feedback instances to ensure they stay in sync.

Attach a listener to the feedback event to receive the output as two arguments, the time returned by the server (epoch time) and a Buffer object containing the device token - this event will be emitted for each device separately. Alternatively you can enable the batchFeedback option and the feedback event will provide an array of objects containing time and device properties.

var options = {
	"batchFeedback": true,
	"interval": 300
};

var feedback = new apn.Feedback(options);
feedback.on("feedback", function(devices) {
	devices.forEach(function(item) {
		// Do something with item.device and item.time;
	});
});

By specifying a time interval (in seconds) Feedback will periodically query the service without further intervention.

More information about the feedback service can be found in the feedback service documentation.

Debugging

If you experience difficulties sending notifications or using the feedback service you can enable debug messages within the library by running your application with DEBUG=apn or DEBUG=apnfb set as an environment variable.

You are encouraged to read the extremely informative Troubleshooting Push Notifications Tech Note in the first instance, in case your query is answered there.

Support

If you have any questions or difficulties working with the module, the node-apn Google group should be your first port of call.

Please include as much detail as possible - especially debug logs, if the problem is reproducible sample code is also extremely helpful. GitHub Issues should only be created for verified problems and enhancements, this will allow them to be tracked more easily.

Resources

• Local and Push Notification Programming Guide: Apple Push Notification Service
• Apple Technical Note: Troubleshooting Push Notifications
• List of Projects, Applications and Companies Using Node-apn

Credits

Written and maintained by Andrew Naylor.

Thanks to: Ian Babrou, dgthistle, Keith Larsen, Mike P, Greg Bergé, Asad ur Rehman, Nebojsa Sabovic, Alberto Gimeno, Randall Tombaugh, Michael Stewart, Olivier Louvignes, porsager, Craig Hockenberry

License

Released under the MIT License

Copyright (c) 2013 Andrew Naylor

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.