The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20211009204826/https://actix.rs/docs/websockets/

Websockets

Actix-web supports WebSockets with the actix-web-actors crate. It is possible to convert a request’s Payload to a stream of ws::Message with a web::Payload and then use stream combinators to handle actual messages, but it is simpler to handle websocket communications with an http actor.

The following is an example of a simple websocket echo server:

use actix::{Actor, StreamHandler};
use actix_web::{web, App, Error, HttpRequest, HttpResponse, HttpServer};
use actix_web_actors::ws;

/// Define HTTP actor
struct MyWs;

impl Actor for MyWs {
    type Context = ws::WebsocketContext<Self>;
}

/// Handler for ws::Message message
impl StreamHandler<Result<ws::Message, ws::ProtocolError>> for MyWs {
    fn handle(
        &mut self,
        msg: Result<ws::Message, ws::ProtocolError>,
        ctx: &mut Self::Context,
    ) {
        match msg {
            Ok(ws::Message::Ping(msg)) => ctx.pong(&msg),
            Ok(ws::Message::Text(text)) => ctx.text(text),
            Ok(ws::Message::Binary(bin)) => ctx.binary(bin),
            _ => (),
        }
    }
}

async fn index(req: HttpRequest, stream: web::Payload) -> Result<HttpResponse, Error> {
    let resp = ws::start(MyWs {}, &req, stream);
    println!("{:?}", resp);
    resp
}

#[actix_web::main]
async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    HttpServer::new(|| App::new().route("/ws/", web::get().to(index)))
        .bind("127.0.0.1:8080")?
        .run()
        .await
}

A simple websocket echo server example is available in the examples directory.

An example chat server with the ability to chat over a websocket or TCP connection is available in websocket-chat directory

Next up: HTTP/2