Whisper JavaScript example

This link contains a full-fledged example of how to use Whisper in a small chat application.

The app is a simple Vue single page application that works in several steps. In the first step, the user configures the RPC service that they wish to connect to. Typically, this would be a geth client with the --shh option enabled.

Then one can install the application locally by typing:

$ git clone https://github.com/gballet/whisper-chat-example
$ cd whisper-chat-example
$ npm install

The application is then started by typing:

$ npm run dev

The application will then be available at http://localhost:8080 (Note the http here, which is because it’s a demo application and should not be used in production)

User workflow

The app starts by asking the user for their user name and whether they want a symmetric or asymmetric connection. If it’s asymmetric, the geth server will propose a public key. If it’s symmetric, a key has to be provided.

Then the user presses “Start” and the conversation begins.

The app’s state

                let data = {
                        msgs: [],
                        text: "",
                        symKeyId: null,
                        name: "",
                        asymKeyId: null,
                        sympw: "",
                        asym: true,
                        configured: false,
                        topic: defaultTopic,
                        recipientPubKey: defaultRecipientPubKey,
                        asymPubKey: ""
                };

This is how the current, transient, state of the application is represented:

• msgs is the list of messages in the current conversation
• text contains the text that the current user is typing
• name is the name of the current user, which is used to identify them in conversations
• asymKeyId and symKeyId represent handles to the corresponding keys in geth’s memory
• recipientPubKey is a hex string representing the public key that an asymmetric message is sent to
• topic is a hex string representing the message’s topic
• asymPubKey is a hex string representing the user’s own public key
• configured is a flag that is set to true when the user has choosen either a public key or a symmetric key, and a user name
• sympw contains the symmetric password

The sendMessage callback

The sendMessage callback is called every time the user clicks on “Send” or presses the return key. It is responsible for creating the RPC request that instructs the geth node to encrypt and send the message.

sendMessage() {
    // Start by declaring the message, we picked a JSON format with
    // `text` as the content and `name` as the name of the user who
    // is sending the message.
    let msg = {
        text: this.text,
        name: this.name
    };

    // (code elided for clarity)
    // ...

    // Create the data object that will be sent to the RPC endpoint.
    let postData = {
        ttl: 7,
        topic: '0x07678231',
        powTarget: 2.01,
        powTime: 100,
        payload: encodeToHex(JSON.stringify(msg)),
    };

    // Set the appropriate key id.
    if (this.asym) {
        postData.pubKey = this.recipientPubKey;
        postData.sig = this.asymKeyId;
    } else
        postData.symKeyID = this.symKeyId;

    // Perform the RPC call that will tell the node to forward
    // that message to all its neighboring nodes.
    this.shh.post(postData);

    // (code elided for clarity)
    // ...
}

The msg object is created. The format chosen for the object is specific to this demo application. It just contains a text and the name of the sender. This is obviously not secure enough for a real-world application.

That object is converted to a string and then encoded as a hexadecimal string, in the payload member of the request’s POST data object. Other fields include the topic of the message, how much work the sending server should do and other parameters.

Next, depending whether the “asymmetric” checkbox has been ticked, the value of this.asym will be true or false. Based on this, the system will update the request object with the relevant information.

Finally, the request is being sent with this.shh.post(postData), which calls Web3’s shh.post function to send the message.