Using Dexie Cloud for storing Web Push subscriptions?

[naton]

Is anyone using Dexie Cloud to store the subscriptions of Web Push Notifications?

I'm trying to wrap my head around all the client stuff concerning VAPID keys, subscriptions etc but when it comes to storing the subscriptions on the server people seem to recommend Firebase or FeathersJS – can't we use Dexie in a similar way for this, or am I missing something? Anyone doing this already?

[naton]

Just found out about NeDB, which this article uses for storing web push subscriptions. Is it possible to use Dexie here instead? /ping @dfahlander

[dfahlander]

The newly release REST interface can be used from a node app to store key/value items that are kept out from the end users' sync data. It's not exactly covered in the docs how to make the data private for the app, so I'll explain it here (and may copy this text into to the official docs soon).

Obtain Authorization for Dexie Cloud REST API

Given that you have a client ID and secret (found in dexie-cloud.key file that is generated when you create or connect to a DB using npx dexie-cloud create or npx dexie-cloud connect), in order to use the API, first request a token for a your node-based 'service account', calling https://yourDB.dexie.cloud/token (https://dexie.org/cloud/docs/rest-api#token) with the parameters:

{
  grant_type: "client_credentials",
  scopes: ["ACCESS_DB"],
  client_id: <your client ID>,
  client_secret: <your client secret>,
  claims: {
    sub: "[email protected]", // Invent arbritary username for the service account
  }
}

You'll get back a JSON object with the property "accessToken". Put the content of this in all future requests towards the REST api with header Authorization: Bearer ${accessToken}.

Create a Table (optionally, or use an existing)

To add a table that will only be used by the node application, you'll have to sync the dexie schema and add it command line. Make sure to install the latest version of dexie-cloud npm package (current 1.1.0-beta.3), and then:

First, export the current schema that dexie cloud is aware of:

npx dexie-cloud export --schema dexie-schema.json

Your JSON file will contain something like:

{
  "schema": {
    "members": "@id",
    "roles": "[realmId+name]",
    "realms": "@realmId"
  },
  "sealed": false
}

Edit that file and add your new table along it's primary key, such as "webPushSubscriptions": "id".

{
  "schema": {
    "members": "@id",
    "roles": "[realmId+name]",
    "realms": "@realmId",
    "webPushSubscriptions": "id"
  },
  "sealed": false
}

Then use dexie-cloud CLI to import the updated schema:

npx dexie-cloud import dexie-schema.json

Put an object

Do a POST request to https://yourDB.dexie.cloud/my/webPushSubscriptions

POST /my/webPushSubscriptions HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Bearer <token from /token endpoint>
Content-Type: application/json

[{
  id: <primaryKey>,
  otherProperty: otherValue,
  ...
}]

When POST:in to the /my/... endpoint, the realmId will be automatically set to the userId of the caller (which is your service acount) and therfore not accessible by any other user.

Get an object back from https://yourDB.dexie.cloud/my/webPushSubscriptions/<primaryKey>

GET /my/webPushSubscriptions/<primaryKey> HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Bearer <token from /token endpoint>

...

I hope this could answer the question on how to use dexie-cloud database from a server-side application for the purpose of storing web push subscriptions.

[naton]

Wow, great news and response! Will dive into this more tonight :)

[naton]

One thing: Is that beta of dexie-cloud installed via some version of dexie-cloud-addon or do I have to install it in addition..?

[dfahlander]

dexie-cloud is its own npm package (CLI only), apart from dexie-cloud-addon. You actually don't have to install it, since npx will auto-install it temporarily anyway.... Just in case you've installed it earlier, it would be important to upgrade it.

[dfahlander]

I've also been sketching on how we could have some kind of push-notification feature within dexie-cloud in the future, or at least web hooks that allows a server application to send notifications based on certain mutations in the database. The road map right now is to release the stable version of the service first before introducing that though.