Live order updates (websockets)

What this page is for: turn on real-time updates — new orders appearing by themselves, live delivery tracking — in your apps and admin panel.

You need

• Your main domain already working with HTTPS.
• Nothing else. No extra port is ever opened: websockets travel over port 443, the same port as your website.

A websocket is an open line between the app and your server, so the server can push news to the app instead of the app asking again and again.

This is part of 6ammart, not an extra. Without it, staff only see new orders when they reload the page. The panel turns it on for you when your project is installed, and this page is what to do when you want to check it, move it or turn it off.

1. Turn it on

1. Open Advanced → the Services tab (in the Project menu group).
2. Find the Live order updates card.
3. Turn it on.

One click does all of it: it writes the keys into your app's settings, starts the websocket service, publishes the web-server route, and switches live updates on inside the 6ammart admin panel. There is nothing to type.

The card then shows a short report, and the status rows fill in:

When all three are green the card says live updates are configured and switched on.

One thing the panel decides for you here. 6ammart reads its websocket keys in two different ways depending on which version of the code you have, and one of those ways stops working when the app's settings are cached for speed. The panel checks what your code actually does before it caches anything, so live updates keep working on both. You never see this, and there is nothing to set — it is here so that "it works on my copy of the code" is not something you have to hope for.

2. Optional: give it its own name

By default live updates share your main domain. If you would rather use a separate name like ws-shop.example.com:

1. On the Services tab, open the separate websocket domain section.
2. Type the name and press Configure.

That one job checks DNS, gets the certificate, wires the web server, updates the app settings, restarts the websocket service and flips the matching rows inside the 6ammart admin panel. Its log shows every step.

If Cloudflare is connected, the panel creates the DNS record itself, proxied. Note the shape of the name: because every record is proxied and Cloudflare's free certificate covers only one level below your domain, the panel uses ws-shop.example.com rather than ws.shop.example.com. If you type the deeper form it tells you the spelling that works.

3. If you use Cloudflare

Websockets run over port 443, which Cloudflare passes through, and the record stays proxied so your server's address stays hidden.

• In Cloudflare, set the zone's SSL/TLS mode to Full (strict) when the panel got a real certificate for the websocket name — which it does whenever a Cloudflare token is connected.
• Use Full, not Full (strict), if the panel had to install a certificate the server signed itself. The card says which one happened and shows a chip when it detects Cloudflare in front.

4. Turning it off

Turn the same card off. The apps stop getting real-time pings, and websockets are switched off inside the 6ammart admin panel too. You can turn them back on at any time.

How to check it worked

• The Live order updates card shows the websocket service running and In the 6ammart admin panel as ON.
• Server → Health shows the live-updates check in green.
• Place a test order and watch it appear in the admin panel without reloading.
• Over SSH:

  sudo sixpanel service status reverb

If it went wrong

• The card says the server is not running — start it and read its log:

  sudo sixpanel service start reverb
  sudo sixpanel logs reverb -n 100

• The row "In the 6ammart admin panel" is OFF — turn the card on again. That rewrites the settings inside 6ammart.
• Apps still do not update live — check that your app build points at the same address shown in Apps connect to.
• A separate websocket name has no certificate — the DNS record is the usual cause. Check it with:

  sudo sixpanel ssl status ws-shop.example.com

• You changed the websocket domain — turn live updates on once more afterwards, so the apps are told the new address.

More symptoms: see When something is broken.