node.js server and HTTP/2 (2.0) with express.js

Question

Is it possible currently to get node.js HTTP/2 (HTTP 2.0) server? And http 2.0 version of express.js?

Answer 1

If you are using express@^5 and http2@^3.3.4, then the correct way to start the server is:

const http2 = require('http2');
const express = require('express');

const app = express();

// app.use('/', ..);

http2
    .raw
    .createServer(app)
    .listen(8000, (err) => {
        if (err) {
            throw new Error(err);
        }

        /* eslint-disable no-console */
        console.log('Listening on port: ' + argv.port + '.');
        /* eslint-enable no-console */
    });

Notice the https2.raw. This is required if you want to accept TCP connections.

Note that at the time of this writing (2016 05 06), none of the major browsers support HTTP2 over TCP.

If you want to accept TCP and TLS connections, then you need to start the server using the default createServer method:

const http2 = require('http2');
const express = require('express');
const fs = require('fs');


const app = express();

// app.use('/', ..);

http2
    .createServer({
        key: fs.readFileSync('./localhost.key'),
        cert: fs.readFileSync('./localhost.crt')
    }, app)
    .listen(8000, (err) => {
        if (err) {
            throw new Error(err);
        }

        /* eslint-disable no-console */
        console.log('Listening on port: ' + argv.port + '.');
        /* eslint-enable no-console */
    });

Note that at the time of this writing, I did manage to make express and http2 to work (see https://github.com/molnarg/node-http2/issues/100#issuecomment-217417055). However, I have managed to get http2 (and SPDY) to work using spdy package.

const spdy = require('spdy');
const express = require('express');
const path = require('path');
const fs = require('fs'); 

const app = express();

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.json({foo: 'test'});
});

spdy
    .createServer({
        key: fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './localhost.key')),
        cert: fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './localhost.crt'))
    }, app)
    .listen(8000, (err) => {
        if (err) {
            throw new Error(err);
        }

        /* eslint-disable no-console */
        console.log('Listening on port: ' + argv.port + '.');
        /* eslint-enable no-console */
    });