connecting geth to web3.js 1.0 via websockets or HTTP

Question

I am building a minimal nodeJS application that should connect via web3.js to my geth node. I am following the official web3.js1.0 documentation and I am using web3 1.0.0-beta.29.

I do manage to connect via IPC but both HTTP and websockets fail - in both cases I get the same output from my JS script as if there was no geth running at all. Any help would be appreciated.

1) HTTP (not working)

geth:

geth syncmode="fast" --cache=4096 --rpc --rpcport 8545 --rpccorsdomain "*" --rpcapi "eth,web3,personal"

index.js:

var Web3 = require('web3');
var web3 = new Web3('http://localhost:8545'); // same output as with option below
// var web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider("http://localhost:8545"));
web3.eth.getAccounts(console.log);
console.log("Hello World");

output:

$ node index.js
Hello World
Error: Invalid JSON RPC response: ""

2) websockets (not working)

geth:

geth syncmode="fast" --cache=4096 --ws --wsport 8546 --wsorigins "*" console

index.js:

var Web3 = require('web3');
var web3 = new Web3("ws://localhost:8546"); // same output as with option below
// var web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.WebsocketProvider('ws://localhost:8546'));
web3.eth.getAccounts(console.log);
console.log("Hello World");

output:

$ node index.js
Hello World
connection not open on send()
Error: connection not open

3) IPC (works)

geth: (same start as for HTTP)

geth syncmode="fast" --cache=4096 --rpc --rpcport 8545 --rpccorsdomain "*" --rpcapi "eth,web3,personal"

index.js:

var net = require('net');
var Web3 = require('web3');
var web3 = new Web3('/Users/sebastian/Library/Ethereum/geth.ipc', net); // same output as with option below
// var web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.IpcProvider('/Users/sebastian/Library/Ethereum/geth.ipc', net));
web3.eth.getAccounts(console.log);
console.log("Hello World");

output:

$ node index.js
Hello World
null [ '0x045a6A820FD596a4c1a49732af01E3EF1D6aEb8B' ]

Answer 1

There is a typo in geth command line: you miss double dash in front of syncmode. Not sure why, but it seems to prevent geth from launching HTTP RPC listener.

Answer 2

Basically, it's required to declare the option --wsorigins "*" in the geth command in order to connect to the nodes via websocket provider or http provider.

In your case, you are missing double dash in front of syncmode, adding double dash or remove syncmode solves the problem.

Additional, according to the article https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/Command-Line-Options,

--wsorigins value: Origins from which to accept websockets requests

Hope this help.

Answer 3

If anyone is using the Geth 1.10.17-stable-25c9b49f, command line options have changed a bit.

To enable the HTTP server, we now use the --http flag. And using the following code will achieve the same result now: geth --http --http.corsdomain "*" --http.api personal,eth,web3

// Node.js app
var Web3 = require('web3');
var web3 = new Web3('http://localhost:8545');
web3.eth.getAccounts(console.log);