A new PubSubHubbub endpoint

A new PubSubHubbub endpoint

We’ve been a bit silent in the past couple months here at Superfeedr.It’s because we’ve been working on a complete rewrite of our PubSubHubbub endpoint.

Before

Up until now, our PubSubHubbub endpoint was part of our main frontend Rails app. 4 years ago, Rails was still the most advanced framework to build web applications. This frontend would then interract directly with the database (adding feeds, subscriptions) and put messages in a queue (pings) for the backend to process.

Almost, 2 years ago, we rewrote our backend using Node.js and since we’ve been neglicted the frontend because often times it would mean replicating some of the logic between the 2 apps.

After

Each of our 80 backend server is now a full blown web server (using Express.js) and they’re all directly listening to the subscription requests for both our hosted hubs and our default hub. Luckily (and quite timely), Linode introduced last week SSL load balancing , so we use them to do the load balancing.

What does it change?

If you’re a Superfeedr subscriber, it does not change much on the short term. The new endpoint’s capabilities strictly map the previous one and we will keep the previous endpoint up for a couple more months. However, in the coming days and weeks we will introduce new features which are only available thru the new endpoint. We will also monitor our logs closely to make sure everyone has been moved to the new endpoint before we retire it!

If you’re a Superfeedr publisher, your hub might have already been moved to the new endpoint has it was just a DNS change. It’s all completely transparent to you and your subscribers. (Some higher traffif hubs still need to be moved).

Liked this post? Read the archive or

On the same topic, check dns optimizations with unbound, dns optimizations with dnsmasq and top feeds list.

Previously, on the Superfeedr blog: Follow buttons & the logged out user.