Cursor Tracking server

A WebSocket cursor tracking server written in Rust used for showing live cursors on my portfolio website. You can test it by opening multiple tabs on my website and seeing the cursors move in real time.

It works by exchanging binary messages between client and server.

Binary protocol

Each message sent by the server contains a header byte to signal the client what type of message it is and how to handle it correctly.

Message types:

1. InitialConnection (0x1): Contains an extra byte with the user ID of the user that just connected.

2. InitialUserList (0x2): Contains a list of all the users currently connected to the server. Each user is represented by a byte with their ID.

3. UserJoined (0x3): Contains an extra byte with the user ID of the user that just joined.

4. UserLeft (0x4): Contains an extra byte with the user ID of the user that just left.

5. CursorUpdate (0x5): Contains the user ID of the user that sent the update, followed by the x and y coordinates of the cursor (2 bytes each, uint16).

6. CursorStartedClicking (0x6): Contains an extra byte with the user ID of the user that started clicking.

7. CursorStoppedClicking (0x7): Contains an extra byte with the user ID of the user that stopped clicking.

Clients send a message with the CursorUpdate header (0x5) and the x and y coordinates to the server every time the cursor moves. The server then broadcasts this message to all connected clients, except the one that sent it.

Building from source

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.86 or later
• Cargo (Rust's package manager)

Local development build

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/MiguelHigueraDev/cursor-tracking-rs.git
cd cursor-tracking-rs

# Build in debug mode
cargo build

# Run the server
cargo run

Production build

cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/cursor-tracking-rs.

Docker deployment

Using docker-compose (recommended)

# Build and start the container
docker-compose up -d

# To stop the container
docker-compose down

Manual Docker commands

# Build the Docker image
docker build -t cursor-tracking-rs .

# Run the container
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name cursor-tracking cursor-tracking-rs

# Stop the container
docker stop cursor-tracking

The WebSocket server will be available at ws://your-server-ip:8080.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.