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

This issue is still around today (2016 as of writing this), so I decided to have a go at making a workaround to make express and http2 packages work nicely together: https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-http2-workaround

Edit: Does not work on any NodeJS version above v8.4 due to the native 'http2' module.

Install via NPM: npm install express-http2-workaround --save

// Require Modules
var fs = require('fs');
var express = require('express');
var http = require('http');
var http2 = require('http2');

// Create Express Application
var app = express();

// Make HTTP2 work with Express (this must be before any other middleware)
require('express-http2-workaround')({ express:express, http2:http2, app:app });

// Setup HTTP/1.x Server
var httpServer = http.Server(app);
httpServer.listen(80,function(){
  console.log("Express HTTP/1 server started");
});

// Setup HTTP/2 Server
var httpsOptions = {
    'key' : fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/keys/ssl.key'),
    'cert' : fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/keys/ssl.crt'),
    'ca' : fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/keys/ssl.crt')
};
var http2Server = http2.createServer(httpsOptions,app);
http2Server.listen(443,function(){
  console.log("Express HTTP/2 server started");
});

// Serve some content
app.get('/', function(req,res){
    res.send('Hello World! Via HTTP '+req.httpVersion);
});

The above code is a working express application that uses both the nodejs http module (for HTTP/1.x) and the http2 module (for HTTP/2).

As mentioned in the readme, this creates new express request and response objects and sets their prototypes to http2's IncomingMessage and ServerResponse objects. By default, it's the inbuilt nodejs http IncomingMessage and ServerResponse objects.

I hope this helps :)