BlackBerry Push Development

[mtarkowski]

I'm trying to setup Tomcat for communicating with BB Push evaluation server to send Push messages to BB devices.

I have registered at BB and receive the following as my PPG Base URL:

PPG Base URL** https://cp3284.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com

Push Port: 32938

Am I supposed to configure Tomcat to forward all Push communications with the above URL and port?

Are there any othe BB Push URL's I need to set on Tomcat?  Note - I'm seeing http://pushapi.eval.blackberry.com in other posts and I'm not sure if I should be using with Tomcat.

Is there any way to confirm / test the connection to the BB Push server using a browser or telnet?

[mdandrea]

Hi,

Have you taken a look at the Push Service SDK from here:

https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/develop/platform_services/push_overview.html

If you run the installer on Windows or Linux (Mac OS is coming soon), you'll be able to install a version of Apache Tomcat that has a sample web app running on it (called the Debug Portal) that will allow you to send test pushes etc.

You would also need a push-enabled application (a push application to be installed on your BlackBerry) that can receive the pushes you send.  A sample Java push-enabled application (for pre-BlackBerry 10 devices) is included with the SDK that you can try / test out.

If you are developing for BlackBerry 10, there are sample push-enabled applications for Cascades, WebWorks, and Adobe AIR as well.

Matt

[mtarkowski]

Thanks Matt,

I already have the link and docs.  What I'm looking for is clarification on what URL's are to be used, and a method to confirm the evaulation push service is available.

[mdandrea]

You should use the

https://cpxxxx.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com

URL rather than

https://pushapi.eval.blackberry.com.

Using https://pushapi.eval.blackberry.com is effectively deprecated (it will still work, but might not in the future).

The PPG base URL (i.e. https://cpxxxx.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com) is basically the base URL that you send your PAP XML push requests to.  It's just the base part of the URL and the full URL is   https://cpxxxx.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com/mss/PD_pushRequest

The push port is actually the port on your device that the application will receive pushes on.  For BlackBerry 10 devices, the port is not used anymore, but is still important for pre-BlackBerry 10 devices.

Also important in the email you received after signing up to use the BlackBerry Push Service is the application ID and password.  Those will be needed to successfully send pushes.

Matt

[mtarkowski]

Thanks again Matt,

So if I understand you correctly the port 32938 is for the device and NOT the port my server uses to communicate with the BB Push server.  

What concerns me is when I type the PPG Base URL** https://cp3284.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com into a browser (port 80) I get server not found error.  If I append the port to the URL https://cp3284.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com:32938 I also get server not found error.  I'm not expecting the browser to provide any real information but the server not found error usually means something is wrong.  Do you get the same message if you use your PPG Base URL with a browser?

[mdandrea]

https://cp3284.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com is just your base URL though.

If you try to hit the full URL, https://cp3284.pushapi.eval.blackberry.com/mss/PD_pushRequest, you should get a 401 error because it requires an application ID and password in order for you to be authorized to use it.

[mdandrea]

Oh, and to answer your other point, yes, it's simply a device port.

[mtarkowski]

Cannot thank you enough Matt, thanks again