Enabling a channel layer
Channel layers allow you to communicate between different instances of an application. A channel layer is the transport mechanism that allows multiple consumer instances to communicate with each other and with other parts of Django.
In your chat server, you plan to have multiple instances of the ChatConsumer consumer for the same course chat room. Each student who joins the chat room will instantiate the WebSocket client in their browser, and that will open a connection with an instance of the WebSocket consumer. You need a common channel layer to distribute messages between consumers.
Channels and groups
Channel layers provide two abstractions to manage communications: channels and groups:
- Channel: You can think of a channel as an inbox where messages can be sent to or as a task queue. Each channel has a name. Messages are sent to a channel by anyone who knows the channel name and then given to consumers listening on that channel. ...
