Our application is hosted as a Cloud Service in Azure and we have all our connection strings and other connection-like settings defined in the ServiceConfiguration files. We are also using a Redis Cache as the session state store. We are trying to specify the Redis Cache host and access key in the ServiceConfig and then use those values for the deployment depending on where the bits land. The problem is session is defined in the web.config and we can't pull RoleEnvironment settings into the web.config.
We tried altering the web.config in the Application_Startup method but get errors that access is denied to the web.config on startup, which makes sense.
We don't really want to write deployment scripts to give the Network Service user access to the web.config.
Is there a way to setup session to use a different Redis Cache at runtime of the application?
The error that we are getting is "Access to the path 'E:\sitesroot\0\web.config' is denied'. I read an article that gave some examples on how to give the Network Service user access to the web.config as part of the role starting process and did that and then now we have access to the file but now get the following error "Unable to save config to file 'E:\sitesroot\0\web.config'."
We ended up being able to solve this using the ServerManager API in the WebRole.OnStart method. We did something like this:
using (var server = new ServerManager())
{
try
{
Site site = server.Sites[RoleEnvironment.CurrentRoleInstance.Id + "_Web"];
string physicalPath = site.Applications["/"].VirtualDirectories["/"].PhysicalPath;
string webConfigPath = Path.Combine(physicalPath, "web.config");
var doc = System.Xml.Linq.XDocument.Load(webConfigPath);
var redisCacheProviderSettings = doc.Descendants("sessionState").Single().Descendants("providers").Single().Descendants("add").Single();
redisCacheProviderSettings.SetAttributeValue("host", RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SessionRedisCacheHost"));
redisCacheProviderSettings.SetAttributeValue("accessKey", RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SessionRedisCacheAccessKey"));
redisCacheProviderSettings.SetAttributeValue("ssl", "true");
redisCacheProviderSettings.SetAttributeValue("throwOnError", "false");
doc.Save(webConfigPath);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// Log error
}
}
I have multiple projects being hosted in IIS. These all share a database, which is called using EF6. I want to be able to use a shared connection string config file which I can reference from each of the other projects' web.config. This way, I'm able to manage any chances to the connection string from a single location. From what I've found online, I'm trying to accomplish this through a Virtual Directory and the configSource attribute for the connectionString.
IIS structure
-VirtualDirectory (mapped to /DbConfigFile)
-WebApp 1
-WebApp 2
-WebApp 3
WebApps' Web.config connectionString sections
<connectionStrings configSource="/DbConfigFile/testDB.config"></connectionStrings>
The external config file (testDB.config) containing the connectionString needed by all applications.
<connectionStrings>
<add name="TestDBEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/TestDB.csdl|res://*/TestDB.ssdl|res://*/TestDB.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string="data source=TestDB;initial catalog=VBODashboard;persist security info=True;user id=Test;password=Test;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;App=EntityFramework""
providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
</connectionStrings>
I've tried various paths in the configSource attribute with no luck (~/DbConfigFile/testDB.config, testDB.config). How would I access this file? Or is there a better way to accomplish this?
I ended up going with one of mason's suggestions and creating a custom configuration file. That let me to research finding out that a connection string can be specified through code when initializing the context. I then navigated through the XML file through code and extracted the connection string value. :
public partial class TestDBEntities : DbContext
{
public TestDBEntities()
: base(<calling code to get connection string> , true)
{
}
...
}
I've been pulling my hair out over this. Anytime a user registration email is sent out via my windows service (background task), I get an "Invalid link".
My setup
I'm using Hangfire as a windows service on our development server. This is where the problematic GenerateEmailConfirmationToken call is happening. It's in a completely different context, outside of the ASP.NET pipeline. So I have setup machineKey values to correspond with that in the web.config of the MVC application:
In the app.config of the Windows Service Console project, which transforms to MyApp.exe.config, I have a machineKey element
In the MVC 5 project - I have a machineKey element that matches the MyApp.exe.config machineKey element.
I've verified that BOTH of these have the same machine key element data.
The Problem
When I generate a user using the ASP.NET MVC context and pipeline (IE without going through the Hangfire Background job processing), the link works fine.
When I use the background job processor, I always get invalid link. I'm all out of ideas here.
Why is this happening? Is it because the token is being generated in a different thread? How do I get around this?
Relevant code for the various projects
IoC Bootstrapping
Gets called by both applications (Windows Service and MVC Web App)
container.Register<IUserTokenProvider<AppUser, int>>(() => DataProtector.TokenProvider, defaultAppLifeStyle);
DataProtector.cs
public class DataProtector
{
public static IDataProtectionProvider DataProtectionProvider { get; set; }
public static DataProtectorTokenProvider<AppUser, int> TokenProvider { get; set; }
static DataProtector()
{
DataProtectionProvider = new MachineKeyProtectionProvider();
TokenProvider = new DataProtectorTokenProvider<AppUser, int>(DataProtectionProvider.Create("Confirmation", "ResetPassword"));
}
}
Things I've Tried
Using a DpapiDataProtectionProvider
Custom MachineKeyProtectionProvider from Generating reset password token does not work in Azure Website
The MachineKeyProtectionProvider.cs code is exactly as the linked post above.
I've also tried other purposes like "YourMom" and "AllYourTokensAreBelongToMe" to no avail. Single purposes, multiple purposes - it doesn't matter - none work.
I'm also calling HttpUtility.UrlEncode(code) on the code that gets generated in both places (Controller and Background Job).
Solution
igor got it right, except it was not a code issue. It was because of a rogue service picking up the job, which had a different machine key. I had been staring at the problem so long that I did not see a second service running.
As I understand your problem there are 2 possible places where failure could occur.
1. MachineKey
It could be that the MachineKey itself is not producing a consistent value between your 2 applications. This can happen if your machineKey in the .config file is not the same in both applications (I did read that you checked it but a simple type-o, added space, added to the wrong parent element, etc. could lead to this behavior.). This can be easily tested to rule it out as a point of failure. Also the behavior might be different depending on the referenced .net framework, MachineKey.Protect
The configuration settings that are required for the MachineKeyCompatibilityMode.Framework45 option are required for this method even if the MachineKeySection.CompatibilityMode property is not set to the Framework45 option.
I created a random key pair for testing and using this key I generated a test value I assigned to variable validValue below in the code. If you copy/paste the following section into your web.config and app.config the Unprotect of that keyvalue will work.
web.config / app.config
<system.web>
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.6.1"/>
<machineKey decryption="AES" decryptionKey="9ADCFD68D2089D79A941F9B8D06170E4F6C96E9CE996449C931F7976EF3DD209" validation="HMACSHA256" validationKey="98D92CC1E5688DB544A1A5EF98474F3758C6819A93CC97E8684FFC7ED163C445852628E36465DB4E93BB1F8E12D69D0A99ED55639938B259D0216BD2DF4F9E73" />
</system.web>
Service Application Test
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// should evaluate to SomeTestString
const string validValue = "03AD03E75A76CF13FDDA57425E9D362BA0FF852C4A052FD94F641B73CEBD3AC8B2F253BB45550379E44A4938371264BFA590F9E68E59DB57A9A4EB5B8B1CCC59";
var unprotected2 = MachineWrapper.Unprotect(validValue);
}
}
Mvc Controller (or Web Api controller) Test
public class WebTestController : Controller
{
// GET: WebTest
public ActionResult Index()
{
// should evaluate to SomeTestString
const string validValue = "03AD03E75A76CF13FDDA57425E9D362BA0FF852C4A052FD94F641B73CEBD3AC8B2F253BB45550379E44A4938371264BFA590F9E68E59DB57A9A4EB5B8B1CCC59";
var unprotected2 = MachineWrapper.Unprotect(validValue);
return View(unprotected2);
}
}
Common Code
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Web.Security;
namespace Common
{
public class MachineWrapper
{
public static string Protect()
{
var testData = "SomeTestString";
return BytesToString(MachineKey.Protect(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(testData), "PasswordSafe"));
}
public static string Unprotect(string data)
{
var bytes = StringToBytes(data);
var result = MachineKey.Unprotect(bytes, "PasswordSafe");
return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(result);
}
public static byte[] StringToBytes(string hex)
{
return Enumerable.Range(0, hex.Length)
.Where(x => x % 2 == 0)
.Select(x => Convert.ToByte(hex.Substring(x, 2), 16))
.ToArray();
}
public static string BytesToString(byte[] bytes)
{
var hex = new StringBuilder(bytes.Length * 2);
foreach (byte b in bytes)
hex.AppendFormat("{0:x2}", b);
return hex.ToString().ToUpper();
}
}
}
If this passes both Console and the Web Application will get the same value and not throw a CryptographicException message Error occurred during a cryptographic operation. If you want to test with your own keys just run Protect from the common MachineWrapper class and record the value and re-execute for both apps.
2. UserManager uses Wrong Type
I would start with the previous section BUT the other failure point is that your custom machine key provider is not being used by the Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.UserManager. So here are some questions/action items that can help you figure out why this is happening:
Is container.Register the Unity IoC framework or are you using another framework?
Are you sure that your Di framework is also injecting that instance in the Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.UserManager in both the Service application as well as the Web application?
Have put a break point in public byte[] Protect of your MachineKeyDataProtector class to see if this is called in both the Service application as well as the Web application?
From examples I have seen so far (including the one you posted with the custom MachineKey solution) you need to manually bootstrap the type during application startup but then again I have not ever tried to hook into the Identity framework to replace this component using DI.
If you look at the default Visual Studio template code that is provided when you create a new MVC application the code file App_Start\IdentityConfig.cs would be the place to add this new provider.
Method:
public static ApplicationUserManager Create(IdentityFactoryOptions<ApplicationUserManager> options, IOwinContext context)
Replace
var dataProtectionProvider = options.DataProtectionProvider;
if (dataProtectionProvider != null)
{
manager.UserTokenProvider = new DataProtectorTokenProvider<ApplicationUser>(dataProtectionProvider.Create("ASP.NET Identity"));
}
With this
var provider = new MachineKeyProtectionProvider();
manager.UserTokenProvider = new DataProtectorTokenProvider<ApplicationUser>(provider.Create("ResetPasswordPurpose"));
And this has to be configured for both applications if you are not using a common library where this is configured.
I have a form:
#using (Html.BeginForm(new { ReturnUrl = ViewBag.ReturnUrl })) {
#Html.AntiForgeryToken()
#Html.ValidationSummary()...
and action:
[HttpPost]
[AllowAnonymous]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Login(LoginModel model, string returnUrl, string City)
{
}
occasionally (once a week), I get the error:
The anti-forgery token could not be decrypted. If this application is
hosted by a Web Farm or cluster, ensure that all machines are running
the same version of ASP.NET Web Pages and that the configuration
specifies explicit encryption and validation keys. AutoGenerate cannot
be used in a cluster.
i try add to webconfig:
<machineKey validationKey="AutoGenerate,IsolateApps"
decryptionKey="AutoGenerate,IsolateApps" />
but the error still appears occasionally
I noticed this error occurs, for example when a person came from one computer and then trying another computer
Or sometimes an auto value set with incorrect data type like bool to integer to the form field by any jQuery code please also check it.
I just received this error as well and, in my case, it was caused by the anti-forgery token being applied twice in the same form. The second instance was coming from a partial view so wasn't immediately obvious.
validationKey="AutoGenerate"
This tells ASP.NET to generate a new encryption key for use in encrypting things like authentication tickets and antiforgery tokens every time the application starts up. If you received a request that used a different key (prior to a restart for instance) to encrypt items of the request (e.g. authenication cookies) that this exception can occur.
If you move away from "AutoGenerate" and specify it (the encryption key) specifically, requests that depend on that key to be decrypted correctly and validation will work from app restart to restart. For example:
<machineKey
validationKey="21F090935F6E49C2C797F69BBAAD8402ABD2EE0B667A8B44EA7DD4374267A75D7
AD972A119482D15A4127461DB1DC347C1A63AE5F1CCFAACFF1B72A7F0A281B"
decryptionKey="ABAA84D7EC4BB56D75D217CECFFB9628809BDB8BF91CFCD64568A145BE59719F"
validation="SHA1"
decryption="AES"
/>
You can read to your heart's content at MSDN page: How To: Configure MachineKey in ASP.NET
Just generate <machineKey .../> tag from a link for your framework version and insert into <system.web><system.web/> in Web.config if it does not exist.
Hope this helps.
If you get here from google for your own developer machine showing this error, try to clear cookies in the browser. Clear Browser cookies worked for me.
in asp.net Core you should set Data Protection system.I test in Asp.Net Core 2.1 or higher.
there are multi way to do this and you can find more information at Configure Data Protection and Replace the ASP.NET machineKey in ASP.NET Core and key storage providers.
first way: Local file (easy implementation)
startup.cs content:
public class Startup
{
public Startup(IConfiguration configuration, IWebHostEnvironment webHostEnvironment)
{
Configuration = configuration;
WebHostEnvironment = webHostEnvironment;
}
public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
public IWebHostEnvironment WebHostEnvironment { get; }
// This method gets called by the runtime.
// Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
// .... Add your services like :
// services.AddControllersWithViews();
// services.AddRazorPages();
// ----- finally Add this DataProtection -----
var keysFolder = Path.Combine(WebHostEnvironment.ContentRootPath, "temp-keys");
services.AddDataProtection()
.SetApplicationName("Your_Project_Name")
.PersistKeysToFileSystem(new DirectoryInfo(keysFolder))
.SetDefaultKeyLifetime(TimeSpan.FromDays(14));
}
}
second way: save to db
The Microsoft.AspNetCore.DataProtection.EntityFrameworkCore NuGet
package must be added to the project file
Add MyKeysConnection ConnectionString to your projects
ConnectionStrings in appsettings.json > ConnectionStrings >
MyKeysConnection.
Add MyKeysContext class to your project.
MyKeysContext.cs content:
public class MyKeysContext : DbContext, IDataProtectionKeyContext
{
// A recommended constructor overload when using EF Core
// with dependency injection.
public MyKeysContext(DbContextOptions<MyKeysContext> options)
: base(options) { }
// This maps to the table that stores keys.
public DbSet<DataProtectionKey> DataProtectionKeys { get; set; }
}
startup.cs content:
public class Startup
{
public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
Configuration = configuration;
}
public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
// This method gets called by the runtime.
// Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
// ----- Add this DataProtection -----
// Add a DbContext to store your Database Keys
services.AddDbContext<MyKeysContext>(options =>
options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("MyKeysConnection")));
// using Microsoft.AspNetCore.DataProtection;
services.AddDataProtection()
.PersistKeysToDbContext<MyKeysContext>();
// .... Add your services like :
// services.AddControllersWithViews();
// services.AddRazorPages();
}
}
If you use Kubernetes and have more than one pod for your app this will most likely cause the request validation to fail because the pod that generates the RequestValidationToken is not necessarily the pod that will validate the token when POSTing back to your application. The fix should be to configure your nginx-controller or whatever ingress resource you are using and tell it to load balance so that each client uses one pod for all communication.
Update: I managed to fix it by adding the following annotations to my ingress:
https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx/examples/affinity/cookie/
Name Description Values
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/affinity Sets the affinity type string (in NGINX only cookie is possible
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-name Name of the cookie that will be used string (default to INGRESSCOOKIE)
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-hash Type of hash that will be used in cookie value sha1/md5/index
I ran into this issue in an area of code where I had a view calling a partial view, however, instead of returning a partial view, I was returning a view.
I changed:
return View(index);
to
return PartialView(index);
in my control and that fixed my problem.
I got this error on .NET Core 2.1. I fixed it by adding the Data Protection service in Startup:
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDataProtection();
....
}
you are calling more than one the #Html.AntiForgeryToken() in your view
I get this error when the page is old ('stale'). A refresh of the token via a page reload resolves my problem. There seems to be some timeout period.
I found a very interesting workaround for this problem, at least in my case. My view was dynamically loading partial views with forms in a div using ajax, all within another form. the master form submits no problem, and one of the partials works but the other doesn't. The ONLY difference between the partial views was at the end of the one that was working was an empty script tag
<script type="text/javascript">
</script>
I removed it and sure enough I got the error. I added an empty script tag to the other partial view and dog gone it, it works! I know it's not the cleanest... but as far as speed and overhead goes...
I know I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to add another possible solution to this issue. I ran into the same problem on an MVC application I had. The code did not change for the better part of a year and all of the sudden we started receiving these kinds of error messages from the application.
We didn't have multiple instances of the anti-forgery token being applied to the view twice.
We had the machine key set at the global level to Autogenerate because of STIG requirements.
It was exasperating until I got part of the answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2207535/195350:
If your MachineKey is set to AutoGenerate, then your verification
tokens, etc won't survive an application restart - ASP.NET will
generate a new key when it starts up, and then won't be able to
decrypt the tokens correctly.
The issue was that the private memory limit of the application pool was being exceeded. This caused a recycle and, therefore, invalidated the keys for the tokens included in the form. Increasing the private memory limit for the application pool appears to have resolved the issue.
My fix for this was to get the cookie and token values like this:
AntiForgery.GetTokens(null, out var cookieToken, out var formToken);
For those getting this error on Google AppEngine or Google Cloud Run, you'll need to configure your ASP.NET Core website's Data Protection.
The documentation from the Google team is easy to follow and works.
https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/flexible/dotnet/application-security#aspnet_core_data_protection_provider
A general overview from the Microsoft docs can be found here:
https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/flexible/dotnet/application-security#aspnet_core_data_protection_provider
Note that you may also find you're having to login over and over, and other quirky stuff going on. This is all because Google Cloud doesn't do sticky sessions like Azure does and you're actually hitting different instances with each request.
Other errors logged, include:
Identity.Application was not authenticated. Failure message: Unprotect ticket failed
In my managed bean i need to access a mySql database.
So far i used code like this:
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/test";
String username = "user";
String password = "1234";
Connection connection = null;
try {
connection = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
Now i have to do this in more than one bean, so if i need to change the database credentials, i have to fiddle around in like 10 files.
Is there
a way to store the databaseconnection
a way to define some variables for the whole web project
Thanks in advance
First of all you should understand basic architecture of a Java EE project. It is not a good idea connecting databases in managed beans. It is really bad practice. Please have look my previous answer to understand basic architecture.
Database connections is done in Integration Tier and these classes are called Data Access Objects (DAO).
Create a BaseDao class for static connection properties.
class BaseDao
{
private String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/test";
private String username = "user";
private String password = "1234";
private Connection connection;
protected Connection getConnection()
{
connection = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
return connection;
}
}
and extend base class to its derived classes where database connection is needed and access connection by using BaseDao#getConnection().
Furthermore, it is better to keep database connections in a properties file and inject them into proper classes.
Related Tutorial
Read BalusC tutorial for better understanding DAO tutorial - the data layer
It is generally a good idea to store these kind of values in a .properties file. They can then be accessed via java.util.Properties (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Properties.html)
Here is a good tutorial describing how access these files and their values, I suggest you start with this: http://www.mkyong.com/java/java-properties-file-examples/
(More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.properties)
In my IDE, I usually create a new source package /src/main/config and put all my configuration-concerning .properties and .xml files in there. If you do it this way, you need to access it like this from within your jsf application:
String configFilePath = "configuration.properties";
props = new Properties();
InputStream propInStream = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(configFilePath);
props.load(propInStream);
Or you can simply do this:
How to get properties file from /WEB-INF folder in JSF?