How to set up a multitenancy application using ASP.NET MVC? - asp.net-mvc

A multitenancy application is an app that is shared by multiple organizations (medical practices, law offices..) and each organization, in turn, has it's own users. They all log on a centralized environment.
To be identified within the application, the organization must be expressed in the URL. There are two major URL forms for that. Subdomains and folders:
[tenancy_name].appname.com/projects/view/123
www.appname.com/[tenancy_name]/projects/view/123
At first I tried the second because this solution does not involve dealing with DNSs. But then the problem: Everytime the developer needs to express an url (#Html.Action or #Url.Action) it has to explicitly pass the [tenancy_name]. This adds an unwanted overhead to the development. A possible workaround would be to implement custom versions of these HTML helpers that automatically take into account the tenancy name. I'm considering this option but looking for something more straitghtforward. I also realized ASP.NET MVC automatically passes route values for outgoing URLs but only when the controller and action are the same as the current. It would be nice if route values were always passed.
To implement the first option, the subdomain one, I think, I would need some third party DNS manager. I heard of DynDNS and took a look at it but I thought it unclear how they work just looking at their site. Would I need to trigger a web-service to tell them to create another subdomain everytime a new tenancy is created? Do they support wildcards in the DNS? Do they work on Windows Azure or shared hostings?
I'm here looking for directions. Which way should I go?

look this project on codeplex, the "baseRoute" maybe can help you.
http://mvccoderouting.codeplex.com/
Regards.

Following made View resolution trivial in our app:
How to use:
For views that you need to overload for a particular tenant - treat them same way as custom display modes:
Following will work:
Index.cshtml
Index.cust2.mobile.cshtml
or
Partials/CustomerAgreement.cust1.cshtml
Partials/CustomerAgreement.cust2.cshtml
as far as I remember display/editor templates also work same way
Known issues:
1. You have to create Layouts for all combinations of primary+secondary (for whatever MVC-reason)
2. Regardless of what resharper is saying about its support of display modes - it does not support "." as part of the display mode name (here's an issue to track progress http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-422413)
//put in application start --------
DisplayModeProvider.Instance.Modes.Clear();
foreach (var displayMode in GetDisplayModes())
{
DisplayModeProvider.Instance.Modes.Add(displayMode);
}
private IEnumerable<IDisplayMode> GetDisplayModes()
{
return new CompoundDisplayModeBuilder()
.AddPrimaryFilter(_ => dependencyResolver.GetService(typeof(IResolveCustomerFromUrl)).GetName(),
"cust1",
"cust2")
.AddSecondaryFilter(ctx => ctx.Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice, "mobile")
.BuildDisplayModes();
}
//end of application start part
//and the mode builder implementation:
public class CompoundDisplayModeBuilder
{
private readonly IList<DefaultDisplayMode> _primaryDisplayModes = new List<DefaultDisplayMode>();
private readonly IList<DefaultDisplayMode> _secondaryDisplayModes = new List<DefaultDisplayMode>();
//NOTE: this is just a helper method to make it easier to specify multiple tenants in 1 line in global asax
//You can as well remove it and add all tenants one by one, especially if resolution delegates are different
public CompoundDisplayModeBuilder AddPrimaryFilter(Func<HttpContextBase, string> contextEval, params string[] valuesAsSuffixes)
{
foreach (var suffix in valuesAsSuffixes)
{
var val = suffix;
AddPrimaryFilter(ctx => string.Equals(contextEval(ctx), val, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase), val);
}
return this;
}
public CompoundDisplayModeBuilder AddPrimaryFilter(Func<HttpContextBase, bool> contextCondition, string suffix)
{
_primaryDisplayModes.Add(new DefaultDisplayMode(suffix) { ContextCondition = contextCondition });
return this;
}
public CompoundDisplayModeBuilder AddSecondaryFilter(Func<HttpContextBase, bool> contextCondition, string suffix)
{
_secondaryDisplayModes.Add(new DefaultDisplayMode(suffix) { ContextCondition = contextCondition });
return this;
}
public IEnumerable<IDisplayMode> BuildDisplayModes()
{
foreach (var primaryMode in _primaryDisplayModes)
{
var primaryCondition = primaryMode.ContextCondition;
foreach (var secondaryMode in _secondaryDisplayModes)
{
var secondaryCondition = secondaryMode.ContextCondition;
yield return new DefaultDisplayMode(primaryMode.DisplayModeId + "." + secondaryMode.DisplayModeId){
ContextCondition = ctx => primaryCondition(ctx) && secondaryCondition(ctx)
};
}
}
foreach (var primaryFilter in _primaryDisplayModes)
{
yield return primaryFilter;
}
foreach (var secondaryFilter in _secondaryDisplayModes)
{
yield return secondaryFilter;
}
yield return new DefaultDisplayMode();
}
}

Related

Using SQLDependency or SqlCacheDependency with Repository pattern

I am building an ASP.NET MVC application using the Repository pattern. A typical method in my Repository is as follows
public IList<T> Select<T>(string cacheKey, string Sql, object filter) where T: new()
{
IList<T> items = MemoryCache.Default.Get(cacheKey) as IList<T>;
if (items == null || !items.Any())
{
items = Connection.Select<T>(Sql, filter);
MemoryCache.Default.Add(cacheKey, items, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(120));
}
return items;
}
and it is being used as follows
IEnumerable<OSADCOL> osadcols = Repository.Select<OSADCOL>("OSADCOLS__TblId=" + Id, "TBLid = #id", new { id = Id });
In the above mentioned example OSADCOL is a model in my app and represents a Table with the same name in my Database. The Connection.Select function is ORMlite function. I don't use Entity Framework for performance issues. My problem is the following. I am currently cashing the result set for future relevance but I am doing it in a hard coded way. I am caching the result set for 2 hours. It is obvious that a proper implementation would be to discard my cashed data when the OSADCOL's table data changes. It seems that I have to use SQLDependency or SQLCacheDependency. The questions are the following:
How am I going to use SQLDependency or SQLCacheDependency with this Repository?
What is the actual difference between these 2?
It is mentioned in some forums that SQLDependency creates memory leaks? Is that true? And If yes is there an alternative approach?
Any Ideas?

MvcSiteMapProvider ISiteMapBuilder in conjunction with IDynamicNodeProvider

I'm using MvcSiteMapProvider 4.4.3 to dynamically build a sitemap from the database. I'm following this article: https://github.com/maartenba/MvcSiteMapProvider/wiki/Multiple-Sitemaps-in-One-Application because I'm using multiple sitemaps.
This works and this is the basic structure which is returned:
Home
News
Products
About
Contact
One of the nodes (/Products) should be dynamically populated again based on different data. So for this I need a IDynamicNodeProvider implementation on the /Productsnode? (please correct me if i'm wrong?)
Anyway, I think I do need the above. Documentation shows ways to do this on a node defined in XML and on a node defined using attributes on controller actions, but not 'manually' in a ISiteMapBuilder. So if I set the .DynamicNodeProvider property of the ISiteMapNode instance it doesn't seem to get instantiated... The .HasDynamicNodeProvider property also returns false.
Looking at the source, i see PluginProvider-stuff which is related to DynamicNodeProviderStrategy and there you go, they've lost me...
How do I create a ISiteMapNode for "/Products" in my ISiteMapBuilder so that it's descendents (/Products/Cat and /Products/Cat/Product) are dynamically loaded from the database?
You can do this with ISiteMapBuilder, but you are probably better off instead implementing ISiteMapNodeProvider. The reason is because adding the nodes to the SiteMap must be done at the very end of the process after all nodes have been instantiated to ensure that every node is correctly mapped to a parent node (except of course, the root node which doesn't need a parent). This was the major design change that was done in 4.3.0.
The default SiteMapBuilder class is now already set up to ensure
The nodes are properly mapped to their parent nodes
There is only 1 root node
All nodes are added to the SiteMap
The visitors are executed last after the SiteMap is completely built
It dosen't make sense to add more than one ISiteMapBuilder instance because this makes it possible to circumvent this important logic. Therefore, it is best if you do not implement ISiteMapBuilder, but instead implement ISiteMapNodeProvider.
The SiteMapBuilder class takes an ISiteMapNodeProvider as a dependency through its constructor. You can use the CompositeSiteMapNodeProvider class to handle multiplicity on this interface so you can add more than one ISiteMapNodeProvider implementation, if needed.
The ISiteMapNodeProvider interface looks like this:
public interface ISiteMapNodeProvider
{
IEnumerable<ISiteMapNodeToParentRelation> GetSiteMapNodes(ISiteMapNodeHelper helper);
}
There is just 1 method to implement. In addition, many of the common (but optional) services are injected through the interface automatically from the SiteMapBuilder class through ISiteMapNodeHelper.
This class is at a lower level than IDynamicNodeProvider. You are interacting with ISiteMapNode directly, but all interaction with the SiteMap class is handled by SiteMapBuilder. The ISiteMapNode is wrapped in a ISiteMapNodeToParentRelation instance, which is just there to ensure that its parent node key can be tracked until the time it is added to the SiteMap object.
Your SiteMapNodeProvider should look something like this:
public class CustomSiteMapNodeProvider
: ISiteMapNodeProvider
{
private readonly string sourceName = "CustomSiteMapNodeProvider";
#region ISiteMapNodeProvider Members
public IEnumerable<ISiteMapNodeToParentRelation> GetSiteMapNodes(ISiteMapNodeHelper helper)
{
var result = new List<ISiteMapNodeToParentRelation>();
using (var db = new DatabaseContextClass())
{
foreach (var category in db.Categories.ToList())
{
var categoryRelation = this.GetCategoryRelation("Products", category, helper);
result.Add(categoryRelation);
}
foreach (var product in db.Products.Include("Category"))
{
var productRelation = this.GetProductRelation("Category_" + product.CategoryId, product, helper);
result.Add(productRelation);
}
}
return result;
}
#endregion
protected virtual ISiteMapNodeToParentRelation GetCategoryRelation(string parentKey, Category category, ISiteMapNodeHelper helper)
{
string key = "Category_" + category.Id;
var result = helper.CreateNode(key, parentKey, this.sourceName);
var node = result.Node;
node.Title = category.Name;
// Populate other node properties here
// Important - always set up your routes (including any custom params)
node.Area = "MyArea"; // Required - set to empty string if not using areas
node.Controller = "Category"; // Required
node.Action = "Index"; // Required
node.RouteValues.Add("id", category.Id.ToString());
return result;
}
protected virtual ISiteMapNodeToParentRelation GetProductRelation(string parentKey, Product product, ISiteMapNodeHelper helper)
{
string key = "Product_" + product.Id;
var result = helper.CreateNode(key, parentKey, this.sourceName);
var node = result.Node;
node.Title = product.Name;
// Populate other node properties here
// Important - always set up your routes (including any custom params)
node.Area = "MyArea"; // Required - set to empty string if not using areas
node.Controller = "Product"; // Required
node.Action = "Index"; // Required
node.RouteValues.Add("id", product.Id.ToString());
node.RouteValues.Add("categoryId", product.CategoryId.ToString()); // Optional - use if you have a many-to-many relationship.
return result;
}
}
The above example assumes that you have added a node by other means that has the key set to "Products", which all categories will be children of. You can of course adjust this to meet your needs.
It is typically best if you only implement this interface 1 time and use a single database connection to load the entire SiteMap. You can always refactor this into multiple classes that each handle a single table on your side of the interface to separate concerns. But it is generally best if you put all of the key mapping logic between related entities together to make it easier to maintain.
For additional examples of implementations of this interface, see XmlSiteMapNodeProvider and ReflectionSiteMapNodeProvider.

Role-based navigation display in MVC4 Bootstrap Sample

How are you supposed to conditionally display menu items based on roles in the Bootstrap Sample project? I was thinking of doing the following
Implement INavigatonRouteFilter - really just implementing the shouldRemove(Route navigationRoutes) method - by getting the default controller/action for the route and seeing if the user is authorized
Call NavigationRoutes.Filters.Add(myAuthorizationFilter) after configuring the NavigationRoutes in App_Start
There are two problems I see with this approach:
I don't actually know how to do the first step unless I add in a bunch of conditional statements to check for Controller's name explicitly
This seems like it could make NavigationRoutes.Filters very hard to deal with once there are a lot of filters or a desire for more modularity later on
I don't know that I've explained the problem clearly enough, but basically I want to use what is provided in the Bootstrap sample to implement authorization-based navigation menu display if at all possible. Using INavigationRouteFilter just seemed like the most natural way to do so.
For those looking for an answer or at least a quick fix.
Here's what I've come up with after 5 minutes and I most certainly haven't though about any side effects this may have.
routes.MapNavigationRoute<HomeController>("Index", c => c.Index())
.FilterRoute(() => !WebSecurity.IsAuthenticated);
You can either do all your filtering in your call to FilterRoute() or you can add more extension methods to save you some characters.
I'm thinking of .RequireRole("Adiministrators"); that calls WebSecurity.RequireRoles() in turn (or HttpContext.Current.User.IsInRole()) etc.
public static NavigationRouteBuilder FilterRoute(this NavigationRouteBuilder builder, Func<bool> func)
{
var currentRoute = builder._parent;
NavigationRoutes.Filters.Add(new BootstrapAuthorizationFilter(builder, x =>
{
if (x == currentRoute)
return func();
else
return false;
}));
return builder;
}
and BootstrapAuthorizationFilter is just a class implementing INavigationRouteFilter that calls func() in its ShouldRemove() method
public class BootstrapAuthorizationFilter : INavigationRouteFilter
{
private NavigationRouteBuilder builder;
private Func<NamedRoute, bool> func;
public BootstrapAuthorizationFilter(NavigationRouteBuilder builder, Func<NamedRoute, bool> func)
{
this.builder = builder;
this.func = func;
}
public bool ShouldRemove(Route navigationRoutes)
{
if (navigationRoutes is NamedRoute)
return func(navigationRoutes as NamedRoute);
return false;
}
}
Clearly nothing fancy and I'm not sure if I'd use it in production.
But I think is simple enough and works (for the cases I tested).
Having said that, I hope the new routing functionality is going to be released soon :)

Automatic discovery of automapper configurations

When you create a controller in MVC, you don't have to do any additional registration for it. Same goes with adding areas. As long as your global.asax has an AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas() call, no additional setup is necessary.
With AutoMapper, we have to register the mappings using some kind of CreateMap<TSource, TDestination> call. One can do these explicitly with the static Mapper.CreateMap, or by deriving from the AutoMapper.Profile class,overriding the Configure method, and calling CreateMap from there.
It seems to me like one should be able to scan an assembly for classes that extend from Profile like MVC scans for classes that extend from Controller. With this kind of mechanism, shouldn't it be possible to create mappings simply by creating a class that derives from Profile? Does any such library tool exist, or is there something built into automapper?
I don't know if such tool exists, but writing one should be pretty trivial:
public static class AutoMapperConfiguration
{
public static void Configure()
{
Mapper.Initialize(x => GetConfiguration(Mapper.Configuration));
}
private static void GetConfiguration(IConfiguration configuration)
{
var assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies();
foreach (var assembly in assemblies)
{
var profiles = assembly.GetTypes().Where(x => x != typeof(Profile) && typeof(Profile).IsAssignableFrom(x));
foreach (var profile in profiles)
{
configuration.AddProfile((Profile)Activator.CreateInstance(profile));
}
}
}
}
and then in your Application_Start you could autowire:
AutoMapperConfiguration.Configure();
As a slight improvement to the answer from #Darin Dimitrov, in AutoMapper 5 you can give it a list of Assemblies to scan like this:
//--As of 2016-09-22, AutoMapper blows up if you give it dynamic assemblies
var assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
.Where(x => !x.IsDynamic);
//--AutoMapper will find all of the classes that extend Profile and will add them automatically
Mapper.Initialize(cfg => cfg.AddProfiles(assemblies));

ASP.NET MVC tests with MSpec. Is this correct or needs refactoring?

I'm new to MSpec and would like to know if the way I wrote my test for ASP.NET MVC is correct. The test passes but I don't really like the way it's written and it seems awkward. I'm certainly missing something.
public class AccountControllerTests3
{
protected static AccountController controller;
static IFormsAuthenticationService formsService;
static IMembershipService membershipService;
protected static ActionResult result;
protected static LogOnModel model;
Establish context = () =>
{
var controllerBuilder = new TestControllerBuilder();
formsService = MockRepository.GenerateStub<IFormsAuthenticationService>();
membershipService = MockRepository.GenerateStub<IMembershipService>();
model = MockRepository.GenerateStub<LogOnModel>();
controller =
controllerBuilder.CreateController<AccountController>(new object[]
{
formsService,
membershipService
});
};
Because user_logs = () =>
{
bool rememberMe = false;
membershipService.Stub(
x => x.ValidateUser("bdd", "mspec")).Return(true);
formsService.Stub(x => x.SignIn("bdd", rememberMe));
controller.ModelState.IsValid.ShouldBeTrue();
};
}
[Subject(typeof(AccountController), "LogInTests")]
public class When_logging_into_application_with_good_login_and_password : AccountControllerTests3
{
private It user_should_be_redirected_to_the_home_page = () =>
{
model.UserName = "bdd";
model.Password = "mspec";
result = controller.LogOn(model, string.Empty);
result.AssertActionRedirect().ToAction<HomeController>(
x => x.Index());
};
}
[Subject(typeof(AccountController), "LogInTests")]
public class When_logging_into_application_with_bad_login_and_password : AccountControllerTests3
{
It The_error_message_should_be_shown = () =>
{
model.UserName = "BAD";
model.Password = "BAD";
result = controller.LogOn(model, string.Empty);
controller.ModelState[""].Errors[0].ErrorMessage.ShouldEqual(
"The user name or password provided is incorrect.");
};
}
Thanks in advance,
Thomas
One of my goals when I write tests with MSpec is to get the "Assert" or the "It" down to one line. MSpec is not like NUnit in that it only executes the Context (made up of the Establish clauses from the current class and all base classes and the Because clause) once followed by all of the Specifications (It clauses).
This is designed explicitly to force you to not perform any behavior in the It clauses, but rather observe it.
What you're actually doing here is using MSpec like NUnit. Try and rewrite the tests in a single class (using no inheritance). Work backwards... in the It, place a single line that asserts what you want to assert. Perhaps the AssertRedirect. In the Because, try and put a single line that causes the observations to be observable. This would probably be your call to the controller's logon method. Finally, in the "Establish context" you'd want to put everything else.
After a while, you may want to pull some of the things in the Establish context only into a base class, but in doing so, be sure that your entire subclass stands alone in terms of understanding. A reader shouldn't need to read the base class in order to understand what the actual spec is doing. It's ok to hide ceremonial implementation details, but be sure to hide them behind descriptive method names.
There's another line I'm not sure about:
controller.ModelState.IsValid.ShouldBeTrue();
If this is a test, it should probably be in its own It clause. Though really, do you want to test this? What are you testing here? Shouldn't your controller take an action based on whether or not the model is valid? Shouldn't the result of that action be observable (validation error instead of login error). I just wonder if you really need to test this.
A few other things to check out, first for styling with R#, it seems your tests are falling victim to R#'s defaults. I posted about how to fight this here:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/aaron.jensen/archive/2008/10/19/getting-resharper-and-vs-to-play-nice-with-mspec.aspx
Also, James Broome has some nice MVC MSpec extensions that are worth checking out:
http://jamesbroo.me/introducing-machinespecificationsmvc/
Good luck and Enjoy! Feel free to ping me on twitter if you have any other unrelated questions.
Here's a remark: instead of using CreateController method use InitializeController, because it is compile-time safer and refactor friendlier.
Instead of:
controller = controllerBuilder.CreateController<AccountController>(
new object[] { formsService, membershipService });
Do:
controller = new AccountController(formsService, membershipService);
controllerBuilder.InitializeController(controller);
The first will still compile if you change the controller constructor arguments and it will blow at runtime, while the second will generate a compile-time error.

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