We are trying to inject the current http context (so we can get authentication info, e.g the forms authentication etc...)from our asp.net mvc web site into our service constructors. Our services are WCF and we are using Castle Windsor at the client and service layers. Is it possible to do this entirely from configuration? Does any one know the best way to go about this?
EDIT: our services layer will run on a different physical tier to the web site
I think you can use something like HttpContextBase/HttpContextWrapper as dicusssed here : Castle.Windsor and HttpContextWrapper
Related
After getting an advice about using ServiceStack for my asp.net MVC website
(Maintaining state in Asp.Net MVC website), I started implementing it in my project - but some stuff is still unclear for me.
Currently I have two projects: one is the asp.net MVC project and the other is the BL project (a class library that holds all the business logic).
All controllers in the MVC project make calls to classes/functions in the BL project.
For now, the mvc project loads the BL's DLL, but in the future when the website will grow, the BL's project will run on separate machines.
I would like to use ServiceStack for session management/caching and authentication (which both of them usually depended on each other).
My questions:
1) Is it possible to use only these two features without the functionality of message based web service? ServiceStack need to be initialized, and it throws me an error when initialized twice (in both projects).
2) Is it possible to split the implementation of ServiceStack between the two projects? I would like to maintain the process of authentication in the BL project using the ServiceStack's authentication providers, but handle all the UI/cookies by myself (or with the help of ServiceStack) in the mvc project.
3) I would like to use ServiceStack's caching in the BL project, but I guess that I still need to maintain some session cookies to receive the session id. What is the right way to do it? Are there any built-in helper functions for this purpose?
Thanks in advance!
1) Is it possible to use only these two features without the functionality of message based web service? ServiceStack need to be initialized, and it throws me an error when initialized twice (in both projects).
If you install the latest ServiceStack.Mvc NuGet package you will get the base ServiceStackController which is an MVC Controller providing convenient access to ServiceStack's built-in providers. Although you still need to auto-wire your controllers with the dependencies it needs, e.g. an injected ICacheClient.
Although even if you're not using ServiceStack's WebFramework, having an AppHost is a convenient place to register your dependencies. ServiceStack is triggered by ASP.NET's IHttpHandler mappings specified in the Web.config, so if you don't have any mappings specified ServiceStack is never able to be called externally, but the registered dependencies are still able to be accessed internally with:
var cache = AppHost.Resolve<ICacheClient>(); //Get ICacheClient for SS IOC
2) Is it possible to split the implementation of ServiceStack between the two projects?
If you do have an AppHost, you cannot have more than one instance in a host project (by design) since an AppHost should be analogous to a host project where all your service dependencies should be registered and settings configured that apply to your entire web application or service.
You can however split the implementation of your services across multiple assemblies and have ServiceStack scan them all by specifying them in your AppHostBase constructor, e.g:
public class AppHost : AppHostBase
{
public AppHost() : base("My Service",
typeof(AServiceInDll1).Assembly, typeof(AServiceInDll2).Assembly/*, etc.*/){}
}
2) cont. I would like to maintain the process of authentication in the BL project using the ServiceStack's authentication providers, but handle all the UI/cookies by myself (or with the help of ServiceStack) in the mvc project.
Look at the ServiceStack.UseCases CustomAuthenticationMvc example project for an example of using MVC but authenticating with ServiceStack.
3) I would like to use ServiceStack's caching in the BL project, but I guess that I still need to maintain some session cookies to receive the session id. What is the right way to do it? Are there any built-in helper functions for this purpose?
You can use any of ServiceStack's Caching providers just like any other C# class, i.e. have your Business Logic binded to ICacheClient and inject the concrete implementation in your IOC.
For sessions you can use the base.SessionAs<T> method in the ServiceStack.Mvc ServiceStackController to access the session. To Save back the session you can use the IHttpRequest.SaveSession() extension methods. Although both these methods require the ASP.NET context (it uses ASP.NET's HttpContext singleton if not provided) to work since it relies on ServiceStack's ss-id/ss-pid cookies that are automatically instructed to be added on the client (by the server) whenever you access the Session.
If you don't want your business logic services to have a dependency on ASP.NET's System.Web I recommend accessing and saving the session to be done in your controllers and passed to your business logic.
I recommend reading the Sessions Wiki Page for more background info on how ServiceStack's sessions work.
Integration of ASP.NET Context between ServiceStack and ASP.NET or MVC
I'll add this info since it's useful for anyone doing advanced integration between ServiceStack and ASP.NET or MVC as some of ServiceStack's extension methods rely on these built-in types.
You can create a ServiceStack IHttpRequest or IHttpResponse (within any HTTP/Controller request) with:
var ssHttpRequest = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.ToRequest();
var ssHttpResponse = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ToResponse();
Finally you can create a complete request context (that encapsulates both a IHttpRequest and IHttpResponse) with:
var ssRequestContext = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.ToRequestContext();
Not sure I fully grasp your questions and how you would like to split the projects across multiple servers. I'll try my best to answer your questions...
Is it possible to use only these two features without the functionality of message based web service? ServiceStack need to be initialized, and it throws me an error when initialized twice
It seems like you're trying to run 2 instances of ServiceStack (maybe even 2 websites) within one solution (one in your web project and once in your BL layer). I don't think that's possible. Your BL layer can share ServiceStack libraries and you can configure (within AppHost.Configure method) those in your web project that references your BL project.
Is it possible to split the implementation of ServiceStack between the two projects?
I think the answer is yes, but you would have have one instance of ServiceStack used by both the projects. This would share the Session state across the projects. There might be a way to have two projects with there own instances of ServiceStack...see https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Self-hosting.
I would like to use ServiceStack's caching in the BL project, but I guess that I still need to maintain some session cookies to receive the session id.
If ServiceStack is being used across both projects you can access all session data in UserSession (https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Sessions). If you MVC Controllers inherit from ServiceStackController you can use SessionFeature.GetSessionId() to get the session Id. In your ServiceStack Service (classes that implement Service) you can get the session data from using base.Session.
Hope this helps.
I have a requirement for project to build a ASP.NET MVC4 (razor engine) "Front-end" and a WCF service as "backend" (with a sql server 2012 database).
A requirement is to login, register etc. I want to put this logic in the backend, but in the front-end I would like to make use of the [AllowAnonymous] and the logic to authenticate a user with roles (for example use of formauthentication, webmatrix.WebSecurity, Membership provider?).
Is it possible to realize? Do I have to create a login and register (and roles etc.) features by myself? Or can I use a built-in features/libraries of the ASP.NET MVC or WCF? Or both?
Could you give some examples/suggestions/tutorials to realize this?
Thanks in advance
I think this should work for you:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386582.aspx
Edit: To elaborate you can use custom logic for WCF authentication including calling the ASP.NET membership providers which should work fine with MVC and the security attributes you mentioned.
Or is the WCF service on another server and you want to call from your ASP.NET controller to your WCF service for authentication? This is a bit more complex, but you should be able to do it by implementing your own Membership provider.
Depending on the scenario you can reuse some or all of the login and register views that come with MVC.
Edit: In the second scenario here are some pointers that might help:
http://singlesignon.codeplex.com/ - Seems to be what you need, but I didn't check out the code.
Custom membership that uses web service for authentication - No code, but it confirms that it should work.
Is it possible to host in the same appDomain two different projects of WCF service and MVC application?
For example, I need to use some pulic static class from MVC application by my WCF service. But they are in different projects, so this class for them is in different appDomains.
It is quite common to host WCF services within an ASP.NET application (MVC or WebForms). From a coding perspective, the only thing you may need to configure is ASP.NET compatibility mode, if the code WCF is calling requires access to the current HTTP context.
Create your WCF service contracts, and implementations of those contracts, configure your services, bindings, and behaviors in the web.config, as you normally would. Here is another example, which you could create in virtually any ASP.NET application.
I'm a little new to DI containers like StructureMap and I've been using it for a short time with asp.net mvc applications. Now I'm splitting my architecture that will have a WCF service layer and a sort of consumers like ASP.NET MVC app, Silverlight App, And Winfors/WPF App. When using SM with asp.net mvc I've been initializing the IOC by the app startup of the asp.net mvc, now, using for many project I can't think a good place where the IOC config should be located.
I want to make DI in the services layer too(injecting Repositories).
In this scenario, where I do load my IOC config and how I'll use across the projects(like the controller factory is needed only in the asp.net mvc app)?
You create and configure a container per application.
If you have an ASP.NET MVC site, you create and configure a container instance in Global.asax.
In a WCF service you can write a custom ServiceHostFactory that spins up a custom ServiceHost that again attaches an appropriate IInstanceProvider that uses a container instance to wire up the WCF service. That sounds complicated, and it definitely is more complicated than it ought to be. I have previously touched on this subject in a completely different context, but this blog post should give you some hints - particularly if you keep in mind that delegates are anonymous interfaces.
I have a prototype ASP.NET-MVC website which uses Ninject as a IoC container. All service-classes and repository-classes used by MVC Controllers are properly injected by Ninject. This is great.
The next thing I need to add there is Silverlight (version 3 to be more precise).
Silverlight will be connecting to my server using WCF service, hosted in ASP compatibility mode, to the same ASP.NET-MVC website.
What Silverlight needs is to 'download'/'get' a kind of ViewModel using WCF (the better name would be Client-Side Model). This is also possible - I imported WCF service and setup all security-related xml configuration files.
Here is the stuff I want to know....
Is that OK that model returned by WCF service is rather complex and includes arrays and inheritance (at array items' level)... or maybe there is another and better way to send it from server to client?
At Server-Side for regular asp-mvc stuff all service-classes used by controllers are injected by Ninject. How to inject services for WCF-service classes?
Do WCF service has an access to HttpContext.Current.Items? I need to grab from here logged User Id and a few profile-related data (regular forms auth. stuff).
EDIT
Ad 3. It's possible enabling AspNetCompatibilityRequirements
Has anybody ideas for point 2?
For the 1st Question.
Yes it is okay to return a complex structure, provided you have explicitly applied the '[DataMember]' attribute to each and every needed property of the Object/s.