Develop Reference

Azure SignalR Blazor app not receiving messages

I'm looking at incorporating Azure SignalR functionality into my .net core Blazor web application. To this end i've been following this tutorial - Azure Signalr Serverless. This is working fine - i have a project running the Azure functions app and can start up two browsers and have a chat session. What i'm trying to do is add the ability to receive these message notifications from the Azure signalR hub that's been configured into my Blazor app. I've added the following code in Index.razor.cs that mimics the javascript code in the example client:
public class IndexComponent : ComponentBase
{
private HubConnection _connection;
public string Message;
protected override Task OnInitializedAsync()
{
_connection = new HubConnectionBuilder()
.WithUrl("http://localhost:7071/api")
.Build();
_connection.On<string, string>("ReceiveMessage", (user, message) =>
{
Message = $"Got message {message} from user {user}";
this.StateHasChanged();
});
_connection.StartAsync();
return base.OnInitializedAsync();
}
}
The example javascript code btw is:
const connection = new signalR.HubConnectionBuilder()
.withUrl(`${apiBaseUrl}/api`)
.configureLogging(signalR.LogLevel.Information)
.build();
connection.on('newMessage', newMessage);
connection.onclose(() => console.log('disconnected'));
console.log('connecting...');
connection.start()
.then(() => data.ready = true)
.catch(console.error);
So the problem is that my Blazor app never receives any message notifications sent from the javascript chat clients (so the _connection.On handler is never hit). What am i missing in my Blazor code ?

Ok so this is what i needed to do to get it to work in my Blazor app:
_connection.On<object>("newMessage", update =>
{
Console.WriteLine(update);
//Message = update;
});
I needed to subscribe to the 'newMessage' target (since that's the JS is sending on) and also the type that's being posted isn't a string but a JObject type which i would need to deserialize to the correct type.

Calling SignalR from API at another project - No error nor notification

I have a WebSite integrated with SignalR. It functions well, and it has a button which sends popup notification to all clients who are online. It works well when I click on the button.
My API is in another project but in the same Solution. I want to send the above notification by calling from the API side. Basically, a mobile app will send a request to API and then API will send a notification to all online web clients.
Below code runs and not gives the notification nor any error.
Is this fundamentally correct? Appreciate your help
API code (at WebAPI project)
[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<string> WatchMe(int record_id)
{
GMapChatHub sendmsg = new GMapChatHub();
sendmsg.sendHelpMessage(record_id.ToString());
return "Done";
}
C# code (at Web project)
namespace GMapChat
{
public class GMapChatHub : Hub
{
public void sendHelpMessage(string token)
{
var context = GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<GMapChatHub>();
context.Clients.All.helpMessageReceived(token, "Test help message");
}
}
}
Home.aspx file (at Web project)
var chat = $.connection.gMapChatHub;
$(document).ready(function () {
chat.client.helpMessageReceived = function (token,msg) {
console.log("helpMessageReceived: " + msg);
$('#helpMessageBody').html(msg)
$('#helpModal').modal('toggle');
};
}

You can not call that hub directly. Firs you need to install the .net client for SignalR from nuget. Then you need to initialize it like this :
[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<string> WatchMe(int record_id)
{
using (var hubConnection = new HubConnection("your local host address"))
{
IHubProxy proxy= hubConnection.CreateHubProxy("GMapChatHub");
await hubConnection.Start();
proxy.Invoke("sendHelpMessage",record_id.ToString()); // invoke server method
}
// return sth. IEnumerable<string>
}
And opening a new connection per request may not be good idea you may make it per session (if you use) or static or time fashioned.

Creating a proxy to another web api with Asp.net core

I'm developing an ASP.Net Core web application where I need to create a kind of "authentication proxy" to another (external) web service.
What I mean by authentication proxy is that I will receive requests through a specific path of my web app and will have to check the headers of those requests for an authentication token that I'll have issued earlier, and then redirect all the requests with the same request string / content to an external web API which my app will authenticate with through HTTP Basic auth.
Here's the whole process in pseudo-code
Client requests a token by making a POST to a unique URL that I sent him earlier
My app sends him a unique token in response to this POST
Client makes a GET request to a specific URL of my app, say /extapi and adds the auth-token in the HTTP header
My app gets the request, checks that the auth-token is present and valid
My app does the same request to the external web API and authenticates the request using BASIC authentication
My app receives the result from the request and sends it back to the client
Here's what I have for now. It seems to be working fine, but I'm wondering if it's really the way this should be done or if there isn't a more elegant or better solution to this? Could that solution create issues in the long run for scaling the application?
[HttpGet]
public async Task GetStatement()
{
//TODO check for token presence and reject if issue
var queryString = Request.QueryString;
var response = await _httpClient.GetAsync(queryString.Value);
var content = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
Response.StatusCode = (int)response.StatusCode;
Response.ContentType = response.Content.Headers.ContentType.ToString();
Response.ContentLength = response.Content.Headers.ContentLength;
await Response.WriteAsync(content);
}
[HttpPost]
public async Task PostStatement()
{
using (var streamContent = new StreamContent(Request.Body))
{
//TODO check for token presence and reject if issue
var response = await _httpClient.PostAsync(string.Empty, streamContent);
var content = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
Response.StatusCode = (int)response.StatusCode;
Response.ContentType = response.Content.Headers.ContentType?.ToString();
Response.ContentLength = response.Content.Headers.ContentLength;
await Response.WriteAsync(content);
}
}
_httpClient being a HttpClient class instantiated somewhere else and being a singleton and with a BaseAddressof http://someexternalapp.com/api/
Also, is there a simpler approach for the token creation / token check than doing it manually?

If anyone is interested, I took the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Proxy code and made it a little better with middleware.
Check it out here: https://github.com/twitchax/AspNetCore.Proxy. NuGet here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/AspNetCore.Proxy/. Microsoft archived the other one mentioned in this post, and I plan on responding to any issues on this project.
Basically, it makes reverse proxying another web server a lot easier by allowing you to use attributes on methods that take a route with args and compute the proxied address.
[ProxyRoute("api/searchgoogle/{query}")]
public static Task<string> SearchGoogleProxy(string query)
{
// Get the proxied address.
return Task.FromResult($"https://www.google.com/search?q={query}");
}

I ended up implementing a proxy middleware inspired by a project in Asp.Net's GitHub.
It basically implements a middleware that reads the request received, creates a copy from it and sends it back to a configured service, reads the response from the service and sends it back to the caller.

This post talks about writing a simple HTTP proxy logic in C# or ASP.NET Core. And allowing your project to proxy the request to any other URL. It is not about deploying a proxy server for your ASP.NET Core project.
Add the following code anywhere of your project.
public static HttpRequestMessage CreateProxyHttpRequest(this HttpContext context, Uri uri)
{
var request = context.Request;
var requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage();
var requestMethod = request.Method;
if (!HttpMethods.IsGet(requestMethod) &&
!HttpMethods.IsHead(requestMethod) &&
!HttpMethods.IsDelete(requestMethod) &&
!HttpMethods.IsTrace(requestMethod))
{
var streamContent = new StreamContent(request.Body);
requestMessage.Content = streamContent;
}
// Copy the request headers
foreach (var header in request.Headers)
{
if (!requestMessage.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation(header.Key, header.Value.ToArray()) && requestMessage.Content != null)
{
requestMessage.Content?.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation(header.Key, header.Value.ToArray());
}
}
requestMessage.Headers.Host = uri.Authority;
requestMessage.RequestUri = uri;
requestMessage.Method = new HttpMethod(request.Method);
return requestMessage;
}
This method covert user sends HttpContext.Request to a reusable HttpRequestMessage. So you can send this message to the target server.
After your target server response, you need to copy the responded HttpResponseMessage to the HttpContext.Response so the user's browser just gets it.
public static async Task CopyProxyHttpResponse(this HttpContext context, HttpResponseMessage responseMessage)
{
if (responseMessage == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(responseMessage));
}
var response = context.Response;
response.StatusCode = (int)responseMessage.StatusCode;
foreach (var header in responseMessage.Headers)
{
response.Headers[header.Key] = header.Value.ToArray();
}
foreach (var header in responseMessage.Content.Headers)
{
response.Headers[header.Key] = header.Value.ToArray();
}
// SendAsync removes chunking from the response. This removes the header so it doesn't expect a chunked response.
response.Headers.Remove("transfer-encoding");
using (var responseStream = await responseMessage.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync())
{
await responseStream.CopyToAsync(response.Body, _streamCopyBufferSize, context.RequestAborted);
}
}
And now the preparation is complete. Back to our controller:
private readonly HttpClient _client;
public YourController()
{
_client = new HttpClient(new HttpClientHandler()
{
AllowAutoRedirect = false
});
}
public async Task<IActionResult> Rewrite()
{
var request = HttpContext.CreateProxyHttpRequest(new Uri("https://www.google.com"));
var response = await _client.SendAsync(request, HttpCompletionOption.ResponseHeadersRead, HttpContext.RequestAborted);
await HttpContext.CopyProxyHttpResponse(response);
return new EmptyResult();
}
And try to access it. It will be proxied to google.com

A nice reverse proxy middleware implementation can also be found here: https://auth0.com/blog/building-a-reverse-proxy-in-dot-net-core/
Note that I replaced this line here
requestMessage.Content?.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation(header.Key, header.Value.ToArray());
with
requestMessage.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation(header.Key, header.Value.ToString());
Original headers (e.g. like an authorization header with a bearer token) would not be added without my modification in my case.

I had luck using twitchax's AspNetCore.Proxy NuGet package, but could not get it to work using the ProxyRoute method shown in twitchax's answer. (Could have easily been a mistake on my end.)
Instead I defined the mapping in Statup.cs Configure() method similar to the code below.
app.UseProxy("api/someexternalapp-proxy/{arg1}", async (args) =>
{
string url = "https://someexternalapp.com/" + args["arg1"];
return await Task.FromResult<string>(url);
});

Piggy-backing on James Lawruk's answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/54149906/6596451 to get the twitchax Proxy attribute to work, I was also getting a 404 error until I specified the full route in the ProxyRoute attribute. I had my static route in a separate controller and the relative path from Controller's route was not working.
This worked:
public class ProxyController : Controller
{
[ProxyRoute("api/Proxy/{name}")]
public static Task<string> Get(string name)
{
return Task.FromResult($"http://www.google.com/");
}
}
This does not:
[Route("api/[controller]")]
public class ProxyController : Controller
{
[ProxyRoute("{name}")]
public static Task<string> Get(string name)
{
return Task.FromResult($"http://www.google.com/");
}
}
Hope this helps someone!

Twitchax's answer seems to be the best solution at the moment. In researching this, I found that Microsoft is developing a more robust solution that fits the exact problem the OP was trying to solve.
Repo: https://github.com/microsoft/reverse-proxy
Article for Preview 1 (they actually just released prev 2): https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/introducing-yarp-preview-1/
From the Article...
YARP is a project to create a reverse proxy server. It started when we noticed a pattern of questions from internal teams at Microsoft who were either building a reverse proxy for their service or had been asking about APIs and technology for building one, so we decided to get them all together to work on a common solution, which has become YARP.
YARP is a reverse proxy toolkit for building fast proxy servers in .NET using the infrastructure from ASP.NET and .NET. The key differentiator for YARP is that it is being designed to be easily customized and tweaked to match the specific needs of each deployment scenario. YARP plugs into the ASP.NET pipeline for handling incoming requests, and then has its own sub-pipeline for performing the steps to proxy the requests to backend servers. Customers can add additional modules, or replace stock modules as needed.
...
YARP works with either .NET Core 3.1 or .NET 5 preview 4 (or later). Download the preview 4 (or greater) of .NET 5 SDK from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/5.0
More specifically, one of their sample apps implements authentication (as for the OP's original intent)
https://github.com/microsoft/reverse-proxy/blob/master/samples/ReverseProxy.Auth.Sample/Startup.cs

Here is a basic implementation of Proxy library for ASP.NET Core:
This does not implement the authorization but could be useful to someone looking for a simple reverse proxy with ASP.NET Core. We only use this for development stages.
using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives;
namespace Sample.Proxy
{
public class Startup
{
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddLogging(options =>
{
options.AddDebug();
options.AddConsole(console =>
{
console.IncludeScopes = true;
});
});
services.AddProxy(options =>
{
options.MessageHandler = new HttpClientHandler
{
AllowAutoRedirect = false,
UseCookies = true
};
options.PrepareRequest = (originalRequest, message) =>
{
var host = GetHeaderValue(originalRequest, "X-Forwarded-Host") ?? originalRequest.Host.Host;
var port = GetHeaderValue(originalRequest, "X-Forwarded-Port") ?? originalRequest.Host.Port.Value.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
var prefix = GetHeaderValue(originalRequest, "X-Forwarded-Prefix") ?? originalRequest.PathBase;
message.Headers.Add("X-Forwarded-Host", host);
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(port)) message.Headers.Add("X-Forwarded-Port", port);
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(prefix)) message.Headers.Add("X-Forwarded-Prefix", prefix);
return Task.FromResult(0);
};
});
}
private static string GetHeaderValue(HttpRequest request, string headerName)
{
return request.Headers.TryGetValue(headerName, out StringValues list) ? list.FirstOrDefault() : null;
}
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
{
app.UseWebSockets()
.Map("/api", api => api.RunProxy(new Uri("http://localhost:8833")))
.Map("/image", api => api.RunProxy(new Uri("http://localhost:8844")))
.Map("/admin", api => api.RunProxy(new Uri("http://localhost:8822")))
.RunProxy(new Uri("http://localhost:8811"));
}
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
var host = new WebHostBuilder()
.UseKestrel()
.UseIISIntegration()
.UseStartup<Startup>()
.Build();
host.Run();
}
}
}

SOAP webservice used to work in XAMARIN.FORMS, but now it doesn't work on any device below Android 6.0

Suddenly i got reports form user that a list in my app didn't show any data - It worked fine on my device. Later i found out that everything works fine and dandy on all android devices with 6.0 installed - every android version below 6.0(Marshmallow), wont get data transferred! I am at a loss - have no idea what has happened or how to fix this.... Help!
Does anyone recognize this or have possible solution to how this can be fixed?
In my forms app i have a portable library where i have a class handling the SOAP webservice, it is implemented like below:
public class soapwebservice
{
//private Uri baseUri = new Uri("uri");
private static DataConnection _instance = null;
private HttpClient client = null;
//Contructor
private DataConnection()
{
client = new HttpClient(new NativeMessageHandler());
client.BaseAddress = baseUri;
}
public static DataConnection Instance { get { if (_instance == null) _instance = new DataConnection(); return _instance; } }
public async Task<Other.ServiceResponse> RefreshRouteList()
{
try
{
var soapString = this.constructRefreshsoap();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("SOAPAction", "https://trolderuterne.play2know.dk/GetRoutes");
var content = new StringContent(soapString, Encoding.UTF8, "text/xml");
using (var response = await client.PostAsync("/Classes/mobileServices.asmx", content))
{
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
var soapResponse = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Other.ServiceResponse>(ParseSoapResponse(soapResponse));
}
return new ServiceResponse { Code = Codes.ServerError, Message = response.StatusCode.ToString() };
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return new ServiceResponse
{
Code = Codes.ServerError,
Message = ex.Message
};
}
finally
{
}
}
The error message i get when running the app is:
"Error: NameResolutionFailure"
I have now tried to consume the webservice directly in the android project instead of the PCL.
Just to mention it i have my webservice going over a proxy, due to security. It still works on 6.0, but when i go to a simulator running 4.4 i still get error: "Error: NameResolutionFailure".
I tried grabbing the original webservice directly from our server and I get the following error message: "Error: ConnectFailure (Network is unreachable)"
Hopefully someone has some insight, and can tell me how to get the data i need from the webservice in devices below Android 6.0!

NameResolutionFailure looks like a DNS error. But you're going through a proxy, so who knows what they are doing. Did they change something recently? Can you try to resolve the name into an IP both with and without the proxy, over WiFi and mobile data too?
ConnectFailure looks like you cannot connect to the server. Can you try to get data directly from the IP address instead? Try both directly and through the proxy, over WiFi and mobile data too.
Android 6 changed some things related to SSL, could that be affecting it?

I was asked by XAMARIN suppport to install the beta version og their software and this "kinda" solved the issue. I can now consume a SOAP webservice, but the service cant be SSL encrypted, if you want to use android below 6.0.
So i removed the SSL encryption from our proxy and now it works with all versions!

How to use Firebase REST Streaming with Hammock in Windows Phone 8?

I'm working with the Nest API, which supports REST Streaming via Firebase. I have REST working, however I cannot get it to stream correctly. This is very important for my app, and REST just isn't effective for what I want to do.
I'm using Hammock for the requests, and here's the code:
public class NestAPI
{
private RestClient client { get; set; }
public NestAPI()
{
this.client = new RestClient();
this.client.Authority = "https://developer-api.nest.com/";
this.client.HasElevatedPermissions = true;
}
public void BeginStreaming()
{
RestRequest request = new RestRequest();
request.AddParameter("auth", App.accessToken);
request.RetryPolicy = new RetryPolicy() { RetryCount = 3 };
//Enables streaming
//request.AddHeader("Accept", "text/event-stream");
//request.StreamOptions = new StreamOptions() { Duration = new TimeSpan(96, 0, 0), ResultsPerCallback = 1 };
this.client.BeginRequest<object>(request, new RestCallback<object>(this.StreamCompletedEvent));
}
private void StreamCompletedEvent(RestRequest request, RestResponse<object> response, object userState)
{
//TO DO: check for errors first
string json = response.Content;
}
public void EndStreaming()
{
this.client.CancelStreaming();
}
}
This code works and does return JSON, however I can't seem to enable streaming. When I uncomment the lines below "Enables streaming", the callback event never fires. It's important to note that authentication is done using the uri parameter, "auth".
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be Firebase libraries available, and REST is my only option. I want to know when JSON properties change and want to set different values while streaming.

I'm not familiar with Hammock, but can you make sure that it's set to follow redirects? The streaming endpoint typically issues HTTP 307 to get inform the client of the correct server to connect to.

I've never used Hammock, but looking through source code (briefly) it appears you need to set it up as a streaming request with StreamOptions. Twitter has some open source that uses this here https://github.com/camertron/twitter-windows/blob/master/Source/Twitter/Classes/API/Streaming/UserStream.cs.
The way you have Hammock configured here it's waiting for an entire request to complete before calling your callback. This will (almost) never happen with a streaming request as the server keeps the connection open to push new results.