Develop Reference

Aspnetcore API route Template based on Host

I have a set of APIs in an ASP.NET Core (.NET6) project that are exposed both internally (private) and through an API gateway. When served privately, API urls are of the form service.internal/api/v1/resource which is achieved with a RouteAttribute on the ApiController:
[ApiController]
[Route("api/v{version:apiVersion}/[controller]")]
public class ResourceController : ControllerBase
{
// actions
}
When accessed via our api gateway, however, the /api/ component of the url is absent, ie. gateway.com/v1/resource. The gateway performs a transformation on the Url which adds in the extra path segment for the internal/proxied request.
This all works "fine" except in a few circumstances. The primary issue I'm having is with link/url generation for requests coming through the gateway. Location headers added by CreatedAt and link headers generated with IUrlHelper include the /api/ segment of the route with the gateways hostname rendering them invalid. I also have some issues with swagger but I believe they should resolve themselves if I can solve this.
Question: Is there a way to make the route template dynamic based on the host name (which would not be a compile time constant, ie. from config)? For example for requests coming from gateway.com, the route template would be v{version:apiVersion}/[controller] and otherwise would be api/v{version:apiVersion}/[controller]?
It doesn't need to be attribute driven if there's a different way. But my understanding is that the ApiControllerAttribute makes attribute routing required and I wouldn't want to lose the other benefits of that.
If I can get this to work, I'd be able to update the gateway and not have it add the /api/ segment to the proxied urls and it should remove any issues with swagger since the proper paths would be detected by the api explorer.
Unfortunately I have no idea where to start looking. I reviewed some of the routing docs but I didn't see anything that would do the job. I admit I'm out of my league here with minimal aspnetcore experience.
If it matters we are using endpoint routing:
app.UseRouting();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
endpoints.MapControllers();
});

Enable CORS in Umbraco 6 / Web API 2 Instance

I'm a newer developer who has been developing a RESTful API with Web API 2 within an instance of Umbraco 6. After some research on http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/security/enabling-cross-origin-requests-in-web-api, I added the attribute to my controller as such:
[EnableCors(origins: "http://example.com,http://example.local", headers: "*", methods: "*")] //CORS TESTING
public class PropertiesController : UmbracoApiController
{
//Code Hidden
}
I'm finding that I can go to a site like http://codebeautify.org/jsonvalidate and pull in my JSON through the endpoint URL and validate it even though I didn't allow that host to call my API.
Following the instructions from the asp.net link above, I noticed that my solution doesn't have an "App_Start" folder with a WebApiConfig.CS file, so I was never able to add the config.EnableCors(); code which I think may be the underlying issue? I'm not sure how to continue at this point because to get this far, I just had to add a new Web API Controller Class to '/App_Code' and then inherit UmbracoApiController.

You can create the WebApiConfig.cs if you wish and call it from Global.asax.cs . Or just call EnableCors() wherever you have the config. This is a simple answer with an example https://stackoverflow.com/a/29397652/3520146 .

Exposing a few calls from an existing asp.net-mvc site to other REST clients within an intranet?

I have an existing asp.net-mvc web site and now I need to expose of a few of my calls to external applications that are only used within my site right now. This is all happening within an intranet within my company.
I have read this page which explains Web API versus controller actions as well as this SOF question which seems to have a similar issue but the answers seem a bit outdated. So I am trying to determine given the latest available functionality what is the simplest solution to meet my requirement.
In my case, since I already have the same controller actions used within my current website then WEB API doesn't really make sense but if I google anything around asp.net-mvc authentication or security I only see articles around web API.
Given that, I am trying to figure out best practice for exposing my controller action to another application.

In an ideal world you would convert the app to web api controllers as someone else suggested but to be more pragmatic you can implement an interim solution where you expose only the required calls via extending ApiController
You did not mention which version of MVC your current app is using nor did you mention how your current Controllers return data to the web app.
I will therefore assume you return data via a view model and razor views. eg:
public class ProductsController : Controller
{
public void Index()
{
var view = new ProductsListView();
view.Products = _repository.GetProducts();
return View(view);
}
}
Suppose now you want to expose the products list via a REST-like api?
First check you have web api installed (via nuget)
Install-Package Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi
(again i'm not sure what ver of asp.net you are on so this process may differ between versions)
Now in your public void Application_Start()
GlobalConfiguration.Configure(WebApiConfig.Register);//add this before! line below
RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);//this line shld already exist
and in WebApiConfig
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
I like to create a dedicated folder called ApiControllers and add controllers with the same name; this way you can have controllers with the same names as they are in different namespaces:
namespace YourApp.Web.ApiControllers
{
[AllowAnonymous]
public class ProductsController : ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
public HttpResponseMessage Products()
{
var result = new ProductResult();//you could also use the view class ProductsListView
result.Products = _repository.GetProducts();
return Request.CreateResponse(httpStatusCode, result);
}
}
}
You can then access this via yourapp.com/api/products
nb, try to reduce duplication of code inside controllers - this can be acheived by extracting common parts into service classes.

While I would highly recommend using a web service architecture, such as Web API or ServiceStack, you can expose controller actions.
You'll first want to decorate the actions with the [AllowAnonymous] attribute. Then, in your web.config you'll need to add the following code block to the configuration section for each action you want exposed.
<location path="ControllerNameHere/ActionNameHere">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
As you may have guessed, this becomes very repetitive and annoying, which is why web services would be a great choice.

I had a similar requirement where website 2 needed to call some controller actions from website 1. Since there was no changes in the logic I wanted to avoid the whole rewrite using web API. I created another set of controller and actions that would return Json. The new controller actions would call the original controller actions and then convert the result data to json before returning. The other applications (website 2) would then make http get and post requests to get json data and deserialize it internally. Worked nicely in my case.
I didn't have to put a security layer over the json based actions as they were public, but you might need one to authenticate the requests.

Although webapi is the best way but you don't need to convert your controller/actions to webapi at all.
You could easily achieve what you are after by restricting the controller/actions by IP addresses from your intranet. Just make sure that all intranet sites reside on the same domain other cross domain jquery ajax calls will not work.
Here is an eg. Restrict access to a specific controller by IP address in ASP.NET MVC Beta
An alternative is to use basic authentication and only allow a hardcoded userid/password to access those controller/actions and call via ajax:
beforeSend: function (xhr) {
xhr.setRequestHeader ("Authorization", "Basic " + btoa(username + ":" + password));
},

How to test a WebApi service?

I'm really new to WebApi and I've been reading information about it but I don't know how to start my application.
I already had a project with many WFC services with .Net 3.5. So, I updated my project to 4.5.1. Then I created a controller with the Visual Studio 2012 Wizard. Then, when the controller is created, I see a class as a template with the get, post, put, delete methods. So I place my post method and finally I want to test the service with a HttpClient.
I tried to apply the solution in green from the following forum:
How to post a xml value to web api?
I'm gonna receive a XML string with the structure of a Contract model.
I run my project into Visual Studio Development Server.
But I have troubles with URL to test my service.
I saw many pages where people do something like this http://localhost:port/api/contract. But I don't still know how it works. So how can I do to test my service? What is it my path or url to test my service?

WebApi, like MVC, is all based on the routing. The default route is /api/{controller}/{id} (which could, of course, be altered). This is generally found in the ~/App_Start/WebApiConfig.cs file of a new project, but given you're migrating you don't have it most likely. So, to wire it up you can modify your Application_Start to include:
GlobalConfiguration.Configure(WebApiConfig.Register);
Then, define that class:
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
// Web API configuration and services
// Web API routes
config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
If you created a TestController controller and wanted to make a POST request to the instance running locally, you'd access http://localhost:12345/api/Test/ (with the appropriate verb). 12345 would be the local port that Visual Studio is using to host your service (and can be found by viewing the project's properties, then navigating to the "Web" tab).
Having said that, testing is probably best performed on the the project (without making an external call). There are several posts on the subject, but generally come down to something like the following:
[TestMethod]
public void Should_Return_Single_Product()
{
// Arrange
var repo = new FakeRepository<Widget>();
var controller = new WidgetController(repo);
var expected = repo.Find(1);
// Act
var actual = controller.GetWidget(1) as OkNegotiatedContentResult<Widget>;
// Assert
Assert.IsNotNull(actual);
Assert.AreEqual(expected.Id, actual.Content.Id);
}

Minimum files needed to deploy webAPI server side

So after a great deal of research I'm starting to enhance our service server stack with a webAPI entry point. Based on this thread, and especially the last post by a member of the Digerati board, we are implementing webAPI services as a facade into our WCF application layer. (Our WCF services are just facades into our Application layer where all of the behavior lives)
My question is this. I downloaded MVC 4 and created a new WebAPI project in my service solution. But wow there was a ton of crap that created in my project that I just am not going to need! For example, all of the image files, the home controller, views and models, etc.
So in stripping this down to be just a service project, what are the minimum files I need to build a functional service project? Our intent is to publish both of the service types (WCF and webAPI) side by side in the same server .. each service call doing the same identical service call and returning the specific DTO for the request. So far it looks like App_Start, Controllers, and the Glabal.asax/web.config entries. I definitely don't need Views, Models, or Images!!!
Any input on what others have done to do a pure service deployment would be of great welcome here.

Same problem here. I've found that article from Shawn Kendrot explaining how to create minimal Web API project. It was written for the beta version of Web API but it seems to be still valid.
Create an empty ASP.NET project.
Add a reference to System.Web.Http and System.Web.Http.WebHost (version 4.0.0.0)
Add a Global.asax file
Register a route in the Global.Application_Start. Something like:
protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional });
}
Add a controller
public class SampleController : ApiController
{
public string Get(int id)
{
return "Hello";
}
}
Run the project locally with the URL /api/sample/123 and enjoy the outcome:

FYI. I have found that I have had to reference two more .dlls:
System.Net.Http
Newtonsoft.Json