I am looking for a way user can communicate between an ASP and Winform applications.
I am looking for something like soluto.com, I want to let the user send commands to other computers via Website. So let's say the user signed up for 10 computers, which is registered on the mvc app. User can select all the 10 computer and send a "Do this task" with a click of a button.
I am thinking something like, Winform will create a httplisten server. Everytime winform is open, it will send a "I am online" post to mvc, along with IP:Port. The server will send a request to that ip:port when required.
That approach seems very unsecure though, having an open port, configuring firewall and etc, seems like a overkill.
I was wondering if there way any other way of accomplishing this.
Thank you for the help.
P.S. Before you claim this is a stupid idea, Piriform is doing something like this also. Take a look at Agomo.com
Use SingalR with properly architected web and windows applications (e.g. MVP, MVC, etc.)
SignalR with window client (WPF)
Console App & SignalR
Create a WCF service within the WinForm application, specify endpoint(s) (and secure the endpoint appropriately), and connect to said endpoints from your ASP.NET application the same way you would also connect to a WCF service.
Why don't you just have the Winforms app use a standard HttpClient or WebRequest to periodically poll the service (maybe every 5 seconds or so) and ask if there if there are any tasks that need to be performed?
Unless you need realtime, low-latency, high performance communication then this is the easiest way to solve your problem with minimal to zero client side setup or security configuration.
The way I would do it is implement it like a stack in a data persistence layer. So each client could have rows in a table that are added when a task is queued. When the clients sends an HTTP GET request to the MVC server it will return the an array of tasks for that client and you could have it either delete them from the database right away or wait for the client to send a HTTP command later to indicate which tasks it completed.
You could represent tasks as a simple data object with a few properties, or just a string or int that you can lookup on the client in some way to invoke the appropriate code.
For reasonable security each client just needs to be given a unique key like a GUID or equivalent that it can later send to the server to validate its identity. This is also known as a cookie, secret, or API key.
Related
Here’s our architecture:
JIRA webhook sends messages to a Java Jersey REST service when issues are assigned.
C# client application registers the username/host machine combo with the Java web service when a user logs into the machine
When the web service receives a message from JIRA, it finds the assignee username and sends the required data to the C# client app on the host machine(s) the user is logged into.
I’ve thought of a couple approaches to solve the web service to client message.
My first is opening a TCP port on the client and having the service send each message directly to it. This is the most straight-forward approach but makes the client a little heavy in that it maintains the list of user assigned ticket data that they can then manipulate (acknowledge or remove).
The other is having the service maintain the data model and the client requests data periodically. This makes the client simpler but then I’d have to implement a polling interval to grab data, and add some POST methods for acknowledging and removing data from the user’s list.
I was looking into different ways to have the client register a channel with the service, like ServiceStackEvents, but I can’t see a way to make that work with a C# client and Java service. Something like that would be perfect. A way for the service to send callbacks or event messages to a client based on a user filter.
If someone has some suggestions or knows of an API to help with this, please post a link so I can dig into it. The POSTs are all working swimmingly, it’s just getting the data back to the clients that I’m struggling with the best approach.
Thanks!
Client polling is not a terrible solution.
But if you want a firewall and proxy friendly duplex protocol, check out WebSockets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket.
i decided to write a card game with c# that has a winform application for main server to manage the game with a web interface. i chose SignalR self-host for main server. because i want to sell this app to others and dont want to modify the code or html of the web interface. so my question is: is that good for handling 10000 client request? is there a way to write this app for better performance?
another thing is i want to write the main server and login cashout profile and ... most written by customers like poker mavens and i just create a api with json to do this functions. plzzzz guide me which way is better to write this app!
With your server code self hosted and a javascript client calling into your server methods, becoming your browser based client, your design should work.
I am looking at this. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/signalr/overview/deployment/tutorial-signalr-self-host
But I think you'll need to figure out scale out scenarios and server failure scenarios with the self host. In case there is a patch update on the server and it has to restart, you'll need to be able to get a backup. Also consider the case when you need to upgrade the server. So you'll need to be able to host it in multiple servers and you'll need to provide the signalr backplane option.
From a performance point of view, I have tested a web api signalR application on a single 4-core-14-GB server and was able to scale up to 20k connections, with the server comfortably serving more than 200 Requests per second.
With a backplane these numbers were around 100-150 rps.
The response times in both cases were very good ~ 500 ms.
Although please note that your numbers could be VASTLY different based on your actual functionality.
Background
I have multiple servers that I currently connect to remotely to run a number of different commands/scripts to obtain information about the servers and/or applications running on the servers.
I'd like to automate running the commands/scripts (or the code contained in the scripts converted to C#/.NET) and have the server send alerts/notifications/messages to a client (basically a Windows Form) running on multiple workstations, but need some guidance.
For reference, I have limited experience creating Windows Services, but feel fairly confident in being able to create them on the server to handle to command/script automation, which I'm assuming would be the best way to go about handling the command/script automation on the server (since the commands/scripts would need to be run all the time or at set intervals).
Question
How can I connect multiple servers to multiple clients so that the server sends alerts/notifications/messages to the client when a command/script or even an event occurs on the server?
For instance, if an application on the server has a built-in command that can be run to determine the status of the application (up, down, limbo, etc.), I would like the Windows Form on the client to receive an alert from the server when the command returns "down" or "limbo" when it is run, presumably from a Windows Service. The alerts would be displayed on the Windows Form that would be setup basically as a dashboard for the servers that the client can connect to.
An even better outcome would be that the client runs as a background application and a notification appears similar to how Microsoft Outlook displays a notification when new email messages arrive (although these notifications would likely require user interaction to close instead of fading out like the Outlook notifications).
I would also like for the client to use a configuration file that has the connection information for the servers in it so that the servers being used can be changed quickly new servers are added or existing servers are decommissioned.
Research (so far)
I've read about WCF and duplex contracts, and how WCF can be hosted in Windows Services. From what I've read, this seems promising. However, I'm not quite sure how I would set this up so that the client can connect to a WCF service on multiple servers.
One thing that I'm concerned about with WCF is that in all of the WCF examples (which implement a calculator-type service) I've seen the client has to initiate the communication with the server in order to receive a message through a callback. In the calculator service examples, the client sends numbers to the service and the result is provided in the callback. I've also seen an asynchronous example, but in that example the client initiated a single, long running request and the callback returned a single response when it was finished processing.
And, just so I'm clear about bindings in WCF, it is possible to create and use bindings for multiple servers using a configuration file without having to use SvcUtil.exe to generate the code, correct? The reason I ask is because the servers that will be configured will likely be change for different users, so the client needs to be flexible when connecting to the services.
I've just now started looking at Sockets, but I'm not familiar enough with them to know if this would be the better option to achieve my objective.
Summary
I'm just looking for guidance, so if you can help direct me to some resources that will help me achieve my objective, I would appreciate it. I've searched extensively, but the majority of my searching either doesn't apply to my scenario, it is limited to a single server/client interaction, or it is limited to a single server with multiple clients.
Since I'm not sure what direction to go in, I don't have any code examples, although I have implemented the examples in the following Microsoft article: Windows Communication Foundation - Getting Started Tutorial
So you want to build a system of
multiple servers which execute commands on the computer they are running on
multiple clients which will receive the status of the commands executed on server or such information from the server
This would be my advice
Servers can be implemented as windows service. You will be able to administrate them easily this way using the services console or the scm. Checkout this link for a creating a simple C# service How do you write and use a Windows Service in C#?
Also, you can set the service to run as an in-built service user with different levels of permissions in addition to regular user accounts.
I have not used WCF, but usually clients connect to the server; this is a pretty common model, and hence all samples are such. Initiating connection from server is not a big deal (at least in a socket program), but just a bad model. You have to ask yourself, if no client is connected to your servers, how can they relay a status to the end user. You have to think clearly about the communication model. I would suggest a central repository of messages. It can be a file on a shared file system or a database or any such entity which can act as a data repository. This way all servers can convey there messages without caring if a client is connected or not. You can use Sockets to achieve what you want to do. Check the asychronous socket server sample from MSDN to understand how to do it.
Making the client run in the background and just have a notification area icon is also easy in c#. You can use NotifyIcon Class for that. This CodeProject article (Formless System Tray Application) demonstrates its usage. To show notification a la outlook style, you can refer to the following post: How to create form popup from from system tray on windows application (not web) with c#. Look at not only the accepted answer but other answers too; there are lot of useful links in it.
So far we have windows service talking over sockets, storing messages in a central repository and capable of handling multiple clients with toast style pops for client side notification.
You need a far richer client side GUI so the end users can take actions on the messages sent from the server. You can maintain a list of servers in app.config for the client that the client connects on startup. You should to provide a GUI for users to manage all servers and their connections.
Lat but not least, by building such a client server model, you are effectively building a security loophole in your systems. You should implement a good authorization mechanism. Checkout the following post: Authenticate user in WinForms (Nothing to do with ASP.Net)
EDIT:
You can also implement your server to accept "custom command" when you implement it as a service. This way, your client server communication will be standardized by using ServiceController to pass the command. This post might help: How to send a custom command to a .NET windows Service from .NET code?.
Don't get confused in the "command" terminology here. ServiceController issues standard commands to a service for start, stop, pause, resume and restart the service. These are the same items you see on the context menu when you right click a service in the services.msc snap-in. The same way a service can respond to custom commands. In your case the custom command maybe a request to execute a process.
Note that some mechanisms I have described are geared towards an intranet setup while others scale fine on both intranet and internet
I have a Windwos Application (Let's name it App) and a WebService Project (name it WS) and a SqlServer Database (DB), and the technologies are all from Microsoft and .net.
The roles are that whenever App needs to do an action, it calls WS and WS does the magic work with DB and then returns the result to App.
So far, so good, but I need something more than that. I need a third Application, let's call it a Robot, this Robot monster should have the ability to find all alive clients (App instances) and not kill, but call them on some specific times, then the App(s) will decide do an action on being called.
My information lacks here, and that is why I want you guys to help me find the best solution for this Server-Calls-Client-And-Client-Does-Something thing.
I have very short handed and pragmatic solution ideas:
Each client application invokes a method for instance YesIamAlive() of the webservice each x seconds/minutes. If the server gets this request it will be saved so you are be able so see which clients are alive. Each client which not sending an alive request for the last x seconds / minutes is not any longer alive. Another method which is also called on a routinely basis and it forces the client to do an action.
You could use SignalR for a websocket communication between your server and client. This example shows a chat server, which is not simular to your request but it shows the idea behind it:
http://braindrivendevelopment.com/2013/01/28/signalr-with-windows-azure-cloud-services/
I am quite sure that there are even more elegant solutions for your problem.
SignalR (GitHub) is an excellent framework for "pushing" to clients in near real-time. It works with both web and WinForms clients.
I want to write an application that "listens" for a server push.. i.e the server can broadcast.. I want to do this via an open web request to a php page that holds a database vale in it and returns the database value.. so that if the database changes.. the value changes which means C# app knows to fire a initiation of some sort (in my case it's a "refresh" request) 99.99% of this work is done via this refresh request.. I only need to know.. ho w to implement the "trigger" or "event" from the server... the standard methodology for this (I know) is polling x seconds but I know that a proper event driven architecture is much nice..
Remember this is nothing to do with IIS ... This is a windows client C# exe that needs to "listen" to a web server.. are there any good code examples people know about?
HTTP is a request/response protocol - there is no "push". Common historic approaches to solve that are frequent polling and long-polling, but these days web-sockets are another option. You can use web-sockets from a client application: in .net 4.5 on Windows 8 / Server 8 there is an inbuilt client in the framework, but it isn't hard to write one based on raw TCP from the specification (or just look for an existing client library). Web-sockets supports bi-directional communications, so the server can spontaneously broadcast to the clients. Great for prompt updates.
You would of course also need a web-socket server implementation, but that is available for most platforms and toolsets.