We have a static html/webform site, the site lacks search functionality, I was able to get yahoo BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) after a few hours yesterday, i got it working (still working on adding missing features like pagination) , I was wondering about the configuration options of the class, as I have a BossSearch.cs in App_Code, with some fields that are set at the top:
public class BossSearch
{
String sResultsPage = "~/searchResults.aspx";
String sSearchString="";
String sApiKey = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["BossApiKey"];
String sSite = "www.oursite.com"; //without http://
String sQuery = "http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/{0}%20+site:{1}?appid={2}&format=xml&start={3}&count={4}";
String sStart = "0";
Uri address;
WebProxy webproxy = new WebProxy("http://192.168.4.8:8080");
bool bUseProxy = true;
int nResultsPerPage = 10;
int nTotalResults = 0;
...
As you can see, i get the BossApiKey from the web.config file, but all others I have them in the declared in the class, should I put all of them in the web.config file? if I'm thinking of reusing the class (should i say class library?) in other websites as well? can I turn it into a dll and what would the advantages be? i read somewhere that a dll has its own config file, is this the way to store those settings?
Apologies for my ignorance, since I'm not that familiar with developing applications (still studying)
What you read about .NET assemblies having their own config files is not absolutely correct; a web site has web.config files, one in the root and zero/one in each subdirectory. If a .NET assembly that is in the application calls into the standard config API, it will get its data from that web.config.
The same goes for WinForms apps and the [appname].exe.config file; any assemblies included that use the standard config API will be getting their data from that.
All of that is not to say that any assembly could not define its own configuration mechanism which pulls its data from wherever it wants.
And yes; if you intend to reuse this code a good bit, you are thinking along the right lines; put the code in its own assembly, and have it get its data from Config files so you do not need to recompile it for each application.
If you declare all of them in a database or web.config, you don't need to recompile each time you reconfigure the search engine
I you're striving for reuse and ease of use, then I would recommend writing a custom configuration section for your control. This can be part of the dll you distribute to other application and will allow you to have the ultimate in flexibility and explicit portability to other .net apps.
Enjoy!
You should only store the value in a single place in your application. For an ASP.NET application, the web.config file is an appropriate place for these kind of things. You won't need to recompile your application if this value changes.
If you decide to put your code into a separate class library and still want to use a config file to store your api key, you should note that your appSetting key needs to be entered in the application or web site's config file - you can't define a config file for a class library.
One other approach that you might find useful would be to make a wrapper class to store your settings. You could have class with static methods to look up your appSettings key so that you get a nice, compile time, way to get the api key, rather than typing out the name of your appSettings key everywhere.
Related
I am working on ASP.NET Core 6.0 WebAPI and I need to get data from a CRM system (Sales Logix) using Sage SData API. We have different CRM environments (Production, Staging, Development) and I want to be able to connect (or test) any environment from my WebAPI project.
For that to work, I would like to add a configuration key (to indicate a particular CRM environment) either in appsettings.json (or launchsetting.json). For example when setting is "crmEnvironment": "Development", I want to include a custom json file, named crm-dev.json. Similarly for "crmEnvironment": "Staging", I want to include crm-staging.json.
Each custom json file ideally contains the CRM Url, Username and Password.
Please tell me how can I conditionally add json config files as mentioned above, or is there any better approach of achieving similar results, considering security in mind. Best if I could have custom config files encrypted without having to shift away from the standards, just like we did for Web.Config files by inheriting ProtectedConfigurationProvider.
My questions is similar to How can I add a custom JSON file into IConfiguration?. But since Program.cs no longer uses the Main() method, I am wondering what would be the correct way to add custom json config files.
If this may work, I use this approach.
.AddJsonFile($"Config\\appsettings.{hostContext.HostingEnvironment.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true)
And I will have the Json file created for each environment. You can set the environment variable value either via IHost context or may be, simplifying your need by using Environment variable values from your respective environment.
I have working web client, it uses "wwwroot/appsettings.json" file for its configuration.
Now I would like to override just single settings using environment variable for it (as an example, in reality there will be many, arbitrary, overrides). Is there ready to use mechanism, similar to ASP.NET Core server (all it takes is calling extension method and combining json, env. variables)?
I am not asking about multiple .json files and switching between them depending on ENVIRONMENT variable, it is completely different scenario.
So far I didn't find anything even close, so thinking about DIY approach I see an ugly path -- moving client configuration file into hosting server, adding main node in client .json file like "client", using environment variables with prefix "client", merging those data using ASP.NET server mechanism, dumping it back to file for the client usage. And hoping it will work :-).
So I followed DIY path :-) If anyone like it here are the steps:
create 3 files with empty JSON at web client wwwroot -- appsettings.json, appsettings.Development.json and Production version as well
put your entire web client config in appsettings.json at hosting server at "CLIENT" node for example
in your server Startup constructor create configuration as usual, but then fetch entire "CLIENT" section and "jsonize" it back (see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/62533775/6734314) -- convert it to string and write to $"wwwroot/appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json" (where env is IWebHostEnvironment)
And that's it -- I tested it in Development mode and in Production. The only drawbacks I see are:
it looks weird :-)
when executed using VS the written file is put not relative to binary file, but relative to project -- so when you are done you have to delete newly created file (otherwise on the next run VS will complain about conflict between two static files)
You override the settings using env. variables at server side using "CLIENT" prefix, and the rest is as usual.
For the record, I am not saying this is perfect, but I didn't look for anything more than I asked in my question. What I would like to do however is to reduce the number of steps, or even better to use some already existing mechanism. I will be grateful for the improvements/tips within those areas.
I have a project based on the Chris Hammond, Christoc, module template. I have a ton of code that I use to access data an external database. In my repositories I change the database from the default to whichever I need for that particular object. I do so with code that looks like this:
using (IDataContext ctx = DataContext.Instance(MyModuleSettingsBase.DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING_KEY))
{
var rep = ctx.GetRepository<Product>();
products = rep.Get().ToList();
}
The default database is switched in the call to .Instance(). The repositories are used by my custom DNN modules. The repository is part of the solution that contains multiple custom modules. When I compile and install using the Extensions part of DNN, everything works well. In the code above, MyModuleSettingsBase.DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING_KEY is found in a file MyModuleSettingsBase.cs file of my module solution. It is set to a simple string like "ProductDatabase". In the solution for the base DNN install (not the module solution), within the web.config file, there is a value in <connectionStrings> with name="ProductDatabase" which contains the actual connection string. This all links up fine on the DNN website.
Now I am writing a console application that does some monitoring of the site. I want to access the database to check values in the product table. I would like to reuse all of the repository code I have written. In an attempt to do so, I added a reference to the MyModules.dll file so I would only have one copy of the base code. This works to give me access to all the objects and the associated repositories but when I attempt to query data it fails. When debugging I can see that it fails on the line:
using (IDataContext ctx = DataContext.Instance(MyModuleSettingsBase.DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING_KEY))
When viewed in a debugger, the string value MyModuleSettingsBase.DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING_KEY is correctly set to "ProductDatabase" but the code is unable to link this with the actual connection string. I don't know where it would be checking for the connections string when running from my console application. I attempted to put a <connectionStrings> section into my App.config file but this didn't do the trick.
Is it possible to have MyModuleSettingsBase.DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING_KEY map to the connection string in an external application which references the DLL?
If so, where can I set the value of my connection string so it matches up to the key value stored in MyModuleSettingsBase.DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING_KEY?
I was faced similar problem 3 months ago, at that time I want to use DNN core libraries in my console application but I was failed.
I placed my queries in DNN official forum website and I got a valid response from Wes Tatters (DNN MVP).
Here is the post link: Reference URL
As your requirement of monitoring, I suggest you to create DNN Schedule Application. You can schedule it within DNN (Host->AdvancedSettings->Schedule), even good point is that you can use your repositories (DNN Libraries) in that schedule application.
I hope it solved your problem. Let me know if you have any questions.
I'm developing a .NET Framework 4.0 based Windows application.
I have a requirement of distributing this window application, along with source code to client.
When I test I'm using my own database credentials.
So I want a method to somehow hide the app.config details.
For this, I tried with encrypting values in app.config but faced an issue with token keys.
While researching about it, I found that I can use:
System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration.
But that again required username and password for accessing remote server and don't want to show them to the client.
So for this I planned to read web.config hosted on IIS 7.5 Server.
Could you please help me in that context?
Or if you have better ideas to achieve the objective, do share.
The code is designed to be very close in syntax to the usual method used for accessing web.config from a web app. Pass the constructor the location of the web.config file you wish to parse and then use the AppSettings method to obtain the desired value;
string filename = #"c:\temp\Web.Config";
UK.Org.Webman.ConfigurationSettings ConfigurationSettings =
new UK.Org.Webman.ConfigurationSettings(filename);
string PrimaryDatabase = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["PrimaryDatabase"];
What is the best practice to store application settings (such as user name and password, database location ...) in C# ?
Hint: I am new to .net and C#
Application Configuration Settings that are application wide (non-user specific) belong in either app.config (for Desktop apps) or web.config (for Web apps).
Encrypting sections of a web.config file is quite simple as outlined in this Super Simple Example.
If you need to store User specific settings (like application settings, etc.) or Application wide settings not related to application configuration you can use a Settings file as described here:
User Settings in C#
I'm not sure what version of .net/Visual Studio it was introduced in, but you can right click on your project, choose 'Add New Item' and select 'Settings File' from the "Add New Item" window. This provides your project with a (named by default) Settings.settings file that you can configure all the settings you want to expose in.
You can define settings that you create to be either Application or User which means you can use this single interface to control global and user settings. Once you've created a setting in the Settings.settings file using the editor that Visual Studio provides, you can access it in code like this:
// Get a Setting value
var valueOfSetting1 = Settings1.Default.Setting1;
// Modify and save a Setting value
Settings1.Default.Setting1 = "New Value";
Settings1.Default.Save();
First option is the registry. It is easy, but it is not too safe for passwords. Another option is using a file that you create. This too isn't safe, unless you want to implement cryption.
Next option is using the Application Settings. This is also quite simple, but there are a few catches. First, right click on your project and go to Properties. There, under the Settings tab, you can store variables to which you can access from your program by
string password = Properties.Settings.Default.Password
You can also change them the same way, but ONLY IF the scope is set the User. WHen the scope is application-wide, VS does not allow you to change these variables for some odd reason. To save changes, you must call Save() as follows:
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
These are saved in the User Data folder under C:\Documents and Settings\'Current User'\Local Settings\Application Data\
Another option would be to include them in your database, but since you are also storing your database location, this might not work for you.
I think app.config (non web app) or web.config (web app).
These sorts of settings usually land in Application Configuration Files (web.config, app.config).
http://www.devasp.net/net/articles/display/679.html
If you are storing passwords, you might also need to encrypt the configuration section in question.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/53tyfkaw.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff650304.aspx
Note if you use app.config, you will see it get renamed to ..config, depending on if your output produces a DLL or an EXE.
As with the above replies suggest, app.config or the web.config is the best place for app settings.
If you need a more robust way of xml style tags for database, server settings and the like, you can use the configurationSection and create custom sections.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/CustomConfigurationSectio.aspx
For database passwords, the way i do it is have an encrypted string in the xml tag value and decrypt then when reading them, that way you dont expose the passwords.
appsettings config file, ini file(nini), embeddable database(sqlite,berkelydb/etc..),whatever method you like, it depends on your application size/performance consideration and design.