Resume downloads in ASP.NET - asp.net

I'm implementing resume download capability in ASP.NET by following the MSDN example
However, I've made a few changes:
In the aforementioned example, Download button on the HTML page makes a GET request. My Download button on ASPX page makes a POST request.
And instead of the handler page DownloadHttpHandler.ashx.vb, I have Download.aspx.vb and this calls the appropriate function in DownloadFile.vb.
The problem is downloads do not resume in Internet Explorer 10. Upon closely inspecting the requests, I found that the Download button on my ASPX page makes a POST request. However as mentioned before, the Download button on the HTML page makes a GET request.
To further confirm if GET/POST makes any difference, I changed the GET to POST (in the original MSDN example). This was the only change I made. And as expected, downloads do not resume in Internet Explorer.
While searching for similar issues, I found this example. And even here only GET/HEAD requests are allowed and all other types (like POST) are explicitly not allowed.
So, if I'm not wrong, only GET requests are supported. Why?

In the code that you referenced, it is the logic required by the original post to use only GET or HEAD requests. In general, you can use
request.HttpMethod
to check for POST, GET, DELETE, PUT etc requests.
For understanding more about headers, I suggest this
I also suggest to go over this to understand HttpMethod in general.

Related

How to manipulate a .NET ASPX form programmatically?

I'm trying to manipulate a .net ASP form on a site that's using AJAX Control Toolkit. The site is only accessible to valid logins, and I do have a valid account. It consists of a search page with a form. Each time a submit button is clicked on the form, the server is updated using the values of some text fields on the form, and then the VIEWSTATE and EVENTVALIDATION tokens will be updated based on the response from the server, ready for the next request.
I'm using HttpClient in Java to do this. I suspect there's something I'm not doing correctly with regard to interacting with ASPX forms in general.
When I hit the main search page for the first time (cookies are validating my login with the server), I get the HTML for the search page back. I extract the VIEWSTATE and EVENTVALIDATION tokens for the next request. I've examined the exact form fields and their values that need to be sent to the server in a POST by looking at the Chrome debugger utility after making a request on the site manually. I've replicated them exactly as they should be, inserting the VIEWSTATE and EVENTVALIDATION appropriately.
But the response I get back from the server is not what it should be. What I get back is just the same HTML for the main search page that I get the first time I hit the webpage. The form data I'm using looks like this:
ctl00$ScriptManager1:ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$UpdatePanel1|ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$acceptButton
ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_TabContainer1_ClientState:{"ActiveTabIndex":0,"TabState":[true,true]}
__EVENTTARGET:
__EVENTARGUMENT:
__LASTFOCUS:
__VIEWSTATE:<token extracted from first page hit>
__VIEWSTATEENCRYPTED:
__EVENTVALIDATION:<token extracted from first page hit>
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$LabelFee:0
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$RadioButtonList1:Person
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$snameText:aSurname
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$HiddenField1:
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$fnameText:aFirstname
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$dayFromTextBox:01
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$monthFromTextBox:January
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$yearFromTextBox:2001
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$dayToTextBox:01
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$monthToTextBox:January
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$yearToTextBox:2008
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$DropDownList1:aCity
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$PropText:
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel2$RefText:
__ASYNCPOST:true
ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$TabContainer1$TabPanel1$acceptButton:Accept
I've also tried replicating the headers that the Chrome debugger shows, so my request is including the same Content-Type, Host, Origin, Referer, User-Agent (for my browser) and every other header, including this header X-MicrosoftAjax: Delta=true.
I know there's a lot of moving parts here, but I intentionally haven't mentioned how I'm actually making the POST request with the HttpClient lib because I'd don't want to complicate the question anymore or alienate anyone who doesn't know Java but knows ASP. I'd like to know if there's an ASP issue I'm not addressing, but I can post the Java code is necessary.
Edit:
I've checked the debugging info that HttpClient is outputting just before sending the request, and the form data is being added properly as multi-part form data. The headers are all there too.
This answer is a long shot, but I've seen weirder things.
You mention this header:
X-MicrosoftAjax: Delta=true
I did some deep googling and found that this is often shown as all lower case in dumps of Ajax and UpdatePanel POST requests:
x-microsoftajax: Delta=true
See here and here.
Could it be as simple as not casing the header correctly?
I eventually got this working. The problem was not specific to ASP in general, it was actually a problem with how Java (specifically HttpClient) was sending the request. I was using HttpClient to compile the request using multi-part form, but after using Fiddler to analyse and compare the requests (see the edited part of this question for more details on that) sent from both my application and the actual webpage, my app request was structured very differently.
The real website request had the form options embedded in the request body in what looked like a URL encoded query string. My request was a series of entries in the request body where each option was wrapped in the Content-Type and Content-Disposition headers. The requests succeeded after changing the POST to add the parameters like:
request.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(paramList));

How does Backbone send a PUT and PATH request to server

Regarding this question and also many documents have stated that sending a PUT request directly via form in browser is impossible due to security reason.
However, What I am seeing in Backbone is that it could still send a direct PUT request via browser without a workaround like adding a hidden form field.
And they're confusing to me. Is there anything that I'm missing here?
A form can only send a GET or a POST request, as set in the method attribute.
However, Backbone delegates its requests to jQuery.ajax by default (or whatever you want via Backbone.ajax) which itself wraps XMLHttpRequest, an object that can send PUT/DELETE/PATCH requests.
From https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest
XMLHttpRequest is a JavaScript object that was designed by Microsoft
and adopted by Mozilla, Apple, and Google. It's now being standardized
in the W3C. It provides an easy way to retrieve data from a URL
without having to do a full page refresh. A Web page can update just a
part of the page without disrupting what the user is doing.
XMLHttpRequest is used heavily in AJAX programming.
many documents have stated that sending a PUT request directly via browser is impossible due to security reason
Citation please.
Backbone sends a PUT just like it sends any other request, with jQuery,
Backbone.ajax({
type: 'PUT'
...
});
It is just some server side langauges,like PHP, that have problems with receiving a PUT request.
The hidden form field is used when posting from a <form>. Backbone uses javascript.

AJAX Callbacks Allowing HTML

I have a comment form on my website and I would like to stop any HTML from being posted through it. I was under the impression that ASP.NET automatically stops any HTML from being submitted by throwing a "potentially dangerous request" exception, but it's allowing HTML in this case.
All of the settings that relate to validation have been left to default so it should be set to requestValidationMode="4.0".
Anyone know what can cause this? Does it have anything to do with the fact that I am using AJAX callbacks?
Edit: I have gathered some more details:
Validation is correctly working in one sub-folder in my application, but it isn't working in any of the others. I looked into my web.config and this is the only setting I have put regarding page validation:
<pages enableViewStateMac="true" validateRequest="true">
Why is it working in one subfolder but not in the others? Does it have anything to do with the fact that this subfolder has a web.config entry regarding authentication?
Edit: Regular postbacks are being validated, just not callbacks.
Edit again: I was playing around with Fiddler and while doing so I noticed one of the callbacks was blocked by the server. Here is what the blocked request looks like:
And here is the plain text version:
__EVENTTARGET=&__EVENTARGUMENT=&__VIEWSTATE=%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%2BCjwvc2NyaXB0Pgo8c2NyaXB0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvamF2YXNjcmlwdCIKc3JjPSJodHRwOi8vcGFnZWFkMi5nb29nbGVzeW5kaWNhdGlvbi5jb20vcGFnZWFkL3Nob3dfYWRzLmpzIj4KPC9zY3JpcHQ%2BZAIDDxYCHwIFqgI8c2NyaXB0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvamF2YXNjcmlwdCI%2BPCEtLQpnb29nbGVfYWRfY2xpZW50ID0gImNhLXB1Yi05NjEzNjkwNDkwNTI4ODE0IjsKLyogQk9JRyBTaWRlYmFyICovCmdvb2dsZV9hZF9zbG90ID0gIjIyMDAxMDYxMTAiOwpnb29nbGVfYWRfd2lkdGggPSAxNjA7Cmdvb2dsZV9hZF9oZWlnaHQgPSA2MDA7Ci8vLS0%2BCjwvc2NyaXB0Pgo8c2NyaXB0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvamF2YXNjcmlwdCIKc3JjPSJodHRwOi8vcGFnZWFkMi5nb29nbGVzeW5kaWNhdGlvbi5jb20vcGFnZWFkL3Nob3dfYWRzLmpzIj4KPC9zY3JpcHQ%2BZAIEDw8WAh4HVmlzaWJsZWdkZAIFDxYCHwIFEjxwPkxpbmsgMSB0ZXh0PC9wPmQCBg9kFgICAw8WAh8DaGQCBw8WAh4EVGV4dAU%2BPHNwYW4gc3R5bGU9Im1hcmdpbi1yaWdodDogNXB4OyI%2BwqkgQmluZGluZ09mSXNhYWNHdWlkZTwvc3Bhbj5kZKMbP1fMlxWhgVw8zpEPBPGzlw5j&=sdfdsgd%40sfds.com&=%3Cp%3Efghfghfg%3C%2Fp%3E&=%3Cp%3Efghfghfg%3C%2Fp%3E&=%3Cp%3Efghfghfg%3C%2Fp%3E&__CALLBACKID=__Page&__CALLBACKPARAM=sdfdsgd%40sfds.com--%7C%7C--%3Cp%3Efghfghfg%3C%2Fp%3E--%7C%7C--%3Cp%3Efghfghfg%3C%2Fp%3E--%7C%7C--%3Cp%3Efghfghfg%3C%2Fp%3E
Here is a typical request that isn't blocked:
Plain text:
__EVENTTARGET=&__EVENTARGUMENT=&__VIEWSTATE=%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%2BCjwvc2NyaXB0Pgo8c2NyaXB0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvamF2YXNjcmlwdCIKc3JjPSJodHRwOi8vcGFnZWFkMi5nb29nbGVzeW5kaWNhdGlvbi5jb20vcGFnZWFkL3Nob3dfYWRzLmpzIj4KPC9zY3JpcHQ%2BZAIDDxYCHwIFqgI8c2NyaXB0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvamF2YXNjcmlwdCI%2BPCEtLQpnb29nbGVfYWRfY2xpZW50ID0gImNhLXB1Yi05NjEzNjkwNDkwNTI4ODE0IjsKLyogQk9JRyBTaWRlYmFyICovCmdvb2dsZV9hZF9zbG90ID0gIjIyMDAxMDYxMTAiOwpnb29nbGVfYWRfd2lkdGggPSAxNjA7Cmdvb2dsZV9hZF9oZWlnaHQgPSA2MDA7Ci8vLS0%2BCjwvc2NyaXB0Pgo8c2NyaXB0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvamF2YXNjcmlwdCIKc3JjPSJodHRwOi8vcGFnZWFkMi5nb29nbGVzeW5kaWNhdGlvbi5jb20vcGFnZWFkL3Nob3dfYWRzLmpzIj4KPC9zY3JpcHQ%2BZAIEDw8WAh4HVmlzaWJsZWdkZAIFDxYCHwIFEjxwPkxpbmsgNSB0ZXh0PC9wPmQCBg9kFgICAw8WAh8DaGQCBw8WAh4EVGV4dAU%2BPHNwYW4gc3R5bGU9Im1hcmdpbi1yaWdodDogNXB4OyI%2BwqkgQmluZGluZ09mSXNhYWNHdWlkZTwvc3Bhbj5kZCu6t45MzsFLBRWYDAvPXYbIXKqE&=&=&=&=&__CALLBACKID=__Page&__CALLBACKPARAM=cfdsdg%40adfds.com--%7C%7C--%3Cp%3Esdfdgdfg%3C%2Fp%3E--%7C%7C--%3Cp%3Esdfdgdfg%3C%2Fp%3E--%7C%7C--%3Cp%3Esdfdgdfg%3C%2Fp%3E
I don't know why the requests are different, nothing changed on the page. I noticed that the first one seems to have split the parameters into the boxes while the second one hasn't. Is this the issue?
I just checked the callbacks being sent from the sub-folder and they are all split into parameters just like the first request. I guess this is the problem... but why is it happening?
I made the inputs runat=server and the request changed a bit, but the values are still not being assigned.
Here is what I found:
___CALLBACKPARAM is not actually validated by the server, only the parameters as seen in the first image are. With this in mind I validated the request myself using the following regex <\/*(p|div|span|a|script|br|b|i|u|h1|h2|h3|ol|ul|li)\s*.*>. You can find more online; hope this helps.

How to trigger HTTP PUT request without Ajax?

Regarding to a static link on a web page, the browser will issue GET or POST request to the web site, depending on whether a form of parameters attached.
However, I want the browser to issue a PUT request for that link, how can I do that? I know that Ajax could do it, but I don't want to use Ajax.
I want the browser to issue a PUT request for that link
it seems that PUT and DELETE are currently unsupported in html forms, according to this submission to the w3.
I know that Ajax could do it
Not always true. Because PUT and DELETE are at times unsupported by some browsers, ajax cannot consume them without making a dummy param to trigger a real PUT or DELETE server side, which gives the illusion of full HTTP support by ajax.

ASP.NET application exhibits strange behaviour through firewall

This problem has been solved thanks to your suggestions. See the bottom for details. Thanks very much for your help!
Our ASP.NET website is accessed from several specific and highly secure international locations. It has been operating fine, but we have added another client location which is exhibiting very strange behaviour.
In particular, when the user enters search criteria and clicks the search button the result list returns empty. It doesn't even show the '0 results returned' text, so it is as if the Repeater control did not bind at all. Similar behaviour appears in some, but not all, other parts of the site. The user is able to log in to the site fine and their profile information is displayed.
I have logged in to the site locally using exactly the same credentials as them and the site works well from here. We have gone through the steps carefully so I am confident it is not a user issue.
I bind the search results in the Page_Load of the search results page the first time it is loaded (the criteria is in the query string). i.e.
if (!IsPostBack) {
BindResults();
}
I can replicate exactly the same behaviour locally by commenting out the BindResults() method call.
Does anybody know how the value of IsPostBack is calculated? Is it possible that their highly-secure firewall setup would cause IsPostBack to always return true, even when it is a redirect from another page? That could be a red herring as the problem might be elsewhere. It does exactly replicate the result though.
I have no access to the site, so troubleshooting is restricted to giving them instructions and asking for them to tell me the result.
Thanks for your time!
Appended info: Client is behind a Microsoft ISA 2006 firewall running default rules. The site has been added to the Internet Explorer trusted sites list and tried in FireFox and Google Chrome, all with the same result.
SOLUTION: The winner for me was the suggestion to use Fiddler. What an excellent tool that no web developer should be without. Using this I was able to strip various headers from the request until I reproduced the problem. There were actually two factors that caused this bug, as is so often the case with such confusing issues.
Factor one – Where possible the web application uses GZIP compression as supported by all major browsers. The firewall was stripping off the header that specifies GZIP decompression support (Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate).
Factor two – A bug in my code meant that some processing was bypassed when the content was being sent uncompressed. This problem was not noticed before because the application is used by a limited audience, all of which supported GZIP decompression.
If they're at all tech-savvy, I would have them download Fiddler or something similar, capture the entire HTTP session, and then send you the saved session. Maybe something in there will stick out.
Meanwhile, see if you can get an install of ISA Server (an evaluation install, if you have to, or one from MSDN if you have or know anyone with a sub) and see if you can replicate it locally.
Is it possible the client has disabled Javascript and it's not picking up the _EVENTTARGET form value?
It might be some sort of proxy which creates a GET request out of a given POST request...
I am not sure how the IsPostBack is calculated, but my guess would be that it checks the HTTP request to see if it's a POST or a GET...
Ohh, yeah. It's definitely NOT "_EVENTTARGET" BTW...
I know this since Ra-Ajax does NOT pass any of those parameters to the server and they (Ra-ajax requests) are processed as IsPostBack requests...
Location, location, location. Check the user's culture. Normally that causes issues.
Could you create a test Post Page that passes the same things that your search page does, and in the Page_Load write back all of the post to make sure they are getting passed, particularly the __VIEWSTATE.
foreach (string key in Request.Form)
{
Response.Write("<br>" + key + "=" + Request.Form[key]);
}
Then ask one of the users to forward back what they see on that test page.
EDIT: There is documentation that some firewalls can corrupt the VIEWSTATE and some methods to get around it: View State Overview
Check the IIS logs to see if the request even makes it to your server. The ISA setup might be caching the initial request and serving that up in the succeeding requests.

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