When the Zendesk server is down, our website - where we show some Forum content using Zendesk API - is down as well. We are currently using C# API like below:
ZendeskApi api = new ZendeskApi("https://companyname.zendesk.com/api/v2", "user", "pass");
GroupTopicResponse gtr = api.Topics.GetTopicsByForum(321321);
How can we set a timeout or skip this when the server is not available? We are using ASP.NET MVC 3.
Thanks.
In general, you want to make third-party API calls asynchronously.
I recommend you break out the Zendesk code into another controller and use an AJAX call to populate the forum data after the page loads. Then on a timeout, you can display an error message.
If you want to keep it server-side, you can wrap it in a method that starts a new thread and uses Thread.Join(TimeSpan) like in this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1370891/1090474.
And if you want to get fancy, you can cache the results from Zendesk and in the case of a timeout, display the cached data.
We have solved with ASP.NET MVC caching, as explained in this post: https://stackoverflow.com/a/349111/261010
Related
I am managing and old web site (site, not application) that is a hybrid of Web Forms and Classic ASP. The Classic ASP is being phased out, but that is probably a year away. Right now, we are dropping the old form of authentication in favor of Windows Authentication in the web.config.
The problem is that I am attempting to post to a Classic page from the code behind of a web form (http://www.blahsiblah.com/index.aspx) and am getting a 401 error.
var webClient = new WebClient();
var urlClassicASP = "http://www.blahsiblah.com/classic.asp";
var responseArray = webClient.UploadValues(urlClassicASP, "POST", nameValueCollection);
This throws "The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized"
My question is, how can I post to the classic page without invoking the authentication of the dotNet side?
There are multiple ways to achieve this
Here is a simple suggestion that I hope helps
.Net
Use 127.0.0.1 (or your internal 192.169 / 10.1* ) IP to post to the page vs the public URL
Add a parameter (call it 'bypassauth' or something unique ) when sending the request to the ASP page
Add a parameter that identifies the user that you have authenticated in the .Net side
ASP
Find the include where the authentication check is happening and in that check, add another condition before returning 401 that checks two things
1) Request is from local/internal IP
2) Has the bypassauth parameter
3) the user id is valid
This way your old ASP code will still continue to work if requested from a browser and expect user to be authenticated however, when sending the request from .net will let you bypass authentication
I'm sure there are other ideas too, but this is just one approach
My solution was to set:
webClient.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
We have an existing user licensing server that is running via PHP. It allows for creation of users, checking if the provided username and password is valid, and updating a user.
We are creating a new ASP.Net website and want it to use this existing user PHP scripts/database to restrict access to portions of the ASP.Net website. Also there are web services that use the same login and password via basic authentication that we need to access as well from the ASP.Net server.
I am looking for a way for .Net to use the remote PHP scripts to validate login. And I need a way for the users login id and password to be available so I can use them to communicate with those existing web services from the ASP.Net server on their behalf.
Does anyone know how to go about getting this sort of thing done. Or any good tutorials or blogs?
Thanks!
It's possible to run PHP and ASP.NET on the same server, and even in the same web application. You can also create .NET code that runs before and/or after each PHP request (with an HttpModule).
PHP under IIS just has a separate HttpHandler that invokes the cgi-bin process.
If you want to call a PHP page from an ASP.NET page, one approach is to use Server.Execute() -- although web services would certainly be cleaner from an architectural perspective.
Beyond that, for the actual authentication/authorization part of your question, the approach depends on the specifics of your implementation. You can certainly do things like share cookies between PHP and .aspx.
unfortunatly they are different languages and php scripts cannot be used in an asp.net site. You would have to recreate your classes(scripts) but what you can do is use your existing database if its in mysql or any other. That's the best you would be able to do as far as I know.
If those PHP web services respect some industry standard such as SOAP for example, you can simply consume them by generating strongly typed client proxies. If not, well, then you still have the good old WebClient which allows you to send HTTP requests and read responses. It's as simple as:
using (var client = new WebClient())
{
var values = new NameValueCollection
{
{ "username", "john" },
{ "pwd", "secret" },
};
var result = client.UploadValues("http://foo.com/login.php", values);
// TODO: do something with the result returned by the PHP script
}
Have you tried using stored procedures instead of PHP scripts? That way you don't have to write multiple instances of the same code and it can be used in .NET and PHP.
I am trying to extract an id number from a URL using a web service so that it can be used as a parameter for a where clause in a select statement that produces data from a database based on the id number of a record. That data will then be passed back to the page to populate an element in a jQuery modal popup widow.
Everything works fine with a static id number (ex: string postid = "120"), but I don't know how to get the id number from the URL. I'm using Routing in .Net 4 and the method for accessing Routing in pages does not work in a web service. In pages I just do stuff like var id = RouteData.Values["id"]; and that gets the id, but when i did it in a web service I got an error:
CS0120: An object reference is required for the non-static field,
method, or property 'System.Web.Routing.RouteData.Values.get'
Summary:
I have web service accessed form a details page where I want to get RouteData for the page making the request. I want to do this just as easily as I can on a page using RouteData.Values which is just as easy as the now the obsolete Request.Querystring.
Now I am more confused because although I could easily add a new route for the web service I don't know I would call that using jQuery Ajax because of the webservice.asmx/webmethod syntax.
Right now I have URL: "../webservices/googlemaps.asmx/GetGoogleMap" in my jQuery Ajax, but that is not a real URL. It only exists in jQuery somewhere and the way to call the service using just JavaScript is no a real URL either, its webservice.webmethod() which in this case would be googlemaps.GetGoogleMap().
I will try registering a route for webservices/googlemaps.asmx/GetGoogleMap/postid, but I doubt it will work because GetGoogleMap is not a directory or a querystring.
Get current http request and use RequestContext property to get request context - it has current routing data. For example,
var id = HttpContext.Current.Request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["id"];
In case of WCF based web service, make sure that service is participating in ASP.NET pipeline (see ASP.NET Compatibility)
EDIT: Sorry for misleading answer - the above will not work unless web service url is registered in routing engine. However, it may not solve your issue of retrieving the id - what kind of service implementation are you using? Are you making a GET request or POST request? Typically, web service handler (asmx) or WCF pipeline should convert GET/POST parameters to method parameters. Post your web service code and how you invoke it.
I am using ASP.NEt MVC for one of my project.
In this I have Employee controller which can be called by www.Mysite.com/Employee/ url.
Also I have used JqGrid which uses followng to fetch data
url: "GetGridData"
While testing the same I found that
If i type www.Mysite.com/Employee/ in browser a call is made to
www.Mysite.com/Employee/GetGridData
If i type www.Mysite.com/Employee in browser a call is made to
www.Mysite.com/GetGridData
Note: the missing / at the end in second call.
How to rectify this as the chances are end user can type any of this url in browser.
I'd take a look at how you're asking JqGrid to make it's web service call - because it won't know anything about MVC's routing engine by default - and this is all happening client side.
Stepping outside of MVC for a minute, if I have a page:
example.com/page1.aspx
And have a relative link to another page on there:
Click here
The browser will look for page2.aspx at the same level as page1.aspx, i.e.
example.com/page2.aspx
If I move page1 to a new folder:
example.com/NewFolder/page1.aspx
The browser will ask for
example.com/NewFolder/page2.aspx
when a user clicks on the link.
The same thing is happening to your GetGridData call - these are being made by the web browser to your server based on the information it has available to it.
So if your page responds on:
example.com/Employee
And asks for a relative request to:
GetGridData
The browser will send that request to the same level that Employee appears to be on:
example.com/GetGriddata
Which then fails because the routing engine can't find a route for that request.
You should look at generating the URL for the GetGridData call dynamically through the routing system, which will ensure that it's built as:
url: "/Employee/GetGridData"
Final edit to add
Forgot to mention, you should probably use the UrlHelper Action methods for this:
url: <%=Url.Action("GetGridData")%>
This will generate a path to the GetGridData method on the current controller. If you need to access a different controller, or pass some values, there are overloads to help.
Try debugging your route:
Phil Haack's: ASP.NET Routing Debugger
I'm looking to rewrite a pretty intensive CRUD type ASP.NET page to utilize ajax calls (specifically jQuery ajax). My concern in doing this is that the user may be on this page longer than the forms authentication timeout. Because of this, I'm thinking that I should extend the forms authentication ticket with each ajax call (basically how it does in a normal web forms submit model). So the questions:
Is this even a valid concern? If so, would writing a jQuery plugin to extend the forms authentication timeout be possible? Does one already exist? Would using ASP.NET AJAX be a better approach?
Any comments\help would be appreciated.
I can confirm that making a web service or page method call through jQuery will extend an ASP.NET session expiration in the same way that a regular postback will.
I often use a five minute setInterval() to call a "keep-alive" service, which will preserve the user's session indefinitely even if they leave the application idle.
You should be able to use MS Ajax without the Script manager and use jQuery to consume the WebMethods. More info doing so here
As far as I know, calling a WebMethod will extend the user's session timeout. So this approach may be a best of both worlds.
I use this for my keepalive webservice.
Modify this to your liking and let me know if it works...
Note: session("UID") is a variable I setup at login. I name my ticket the same
<WebMethod(CacheDuration:=0, EnableSession:=True)> _
Public Function keepSessionAlive() As String
If Session("UID") Is Nothing OrElse Session("UID") = 0 Then
Throw New ApplicationException("Login")
End If
Session("lastKeepSessionAlive") = DateTime.Now
If Not (Context.Request.Cookies(System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName) Is Nothing) Then
Dim ticket As System.Web.Security.FormsAuthenticationTicket
Try
ticket = System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(Context.Request.Cookies(System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName).Value)
If ticket.Name = Context.Session("UID") Then
System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(Context.Session("UID"), False)
Debug.WriteLine("keepAlive:AuthenticationReset")
End If
Catch ex As Exception
Debug.WriteLine("keepAlive:AuthenticationReset FAILED!!!")
Throw New ApplicationException("Login")
End Try
Else
Debug.WriteLine("keepAlive.Load: No Authentication Cookie. Error")
Throw New ApplicationException("Login")
End If
Return Session.SessionID.ToString
End Function
Use Fiddler or some other utility to see if Microsoft was smart enough to make sure the cookie gets updated between AJAX calls. You may have better luck (with regard to automatic updating of the forms auth tickeet) if you use Microsoft's baked-in asp.net AJAX (which is substantially similar).
Forms auth works via a cookie. Cookies are sent with XMLHttpRequest requests, so I don't think there's a problem here.
Note that there is an issue related to the FormsAuthTicket expiring, and being forced to redirect to login.aspx or some such. But that's an entirely different scenario than what you're talking about.
I don't think I completely understand what it is you're asking but in terms of the jquery ajax timeout, you can set the local timeout in the ajax call.
Example:
$.ajax('ajax.php',{timeout: 60000},function (data) {
alert(data);
}