ASP .NET WebService that accept large file input from a different server - asp.net

I need to build a Web Service in ASP .NET 3.5 (C#) that accepts a large file (documents like DOC/PDF/XLS and similar of about 10-20 MB) as input parameter.
This Web Service is called by many 3rd party applications, many of which are developed in PHP. Once the WS has the file, it has to put it inside another .NET application documents archive.
I already tested the entire round and it works. The file wasn't passed inside the call url, it was taken by a server local path.
Now, my problem is: how can I pass a big file to the WS, when the calls come from an application that is hosted on a different server?
EDIT: added an example.
The case:
Server A is a PHP application that calls the .NET Web Service on Server B and passes it a file. Then, the WS on Server B will post the file somewhere else on Server C.
In other words my problem is the communication between Server A and Server B. I need something like a "query string" which I can use to pass a file as byte array or anything else. Something like:
http://www.myserver.com/InsertFile.ashx?file=A3Fdf3Gjy5... <-- byte array of the file
Obviously, the query string doesn't suit very well to my purpose...
I want to know if what I want to do is possible and which technic I should use to make it works.

You could use a POST instead of a GET to allow larger files (and be semantically correct). A similar question is asked here. Leading to this link

If the web service is yours you can achieve it by changing web.config file. Please refer :
How do I upload large (> 25MB) files to a web service?

Related

Creating a "web service" using ASP.net - what's in the DLL?

All,
Sorry in advance - I'm a total novice when it comes to ASP.net.
I'm working on a project that's fairly simple. I have single HTML page that collects input from the user. When the input is complete - the html page uses AJAX to post the data to a web service. That service receives the data, does some processing on it, then sends back a response.
The "client" part of this app is pure HTML/Javascript (not ASP.net), and is complete and works perfectly.
The "service" part of this app (MyHandler.ashx) is built using ASP.net. Technically - what it does is receive data from the AJAX post. It then uses Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel to open an Excel spreadsheet, pass the users' inputs into that spreadsheet, then retrieve several calculated values from the spreadsheet, and returns those values in the response to the AJAX post.
Using Visual Studio VS I've got this whole process running locally on my PC.
When I "publish" the project - VS creates a ton of files. I sent those files to the team that manages the server; they deployed them, and voilà - it works. (The necessary Office interop libraries are installed on the server).
So - my question - as I make a few modest changes (e.g., validation, error handling) to the handler - MyHandler.ashx - which of those published files actually change? If i want to reploy - do I simply need to resend an updated version of MyHandler.ashx? Or, do simple coding changes to that file require changes to the DLL?
I guess my question is, generally - what's in the DLL? (E.g., is it a compiled version of MyHandler.ashx?)
More specifically - publishing my project creates the following files that I don't really understand:
Web.config
Global.asax (in my project, there's not much in here)
bin/MyProject.dll
So, if I make changes to MyHandler.ashx - can I simply reploy THAT file? Or, do I need to "publish", then "redeploy" thd dll? (By changes - I mean simple code changes, not decisions to include/exclude other external dependencies).
Sorry - this question must seem like nonsense to knowledgeable ASP.net developers. But, with other technologies I've used, things were clear:
If you're developing a Flash project, you write source code in .FLA files, then compile, then deploy the resulting .SWF files.
If you're developing an HTML/JavaScript/PHP project, you write those files, then deploy those same files
I'd trying to get a better understanding of what's what with ASP.net.
Thanks again.
The DLL contains the compiled code behind the ASHX file. The ASHX is just a service definition for an HTTP handler. When you make changes to the service (e.g. the code), simply issue another Publish like you did before and send the entire package.
But in short, when you change the code, the DLL is what's changing.

IIS Express denying PUT requests in ADO.Net data services

I have a project that uses ado.net dataservices. This project was originally developed in VS2005 and IIS6 but I am now porting it to IIS7 standards. I've run into a snag when trying to update existing records, the put operation (to the service) fails and prompts the following browser alert:
The URI 'http://localhost:6188/services/Datatracker.svc/provider' is not valid for PUT operation. The URI must point to a single resource for PUT opeations.
I imagine this is because the URI is being treated as a folder, and I know that this can be corrected through configuration but I'm having trouble finding the specific settings
Any assistance would be appreciated.
So as it turns out this is invalid syntax for put and delete requests:
http://localhost:6188/services/Datatracker.svc/provider
Valid odata syntax is: (OLKM represents the calue of the keyfield that uniquely identifies the record)
http://localhost:6188/services/Datatracker.svc/provider('OLKM')
Old asp.net + iis6 allowed you to cheat your way around this requirement, but iis7 & .net 3.5+ requires you to use the correct syntax.

how to deploy flex app using different web service urls?

Is there some sort of configuration settings in FlashBuilder 4.5 where you can easily switch between webservice urls? Right now I have to delete and recreate the web service every time I switch from local to production and vice versa.
The need/requirement is this – Since I work in a startup, we keep changing servers, and their IP addresses. And being a service oriented application – I need to be able to edit the webservice endpoints in my Flex application in a easy manner every time this happens.
My Solution for this -
Assumption is that my webservice endpoint looks like this -
http:////ListAllServices/
1) Create a file config.xml in a folder named “settings” that sits in the root folder of your Flex application – outside the “src” folder. And the config.xml will be a simple xml file of the following format -
localhostTestFlexApp
At the end of this exercise the directory structure of your flex source code will look like this -
flex_src(root of the source code)
-com(some source folder)
–testapp
—view
—
-images
-settings
–config.xml
-appName.mxml
2) Now in your application code, setup a HTTPService object either in mxml or action script. Set the url of that object to this value- “settings/config.xml” – And the above xml fiel containing the current settings will be loaded into memory .
Now you can store these values in a singleton object and construct your Webservice call at runtime.
And whenever you want to move this to a new server in production, edit the tag of your config.xml and you should be good to go.
And this can be automated as well via the EnvGen ant task.
This is not the best way but yes it is very helpful while switching among servers.
Alrighty... The way I was doing it before in fact worked. The problem was browser caching.
For the benefit of others I modified the subsclass for the generated service and replace the wsdl variable with whatever endpoint I need.

Connection String in a .Net Windows Program

I'm working on my first Windows .Net application (as opposed to a .net web app, which I've done a lot of), and I have a question about database connection strings - is there an equivalent to the section in web.config?
I want to be able to have the program run against our test database (which will required a different connection string. What is the "canonical" way to define connection string objects in a Windows .Net application?
Thanks
Rather than write this all down again, here's a good article on this subject:
Storing and Retrieving Connection Strings
Add an "application configuration" file to your project. It will add a file called "app.config" Put your connection in there.
When the app is compiled it will change the name of the config file to match your executable. For example: MyApp.config.
I'm not sure what you mean by "canonical" way to define connection string objects. Name them whatever you want. Sometimes we use the name of the database, sometimes just the name of the project.
With regards to having multiple config files, we use Config Transforms. Which name them app.config, app.debug.config, app.release.config, etc. and use configuration manager to define which one to use based on where it's being deployed.
Non ASP.Net apps simply use app.config instead of web.config. See here.
Connection strings can be stored as key/value pairs in the
connectionStrings section of the configuration element of an
application configuration file.

Specifying connection string in config file for a class library and re-use/modify in ASP.NET Web Application

How can one specify the connection string in a config file of a class library and later modify this when used in a ASP.NET Web Application?
The Class library is a data access layer that has a Dataset connecting to a database based on a connection string specified in a config file (Settings.settings/app.config).
This class library is used in a web application where user inputs data and is written to the database using the DAL classes & methods exposed in the class library.
Now, I want to migrate this application from development environment to testing environment and later to production. The problem I'm facing is that after migrating to testing, the app in testing still connects to development database. I've changed the connection string mentioned in <class library>.dll.config file but this seems to have no impact.
Can someone explain the right way to achieve this? Thanks in advance for any help. Cheers.
With the .config files the name has to match the main executing assembly. For example I had a situation like yours, I needed a class library to have its settings in a .dll.config file. While it was able to reference it the actual application would not be able to read the config file because it was expecting .exe.config. Renaming the .dll.config to .exe.config fixed the problem.
In your case migrating your connection strings from .dll.config to web.config should fix your problem!
Good luck!
Joshua is partly right ... For posterity I would like to add a bit more to this answer as I have delt with the same problems on several occasions. First, one must consider their architecture. There are several issues you can run into with .config files in ASP.NET based on deployments.
Considering the architectural ramifications:
Single tier (one server):
A simple web application may be able to leverage a reference to the sites Web.config file and resolve your issues. This would be a fine solution for a single tier application. In the case of a windows application leveraged as a .exe file, the App.config will work too.
Multi-tier (more than one server):
Here is where things became a bit hairy for me the first time I was working with .config files across boundries. Remember the hierarchy of the config structure and keep this in mind (MSDN Article on .Config structure) - there is a machine.config at the root in the appropriate ASP.NET folder. These reside at each physical server. These are overridden by the site Web.config (or App.config) which are in turn overridden by subfolder .config files. If you have more than one .config file you may want to use one of the methods to pass the file path for the specific .config you want to use. More importantly, these files each may have connection information. ASP.NET's machine.config holds some for the framework ... so you should at least be senstive to the fact this is an "inheritance" chain. Second, any changes to the Web.config file once deployed will tell the application to restart. This will result in loss of state (bad if you have active users on the site). The way around this is to keep a separate .config file (e.g. connections.config) and put a reference to that file in the Web.config. This will allow you to change the connection information (e.g. password) without having to restart the application. Here is a link to more info: MSDN: Working with Configuration Files. This article lays out all the details you need to be aware of in a normal server / IIS deployed application. Keep in mind that the .config files are mainly intended for applications, not libraries. If you have several tiers, chances are you are using some communicaiton / messaging layer (e.g. WCF). This will have / allow its own Web.config. You can keep connection strings there (and encrypt them if needed), but better yet, put them in a second file referenced by the Web.config for manageability. One final point, if you are ever going to consider the cloud, .config files are wrapped for application deployments which in effect removes all of the benefits they offer in terms of "not having restart or redeploy". Azure deployments will want to consider this article to save themselves from nightmares of maintenance: Bill Lodin blog - Configuration files in Azul / Cloud. One other point on this article – great example on how to programmatically select configuration depending on deployment! Be sure to check that out if you want to add flexibility to deploy in or out of the cloud .
I hope these points saves all of you time and headaches. I know I lost a couple days of programming time dealing with these issues ... and it was hard to find all the reasons in one place why may app was not "implementing" its connection object. Hopefully this will save you all from the same fate I had.

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