Caching of Web Service not working when request has query string - asp.net

I'm trying to implement the client-side caching of web service calls, and based on information from the web, I was able to do it according to the SetCachingPolicy() function as shown in code 1 below.
I was able to successfully get it working with a web method, RetrieveX, but not with method RetrieveY. I noticed that RetrieveX has no parameters and RetrieveY has one string parameter, and on inspection under Fiddler, the difference seems to be that the HTTP GET request of the web service call from RetrieveY has a query string for the parameter.
All HTTP GET web service calls so far without a query string is doing the caching properly, but not this call that has a query string in it.
Examination under Fiddler indicates that RetrieveX has the following caching information in output 1, and RetrieveY has the information in output 2.
Is this a limitation of this caching method or can I do something to get the client side caching of RetrieveY working?
Code 1: SetCachingPolicy
private void SetCachingPolicy()
{
HttpCachePolicy cache = HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache;
cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Private);
cache.SetExpires(DateTime.Now.AddSeconds((double)30));
FieldInfo maxAgeField = cache.GetType().GetField(
"_maxAge", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
maxAgeField.SetValue(cache, new TimeSpan(0, 0, 30));
}
Code 2: RetrieveX
[System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod(UseHttpGet = true)]
public string[] RetrieveX()
{
SetCachingPolicy();
// Implementation details here.
return array;
}
Code 3: RetrieveY
[System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod(UseHttpGet = true)]
public string[] RetrieveY(string arg1)
{
SetCachingPolicy();
// Implementation details here.
return array;
}
Output 1: RetrieveX caching info
HTTP/200 responses are cacheable by default, unless Expires, Pragma, or Cache-Control headers are present and forbid caching.
HTTP/1.0 Expires Header is present: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:16:50 GMT
HTTP/1.1 Cache-Control Header is present: private, max-age=30
private: This response MUST NOT be cached by a shared cache.
max-age: This resource will expire in .5 minutes. [30 sec]
Output 2: RetrieveY caching info
HTTP/200 responses are cacheable by default, unless Expires, Pragma, or Cache-Control headers are present and forbid caching.
HTTP/1.0 Expires Header is present: -1
Legacy Pragma Header is present: no-cache
HTTP/1.1 Cache-Control Header is present: no-cache
no-cache: This response MUST NOT be reused without successful revalidation with the origin server.

I ran into this issue as well, I thought I'd share what worked for me. The underlying issue is that VaryByParams is not being set on the response. If you add this to your SetCachingPolicy() method RetrieveY should begin working as expected:
cache.VaryByParams["*"] = true

Related

Cache-Control & Etag not honored on Google Chrome

I've implemented the HTTP Caching guidelines described by Google in a URL Shortening API that I've developed.
Here's how I'm sending the response:
const urlResponseCacheControlMaxAge = 172800 // 2 days
type urlResponse struct {
LongURL string `json:"longUrl"`
ShortURL string `json:"shortUrl"`
}
func (u urlResponse) Hash() string {
parts := strings.Split(u.ShortURL, "/")
return parts[len(parts)-1]
}
func sendURLResponse(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request, urlResponse *urlResponse) {
if eTag, ok := req.Header["ETag"]; ok && urlResponse.Hash() == eTag[0] {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotModified)
io.WriteString(w, "")
return
}
cacheControl := fmt.Sprintf(
"max-age:%d, public",
urlResponseCacheControlMaxAge,
)
w.Header().Set("Cache-Control", cacheControl)
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/json;charset=utf-8")
w.Header().Set("ETag", urlResponse.Hash())
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
encoder := json.NewEncoder(w)
err := encoder.Encode(urlResponse)
if err != nil {
SendError(w, NewError(
URLResponseEncoding,
"Error encoding response",
map[string]string{"error": err.Error()},
))
return
}
}
Basically, when the browser sends a request to the API (using GET), I return an ETag and Cache-Control header in the response; the Cache Control header sets a max age of two days.
What I expect to happen is that in subsequent requests, the browser uses the cached response. After 2 days have elapsed, the browser should send the ETag in the request header to check if the response has changed.
However, what I'm observing is that each time I click on the submit button, the browser resends the request. On Google Chrome Developer Console, I've unchecked 'Disable Caching' and yet it still sends requests each time.
Whatsmore is that the browser is not sending the ETag back with the request headers.
Is there something that I'm missing that's causing the cache to not work as expected?
cacheControl := fmt.Sprintf(
"max-age:%d, public",
The Cache-Control header must contain the caching time with max-age=... not max-age:... as you use (= vs :). The value you've tried to set in the wrong way will be simply ignored.
Whatsmore is that the browser is not sending the ETag back with the request headers.
if eTag, ok := req.Header["ETag"]; ok && urlResponse.Hash() == eTag[0] {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotModified)
The browser will not send etag back within an ETag header. This header is only used to set the etag. The browser will instead ask the server to provide the resource if it was modified compared and will do this by putting the received etag into a If-None-Match: ... header - meaning: please return the resource if it does not match the given etag.
For ETags to be used and the browser to send the If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match headers, the cache control must be set to no-cache.
Either by the server using the Cache-Control: no-cache header or by the browser through the Request.cache option.

Web API as a Proxy and Chunked Transfer Encoding

I have been playing around with using Web API (Web Host) as a proxy server and have run into an issue with how my Web API proxy handles responses with the "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header.
When bypassing the proxy, the remote resource sends the following response headers:
Cache-Control:no-cache
Content-Encoding:gzip
Content-Type:text/html
Date:Fri, 24 May 2013 12:42:27 GMT
Expires:-1
Pragma:no-cache
Server:Microsoft-IIS/8.0
Transfer-Encoding:chunked
Vary:Accept-Encoding
X-AspNet-Version:4.0.30319
X-Powered-By:ASP.NET
When going through my Web API based proxy, my request hangs unless I explicitly reset the TransferEncodingChunked property on the response header to false:
response.Headers.TransferEncodingChunked = false;
I admit, I don't fully understand what impact setting the TransferEncodingChunked property has, but it seems strange to me that in order to make the proxy work as expected, I need to set this property to false when clearly the incoming response has a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header. I am also concerned about side effects to explicitly setting this property. Can anyone help me understand what is going on and why setting this property is required?
UPDATE: So I did a little more digging into the difference in the response when going through the proxy vs. not. Whether I explicitly set the TransferEncodingChunked property to false, the response headers when coming through the proxy are exactly the same as when not going through the proxy. However, the response content is different. Here are a few samples (I turned off gzip encoding):
// With TransferEncodingChunked = false
2d\r\n
This was sent with transfer-encoding: chunked\r\n
0\r\n
// Without explicitly setting TransferEncodingChunked
This was sent with transfer-encoding: chunked
Clearly, the content sent with TransferEncodingChunked set to false is in fact transfer encoded. This is actually the correct response as it is what was received from the requested resource behind the proxy. What continues to be strange is the second scenario in which I don't explicitly set TransferEncodingChunked on the response (but it is in the response header received from the proxied service). Clearly, in this case, the response is NOT in fact transfer encoded by IIS, in spite of the fact that the actual response is. Strange...this is starting to feel like designed behavior (in which case, I'd love to know how / why) or a bug in IIS, ASP.Net, or Web API.
Here is a simplified version of the code I am running:
Proxy Web API application:
// WebApiConfig.cs
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "Proxy",
routeTemplate: "{*path}",
handler: HttpClientFactory.CreatePipeline(
innerHandler: new HttpClientHandler(), // Routes the request to an external resource
handlers: new DelegatingHandler[] { new ProxyHandler() }
),
defaults: new { path = RouteParameter.Optional },
constraints: null
);
// ProxyHandler.cs
public class ProxyHandler : DelegatingHandler
{
protected override async System.Threading.Tasks.Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
// Route the request to my web application
var uri = new Uri("http://localhost:49591" + request.RequestUri.PathAndQuery);
request.RequestUri = uri;
// For GET requests, somewhere upstream, Web API creates an empty stream for the request.Content property
// HttpClientHandler doesn't like this for GET requests, so set it back to null before sending along the request
if (request.Method == HttpMethod.Get)
{
request.Content = null;
}
var response = await base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
// If I comment this out, any response that already has the Transfer-Encoding: chunked header will hang in the browser
response.Headers.TransferEncodingChunked = false;
return response;
}
}
And my web application controller which creates a "chunked" response (also Web API):
public class ChunkedController : ApiController
{
public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
var response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
var content = "This was sent with transfer-encoding: chunked";
var bytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(content);
var stream = new MemoryStream(bytes);
response.Content = new ChunkedStreamContent(stream);
return response;
}
}
public class ChunkedStreamContent : StreamContent
{
public ChunkedStreamContent(Stream stream)
: base(stream) { }
protected override bool TryComputeLength(out long length)
{
length = 0L;
return false;
}
}
From an HttpClient standpoint, content chunking is essentially a detail of the transport. The content provided by response.Content is always de-chunked for you by HttpClient.
It looks like there's a bug in Web API that it doesn't correctly (re-)chunk content when requested by the response.Headers.TransferEncodingChunked property when running on IIS. So the problem is that the proxy is telling the client, via the headers, that the content is chunked when in fact it is not. I've filed the bug here:
https://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/workitem/1124
I think your workaround is the best option at the moment.
Also notice that you have multiple layers here that likely weren't designed/tested for proxying scenarios (and may not support it). On the HttpClient side, note that it will automatically decompress and follow redirects unless you turn that behavior off. At a minimum, you'll want to set these two properties:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.http.httpclienthandler.allowautoredirect.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.http.httpclienthandler.automaticdecompression.aspx
On the WebApi/IIS side, you've found at least one bug, and it wouldn't be suprising to find others as well. Just be forewarned there may be bugs like this currently writing a proxy using these technologies outside their main design use cases.

Apache CXF WebClient multiple requests with www-authenticate header

I got simple JAX-RS resource and I'm using Apache CXF WebClient as a client. I'm using HTTP basic authentication. When it fails on server, typical 401 UNAUTHORIZED response is sent along with WWW-Authenticate header.
The strange behavior happens with WebClient when this (WWW-Auhenticate) header is received. The WebClient (internally) repeats the same request multiple times (20 times) and than fails.
WebClient webClient = WebClientFactory.newClient("http://myserver/auth");
try {
webClient.get(SimpleResponse.class);
// inside GET, 20 HTTP GET requests are invoked
} catch (ServerWebApplicationException ex) {
// data are present when WWW-authenticate header is not sent from server
// if header is present, unmarshalling fails
AuthError err = ex.toErrorObject(webClient, AuthError.class);
}
I found the same problem in CXF 3.1.
In my case for all async http rest request if response came 401/407, then thread is going in infinite loop and printing WWW-Authenticate is not set in response.
What I analysed the code I found that :
In case of Asynchronous call Control flow from HttpConduit.handleRetransmits-> processRetransmit-> AsyncHTTPConduit.authorizationRetransmit
which return true and in HttpConduit the code is
int maxRetransmits = getMaxRetransmits();
updateCookiesBeforeRetransmit();
int nretransmits = 0;
while ((maxRetransmits < 0 || nretransmits < maxRetransmits) && processRetransmit()) {
nretransmits++;
}
If maxRetransmits = -1 and processRetransmit() return true then thread going in infinite loop.
So to overcome this issue we pass maxRetransmitValue as 0 in HttpConduit.getClient().
Hope it will others.
This has been fixed in the latest versions of CXF:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CXF-4815

jersey does support treturn gzip byte

current now i used response to return a xml file . but seems the performance is not good when file is lager.
so i would like know that how to return a byte[] (gzip /xml)
also the IE/firefox can dispaly this xml file from gzip byte array
before i use servlet it can auto show the xml file
#GET
#Path("/Test/{CustomerId}")
#Produces("application/xml")
public Response getTest() throws IOException {
return Response.ok().entity(new FileInputStream("CC100_PC.xml")).build();
}
by the way Jersey how to support init and Destroy function , i want add some database connection into init function and destroy it
Just add the GZIPContentEncodingFilter to your Jersey app - see http://jersey.java.net/nonav/apidocs/latest/jersey/com/sun/jersey/api/container/filter/GZIPContentEncodingFilter.html
That will automatically compress it using GZIP if the client supports it (which it figures out from the Accept-Encoding HTTP header).

ASP.NET MVC ignoring Content-Length?

I've been having some problems with missing post data in ASP.NET MVC which has lead me to investigate how ASP.NET MVC deals with invalid content lengths. I had presumed that a post with a invalid content length should be ignored by MVC.NET but this doesn't seem to be the case.
As an example, try creating a new ASP.NET MVC 2 web application and add this action to the HomeController:
public ActionResult Test(int userID, string text)
{
return Content("UserID = " + userID + " Text = " + text);
}
Try creating a simple form that posts to the above action, run fiddler and (using "Request Builder") modify the raw data so that some of the form data is missing (e.g. remove the text parameter). Before executing the request, remember to un-tick the "Fix Content-Length header" checkbox under the Request Builder options then set a break point on the code above and execute the custom http request.
I find that the request takes a lot longer than normal (30 seconds or so) but to my amazement is still processed by the controllers action. Does anyone know if this is expected behavior and, if so, what would you recommend to safeguard against invalid content-lengths?
ASP.NET does not ignore the Content-Length request header. Consider the following controller action as an example which simply echoes back the foo parameter:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(string foo)
{
return Content(foo, "text/plain");
}
Now let's make a valid POST request to it:
using (var client = new TcpClient("127.0.0.1", 2555))
using (var stream = client.GetStream())
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(stream))
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
writer.Write(
#"POST /home/index HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Host: localhost:2555
Content-Length: 10
Connection: close
foo=foobar");
writer.Flush();
Console.WriteLine(reader.ReadToEnd());
}
As expected this prints the response HTTP headers (which are not important) and in the body we have foobar. Now try reducing the Content-Length header of the request:
POST /home/index HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Host: localhost:2555
Content-Length: 5
Connection: close
foo=foobar
Which returns a single f in the response body. So as you can see an invalid HTTP request could lead to incorrect parsing of the parameters.

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