ASP MVC - Getting application to restart when starting new debugging - asp.net

When editing parts of my project that get called in Application_Start(), i want to have the web app restart every time i press 'Debug', so that i can debug these parts.
But if i dont change the Global.asax.cs self, it doesnt restart and therefore doesnt fire the Application_Start().
Is there any setting or trick to let the app restart each time i start a new debug?

If you are using the development server, simply right-click>stop on the tray icon. When it starts back up you will have a fresh new app-domain that needs to execute global.asax.
Or, in any case, dev or IIS, simply add a space or otherwise modify the web.config file - that will recycle the app domain.
Update - on further consideration: Have you tried re building.
Another thought - you could add a 'pre-build event' that 'touches' the web.config using a command line. BUT - you will probably want to define a special build configuration with configuration manager that is clearly marked, otherwise you may forget that you are killing your app domain and chase your tail in circles. ;p
try searching for 'windows touch file timestamp'.

Related

How to automatically turn on IIS

please I have an application that needs IIS to run, now IIS needs to be turned on manually in the windows control panel. But I want to avoid this process and automatically turn on IIS how can I do this. Thank you
The IIS is implemented as a Windows Service. So the only thing necessary is you to make sure the Startup type of the W3SVC is set to Automatic. It is set to automatic by default, so your question implies that someone has changed it to one of the other options.
So open the services and look for World Wide Web Publishing Service. Then double-click on it and you'll be present with its properties. From the Startup type drop-down choose Automatic. Restart your computer. The IIS will start automatically.
UPDATE
Based on the OP's comment I assume the re-configuration of the service is necessary.
Unfortunately, there is no managed class to change the service startup type. You can go through P/Invoke and call the native Windows API. Another option is to utilize the WMI. But the quickest way is to spawn a privileged cmd.exe from your application installer and run the following:
sc config w3svc start=auto
However, this is not a bulletproof solution as someone else might later change it again to demand or even disabled.
If you're looking for a mechanism to start the service at the execution of the application installer, you might want the ServiceController class. It can start the service but it cannot change its startup type. Here is the official documentation.
So you could do something like this in your code:
using (var w3cvs = new ServiceController("W3Svc"))
{
if (w3cvs.Status == ServiceControllerStatus.Stopped)
{
w3cvs.Start();
}
}

Rapid CSS Testing with JSP

I am new to web development and am unfamiliar with some of the methods for best testing the web end information. On my current project I am using Weblogic to deploy my JSP project through Eclipse.
The webpages build fine and everything works, but currently I am restarting my localhost server every time I make a change to the css or the jsp, which a single round trip can be up to 3-5 min. is there a more efficient way of testing the css other than restarting my server every time? What about jsp?
Edit: Followup:
For any that stumble past this: After reading up on different staging methods as #better_use_mkstemp suggested, I couldn't figure out how to explicitly set eclipse up to stage or nostage deploy, however I did find some nifty things.
You can do an Incremental push (expand drop down in the servers view in eclipse, right click project that is deployed on a running server > click "Incremental Publish". This only pushes what has changed since last push) which helps a bit.
The other thing I found was an automatic deploy when a file changes, but that had it pushing while I was still editing the file which was a bit annoying. Using this feature you can also have it auto deploy each time there is a new version, but I didn't play around with that since we're not changing the version number yet.
Check how you are deploying your application. If you deploy using nostage mode, the server(s) will keep looking in the original deployment directory and will automatically detect jsp changes for refreshes.
This is as opposed to stage mode, where the original war/ear deployment is actually copied to each individual server.
Read more here: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11035_01/wls100/deployment/deploy.html#wp1027044
Sounds like if you keeps dropping your updated deployment files in the same directory with nostage you won't need a restart.

Shut Down Web Application

I need to shut down my web application during maintenance process, have already gone through many ways like putting app_offline.htm in root directory , disabling the Runtime or disabling it manually via server but i what i need to implement is to do this process completely automated.
What i have is the start and end dates for shut down and flag for those days i.e whether application needed to be shut down on those dates.
Solution that i already have is to create a job in sql server agent which creates and deletes the app_offline.htm file in and from the root directory but what the problem is i need to give static path for the root directory of my application which i don not want to do.
You can use the appcmd command line utility for managing sites on IIS. It's located in %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\APPCMD. I think it is available in IIS v7 and above only though, not sure if your using an older version of IIS.
To stop and start a site, the command will look like the following:
%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\APPCMD stop site <Your Site's Name>
%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\APPCMD start site <Your Site's Name>
More info on the appcmd utility is here: http://www.iis.net/learn/get-started/getting-started-with-iis/getting-started-with-appcmdexe
This is part of the answer which deals with probing the IIS to get the physical path. It might need some tweaking
//eg of site = 'Default Web Site'
//eg of Application = 'MySite'
var appName = "MySite";
//Initializes a new instance of the ServerManager class by using the default path of the ApplicationHost.config file.
ServerManager mgr = new ServerManager();
var applications = mgr.Sites.Cast<Site>().SelectMany(s => s.Applications);
var app = applications.SingleOrDefault(a => a.Path.Equals("/" + appName));
IList<string> physicalPaths = app.VirtualDirectories.Cast<VirtualDirectory>().Select(v => v.PhysicalPath).ToList();
//Calling dispose manually. Per MSDN, cannot wrap the ServerManager instance in 'Using' as it causes memory leaks
mgr.Dispose();
//Releasing the reference to the Server Manager, per MSDN guidance
mgr = null;
return physicalPaths;
One issue that you have here is that web application work on a request basis. You make a request, request is processed and returned. Therefore, to rely on this principle to shutdown your application will not work. What you need is to register a scheduler of some type in Application_Start that would configure itself based on the values in the database. Although I am not sure which scheduling mechanism would be appropriate, you might want to look at Timer (but you must keep a reference to the this object because of garbage collection) or Task scheduler in System.Threading.Tasks namespace.
I might be wrong with a choice of classes but this could be a starting point.
Now, as for you design decision, I would avoid it completely. If your web application can create app_offline.html or rename a file into that one, you have no way of bringing the server back online without manual intervention by removing the file. Instead of that why not create some maintenance Windows Service that can query the database and take offline and bring back online again? If you don't care about bringing the web application online automatically then you should not care about taking it offline automatically.
Another thing to consider is a human mistake in configuring the time when application goes offline. Wrongly configured time can bring down your application much too sooner or much later. Wouldn't it be easier if you created some batch scripts or PowerShell scripts that could take down and bring back up the web application? With the PowerShell script you can query IIS for your application without specifying any physical location.

System.Security.SecurityException when writing to Event Log

I’m working on trying to port an ASP.NET app from Server 2003 (and IIS6) to Server 2008 (IIS7).
When I try and visit the page on the browser I get this:
Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
Security Exception
Description: The application attempted to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy. To grant this application the required permission please contact your system administrator or change the application’s trust level in the configuration file.
Exception Details: System.Security.SecurityException: The source was not found, but some or all event logs could not be searched. Inaccessible logs: Security
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and the location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:
[SecurityException: The source was not found, but some or all event logs could not be searched. Inaccessible logs: Security.]
System.Diagnostics.EventLog.FindSourceRegistration(String source, String machineName, Boolean readOnly) +562
System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists(String source, String machineName) +251
[snip]
These are the things I’ve done to try and solve it:
Give “Everyone” full access permission to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Security. This worked. But naturally I can’t do this in production. So I deleted the “Everyone” permission after running the app for a few minutes and the error re-appeared.
I created the source in the Application log and the Security log (and I verified it exists via regedit) during installation with elevated permissions but the error remained.
I gave the app a full trust level in the web.config file (and using appcmd.exe) but to no avail.
Does anyone have an insight as to what could be done here?
PS: This is a follow up to this question. I followed the given answers but to no avail (see #2 above).
To give Network Service read permission on the EventLog/Security key (as suggested by Firenzi and royrules22) follow instructions from http://geekswithblogs.net/timh/archive/2005/10/05/56029.aspx
Open the Registry Editor:
Select Start then Run. Enter regedt32 or regedit
Navigate/expand to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Security
3. Right click on this entry and select Permissions
Add the Network Service user
Give it Read permission
UPDATE: The steps above are ok on developer machines, where you do not use deployment process to install application.
However if you deploy your application to other machine(s), consider to register event log sources during installation as suggested in SailAvid's and Nicole Calinoiu's answers.
I am using PowerShell function (calling in Octopus Deploy.ps1)
function Create-EventSources() {
$eventSources = #("MySource1","MySource2" )
foreach ($source in $eventSources) {
if ([System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::SourceExists($source) -eq $false) {
[System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::CreateEventSource($source, "Application")
}
}
}
See also Microsoft KB 2028427 Fail to write to the Windows event log from an ASP.NET or ASP application
The problem is that the EventLog.SourceExists tries to access the EventLog\Security key, access which is only permitted for an administrator.
A common example for a C# Program logging into EventLog is:
string sSource;
string sLog;
string sEvent;
sSource = "dotNET Sample App";
sLog = "Application";
sEvent = "Sample Event";
if (!EventLog.SourceExists(sSource))
EventLog.CreateEventSource(sSource, sLog);
EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, sEvent);
EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, sEvent, EventLogEntryType.Warning, 234);
However, the following lines fail if the program hasn't administrator permissions and the key is not found under EventLog\Application as EventLog.SourceExists will then try to access EventLog\Security.
if (!EventLog.SourceExists(sSource))
EventLog.CreateEventSource(sSource, sLog);
Therefore the recommended way is to create an install script, which creates the corresponding key, namely:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\dotNET Sample App
One can then remove those two lines.
You can also create a .reg file to create the registry key. Simply save the following text into a file create.reg:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\dotNET Sample App]
The solution was to give the "Network Service" account read permission on the EventLog/Security key.
For me ony granting 'Read' permissions for 'NetworkService' to the whole 'EventLog' branch worked.
I had a very similar problem with a console program I develop under VS2010 (upgraded from VS2008 under XP)
My prog uses EnLib to do some logging.
The error was fired because EntLib had not the permission to register a new event source.
So I started once my compiled prog as an Administrator : it registered the event source.
Then I went back developping and debugging from inside VS without problem.
(you may also refer to http://www.blackwasp.co.uk/EventLog_3.aspx, it helped me
This exception was occurring for me from a .NET console app running as a scheduled task, and I was trying to do basically the same thing - create a new Event Source and write to the event log.
In the end, setting full permissions for the user under which the task was running on the following keys did the trick for me:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Application
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Security
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog
I try almost everything in here to solve this problem... I share here the answer that help me:
Another way to resolve the issue :
in IIS console, go to application pool managing your site, and note the identity running it (usually Network Service)
make sure this identity can read KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog (rigth-click, authorisations)
now change the identity of this application pool to Local System, apply, and switch back to Network Service
Credentials will be reloaded and EventLog reacheable
in http://geekswithblogs.net/timh/archive/2005/10/05/56029.aspx , thanks Michael Freidgeim
A new key with source name used need to be created under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Application in the regEdit when you use System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry("SourceName", "ErrorMessage", EventLogEntryType.Error);
So basically your user does not have permission to create the key. The can do the following depending of the user that you are using from the Identity value in the Application Pool Advanced settings:
Run RegEdit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog
Right click in EventLog key and the select Permissions... option
3.Add your user with full Control access.
-If you are using "NetworkService" add NETWORK SERVICE user
-If you are usinf "ApplicationPoolIdentity" add IIS APPPOL{name of your app pool} (use local machine location when search the user).
-If you are using "LocalSystem" make sure that the user has Administrator permissions. It is not recommend for vulnerabilities.
Repeat the steps from 1 to 3 for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Security
For debugging with Visual Studio I use "NetworkService" (it is ASP.NET user) and when the site is published I used "AppicationPoolIdentity".
I ran into the same issue, but I had to go up one level and give full access to everyone to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\ key, instead of going down to security, that cleared up the issue for me.
Same issue on Windows 7 64bits.
Run as administrator solved the problem.
There does appear to be a glaringly obvious solution to this that I've yet to see a huge downside, at least where it's not practical to obtain administrative rights in order to create your own event source: Use one that's already there.
The two which I've started to make use of are ".Net Runtime" and "Application Error", both of which seem like they will be present on most machines.
Main disadvantages are inability to group by that event, and that you probably don't have an associated Event ID, which means the log entry may very well be prefixed with something to the effect of "The description for Event ID 0 from source .Net Runtime cannot be found...." if you omit it, but the log goes in, and the output looks broadly sensible.
The resultant code ends up looking like:
EventLog.WriteEntry(
".Net Runtime",
"Some message text here, maybe an exception you want to log",
EventLogEntryType.Error
);
Of course, since there's always a chance you're on a machine that doesn't have those event sources for whatever reason, you probably want to try {} catch{} wrap it in case it fails and makes things worse, but events are now saveable.
FYI...my problem was that accidently selected "Local Service" as the Account on properties of the ProcessInstaller instead of "Local System". Just mentioning for anyone else who followed the MSDN tutorial as the Local Service selection shows first and I wasn't paying close attention....
I'm not working on IIS, but I do have an application that throws the same error on a 2K8 box. It works just fine on a 2K3 box, go figure.
My resolution was to "Run as administrator" to give the application elevated rights and everything works happily. I hope this helps lead you in the right direction.
Windows 2008 is rights/permissions/elevation is really different from Windows 2003, gar.
Hi I ran into the same problem when I was developing an application and wanted to install it on a remote PC, I fixed it by doing the following:
1) Goto your registry, locate: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application(???YOUR_SERVICE_OR_APP_NAME???)
Note that "(???YOUR_SERVICE_OR_APP_NAME???)" is your application service name as you defined it when you created your .NET deployment, for example, if you named your new application "My new App" then the key would be: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\My New app
Note2: Depending on which eventLog you are writing into, you may find on your DEV box, \Application\ (as noted above), or also (\System) or (\Security) depending on what event your application is writing into, mostly, (\Application) should be fine all the times.
2) Being on the key above, From the menu; Select "FILE" -> "Export", and then save the file. (Note: This would create your necessary registry settings when the application would need to access this key to write into the Event Viewer), the new file will be a .REG file, for the argument sake, call it "My New App.REG"
3) When deploying on PRODuction, consult the Server's System's administrator (SA), hand over the "My New App.REG" file along with the application, and ask the SA to install this REG file, once done (as admin) this would create the key for your applicaion.
4) Run your application, it should not need to access anything else other than this key.
Problem should be resolved by now.
Cause:
When developing an application that writes anything into the EventLog, it would require a KEY for it under the Eventlog registry if this key isn't found, it would try to create it, which then fails for having no permissions to do so. The above process, is similar to deploying an application (manually) whereas we are creating this ourselves, and no need to have a headache since you are not tweaking the registry by adding permissions to EVERYONE which is a securty risk on production servers.
I hope this helps resolving it.
Though the installer answer is a good answer, it is not always practical when dealing with software you did not write. A simple answer is to create the log and the event source using the PowerShell command New-EventLog (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849768.aspx)
Run PowerShell as an Administrator and run the following command changing out the log name and source that you need.
New-EventLog -LogName Application -Source TFSAggregator
I used it to solve the Event Log Exception when Aggregator runs issue from codeplex.
Had a similar issue with all of our 2008 servers. The security log stopped working altogether because of a GPO that took the group Authenticated Users and read permission away from the key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\security
Putting this back per Microsoft's recommendation corrected the issue. I suspect giving all authenticated users read at a higher level will also correct your problem.
I hit similar issue - in my case Source contained <, > characters. 64 bit machines are using new even log - xml base I would say and these characters (set from string) create invalid xml which causes exception. Arguably this should be consider Microsoft issue - not handling the Source (name/string) correctly.
My app gets installed on client web servers. Rather than fiddling with Network Service permissions and the registry, I opted to check SourceExists and run CreateEventSource in my installer.
I also added a try/catch around log.source = "xx" in the app to set it to a known source if my event source wasn't created (This would only come up if I hot swapped a .dll instead of re-installing).
Solution is very simple - Run Visual Studio Application in Admin mode !
I had a console application where I also had done a "Publish" to create an Install disk.
I was getting the same error at the OP:
The solution was right click setup.exe and click Run as Administrator
This enabled the install process the necessary privilege's.
I had this issue when running an app within VS. All I had to do was run the program as Administrator once, then I could run from within VS.
To run as Administrator, just navigate to your debug folder in windows explorer. Right-click on the program and choose Run as administrator.
try below in web.config
<system.web>
<trust level="Full"/>
</system.web>
Rebuilding the solution worked for me

Is there an event to handle/method to override that takes place before the Web.config is parsed/checked for changes?

I'm wondering if there is an event that can be handled or a method that can be overridden that takes place before the Web.config file is parsed and monitored by the asp.net 3.5 application / AppDomain lifecycle.
The practical reason for this is that I'd like to be able to write the Web.config file from a copy in the database while the application is starting up depending on the deployment environment. The reason for this is because we have a manual application deployment process and a web farm. Web.config changes often fall through the cracks or fail to be propagated to all servers on the web farm because of the manual process. Unfortunately we are going to be staying with a manual deployment process for the foreseeable future. This being the case, it would be great if there was a way for an app to go grab its web config on first startup. If I could get that working, the next logical thing to do would be to create a SQL dependency/notification to cause an AppDomain unload whenever the config file is changed in the databases so new changes would be pulled and written.
So far the only way I've figured out how to manage this is to do something like the below psuedocode that has the unfortunate side effect of causing two application load cycles per attempted start. Additionally, I'm pretty sure the first request that comes in if the app is idle will go up in smoke due to the restart.
// PSEUDOCODE
// In global.asax.cx
protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
bool loadConfigFileFromDB = GetConfigLoadOptionFromLoadOptionsConfigFile();
string webConfigPath = GetWebConfigPath();
if (loadConfigFileFromDB) // Most likely false in development so debugging works
{ // with a local web.config
if (File.Exists(webConfigPath)) // We are not starting up for the first time
{ // since app was deployed
if (File.GetCreationTime(webConfigPath) < DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(-1))
{
// Web config is more than a minute old, so chances are we
// aren't in an app restart after writing the config.
WriteWebConfigFromDatabase(); // This will cause a restart.
}
// else, web.config was probably just written and we are in a
// restart after writing the config. In this case, let the application continue on
}
else // First time starting up, so it's safe to assume we can write
{ // the config and restart.
WriteWebConfigFromDatabase(); // This will cause a restart.
}
}
}
Obviously a build or deployment task would be the best way handle replacing the Web.config per environment, but unfortunately I am not in a situation where that can happen.
EDIT
The intent of this is not to have dynamic settings while the app is running, it is to help manage differing Web.config files per environment (Stage/QA/Production). Example, in a separate non-Web.config file we'd have an environment setting. After deployment when the app fired up, it would use the settings in this file (the environment and the connection string) to go pull and write the web config for that environment. The settings would not be dynamic after application startup.
You are doing weird thing.
UPDATE (also removed unrelated text):
Ok. So you need to automatically propagte new version of the application to all servers. I do not see a reason to do it from application itself. Instead it should be another utility/batch/installer that does this kind of stuff.
I believe ASP.NET application deploying itself will hit a lot of issues (what if you will need to deploy assemblies along with web.config)?
I think simple batch-xcopy approach will do the job for you:
Create a .bat file that accepts 1 parameter:Envoronment=[Stage/QA/Production].
Copy all the required files to a separate temporary directory (so you can modify things without touching the original code).
Modify web.config and other things you need (you can use some utility for that) as per Environment parameter.
XCOPY all files to all required servers as per Environment parameter.
There is no need to incorporate the deployment process into the application itself.
For Windows applications it is ok as you can use bootstrapper, but not for ASP.NET.
Application_End is the closest event - it fires just prior to the unloading of the AppDomain for the web application. You could just update the Web.config file there.
In principle it should work - the AppDomain is unloaded, so the config has to be reloaded when the AppDomain starts up again, by which time the latest config would already exist on disk.
Also, I'm assuming that ASP.NET stops monitoring the Web.config for further changes, as it has already decided to shut down the application - my only concern is that writing the file again would cause an infinite loop to occur.
It can't hurt to try. It is a weird thing to do though. It would be good to have some more background on why you are needing to do this in the first place.
I'm wondering if there is an event
that can be handled or a method that
can be overridden that takes place
before the Web.config file is parsed
and monitored by the asp.net 3.5
application / AppDomain lifecycle.
After doing a few days of research I'm going to say the answer to this question is: No, there is no such event that can be handled or method that can be overidden. If someone ever comes along and can show otherwise, I will deselect this as the answer to the question.

Resources