asp.net mvc framework, automatically send e-mail - asp.net

I want my asp.net mvc framework system to send an e-mail everytime a certain action (inside a certain controller) is fired off. Are there any third party libraries or .net standard ways to accomplish this?

A more up to date method would be to use System.Net.Mail - this is the 2.0 replacement for System.Web.Mail.
Something like this, called from either a BaseController (if there are other controllers that need this) the actual controller in question.
I have the following code inside a static class to handle mailing simple plain text items from the server:
internal static void SendEmail(MailAddress fromAddress, MailAddress toAddress, string subject, string body)
{
var message = new MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress)
{
Subject = subject,
Body = body
};
var client = new SmtpClient("smtpServerName");
client.Send(message);
}
Obviously, you'd probably want some error handling etc in there - Send can throw an exception for example if the server is refusing connections.

Create a BaseController from which all your other controllers inherits.
In the BaseController override the OnActionExecuted Method and insert your code for sending the email.
public class BaseController : Controller
{
protected override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
{
// Send mail here
base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
}
}

The SmtpClient Class with the other System.Net.Mail classes are easily utilized from any .NET program to send mail. You just need to point it to an available and willing SMTP server.

Well its not really hard to send a Email using .NET. You can just send the mail from inside your action.
But, I think we talk little about logging here, and for logging there is a range of 3th party libraries. I know there is one called Log4Net.
Most of these logging frameworks makes it possible to config how logs are stored, and porsibly also a setting to send a email, when it logs something.
But in your scenario, it would just write a plain simple mail function, that sends the mail, when the user enters the action. You can make look at: http://www.developer.com/net/asp/article.php/3096831 - its a demo of sending a mail using .NET - webforms though, but the basic things still apply to MVC.

Related

How to restrict SignalR server connections?

I have a SignalR app. hosted in a Windows service (used OWIN & Katana as self hosting) and it's listening on mydomain.com:8080
On the same server, I also have an MVC application which is basically a website that connects to my SignalR hub which I mentioned above.
I want to restrict access to my SignalR app only to my MVC application. I've searched the internet but didn't come along an example of this.
Is it possible to achieve this? How can I get the information about if the connection is coming from my MVC app or from another app? Do I need to implement an authorization for my own MVC application to be able to connect to my SignalR application?
Right now, everyone on the internet can access to mydomain.com:8080/signalr endpoint which basically means a competitor can code a client that connects to my SignalR hub and use it. What are the options to prevent this scenario?
p.s: Please ask for more information -if you need- instead of just marking the post as "non constructive" because I don't know how this question can be asked more "constructive"
I believe I have a working example, it's quick and dirty, but it should do the job, and you should be able to expand it so it'll fit your needs better:
I created a class that inherits from Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR.AuthorizeAttribute and overrode the AuthorizeHubConnection method:
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class, Inherited = false, AllowMultiple = false)]
public class CustomAuthorize : AuthorizeAttribute
{
public override bool AuthorizeHubConnection(Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR.Hubs.HubDescriptor hubDescriptor, IRequest request)
{
string referer = request.Headers["Referer"];
string authority = new Uri(referer).Authority;
if (authority == "mydomain.com:8080")
{
return true;
}
return false;
}
}
all it does is check the Referer header's host/authority against a hard coded one, and returns true if they match.
You can then use it like this:
[CustomAuthorize]
public class ChatHub : Hub
{
//Hub code here...
}
If CustomAuthorize returns false, the request will stop there. The hub's OnConnected() will not be triggered.
Just Use cors option instead of writing code.in cors allow your domain only

Implementing Authorization in a Self Hosted SignalR Server accessed from Web

I'm looking for some guidance on how to implement authorization security for SignalR on a back end service running in a self-hosted (non-IIS) environment, that is called from a Web application. The backend app is basically a monitor that fires SignalR events back to the HTML based client. This all works fine (amazingly well actually).
However, we need to restrict access to the server for authenticated users from the Web site. So basically if a user is authenticated on the Web site, we need to somehow pick up the crendentials (user name is enough) and validation state in the backend app to decide whether to allow the connection as to avoid unauthorized access.
Can anybody point at some strategies or patterns on how to accomplish this sort of auth forwarding?
I am having similar issues here, as in my web app I use a simple cookie authentication system which uses an AoP style approach to check for any controllers with an attribute, then will get the current context (be it from the static HttpContext.Current or from the target invocation object depending on the type of interceptor) and then verify the cookie exists, it contains right data, then finally verify the token with the db or cache etc.
Anyway this approach can also be used for Signalr, although its a bit more long winded and you are using dependency injection. You would basically wrap the hub calls with the desired attribute, then set up your DI/IoC configuration to intercept these calls, then either get the hub instance within your interceptor and get the cookie (or your custom authentication mechanism) from the request, verify it is all valid or not, and if not then throw a new HttpException("403", "Not authenticated"); which should kick the user out and return back before it even hits your hub method, this way you can put the logic in one place (your interceptor, or a class the interceptor consumes) then just wrap any method that needs to use this authentication using your attribute.
I use Ninject and the interception extension, but most major DI frameworks these days have some form of IoC plugin/extensions, such as Autofac, Windsor, Spring etc.
If you were not happy going down the route of introducing DI and/or AOP to your current project, then maybe you could just create a custom hub instance which contains your authentication logic and then just use that in your hubs, so ok you will still be manually calling some authentication logic from within each hub method you want to protect, but its less code, so something like:
public class AuthorisableHub : Hub
{
private ISomeAuthenticationToken GetSomeAuthenticationTokenFromRequest(Request request) // probably a SignalR specific request object
{
// Get your token from the querystring or cookie etc
}
private bool IsAuthenticationTokenValid(ISomeAuthenticationToken token)
{
// Perform some validation, be it simple or db based and return result
}
protected void PerformUserAuthentication()
{
var token = GetSomeAuthenticationTokenFromRequest(Context.Request);
var isRequestValid = IsAuthenticationTokenValid(token);
if(!isRequestValid)
{ throw new HttpException(403, "<Some forbidden message here>"); }
}
}
public class MyFancyPantsHub : AuthorisableHub
{
public void TellAllClientsSomethingSecret(ISecret secret)
{
PerformUserAuthentication();
// Do stuff with the secret as it should have bombed the user out
// before it reaches here if working correctly
}
}
It is not perfect but would work (I think), also I am sure I once read somewhere that Hubs are newly instantiated for each request, and if this is indeed true, you could possibly just put this logic in your constructor if you want to apply the authentication to every action within the hub.
Hope that helps, or gives you ideas... would be interested in knowing how you did solve it in the end.
SignalR does not provide any additional features for authentication. Instead, it is designed to work with the authentication mechanism of your application.
Hubs
You should do authentication as you normally would and then use the Authorize attribute provided by SignalR to enforce the results of the authentication on the Hubs.
The Authorize attribute can be applied to an entire Hub or particular methods in the Hub. Some examples:
[Authorize] – only authenticated users
[Authorize(Roles = "Admin,Manager")] – only authenticated users in the specified .NET roles
[Authorize(Users = "user1,user2")] – only authenticated users with the specified user names
You can also require all Hubs to require authentication by adding the following method in the Application_Start method:
GlobalHost.HubPipeline.RequireAuthentication();
Persistent Connections
You can use the user object in the request to see if the user is authenticated:
request.User.IsAuthenticated

WebTest for SignalR possible?

if I send a request, and I expect the response to come trough SignalR, is it possible to test this using a LoadTest or PerformanceTest in Visual Studio?
Short answer: Yes
I've done this several times in CodedWebTests but it would also be possible to do in a declarative WebTest. You can use a custom PreWebTest Event Handler to create your signalR client and connect to your SignalR hub. What you choose to do with the signalR notification is up to you but I like to save it to the WebTestContext as well as display it on the test results screen using the AddCommentToResult method.
The method below creates a hubConnection invokes the "addToGroup" function on the hub and then tells the client what to do when it receives a message.
using Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR.Client;
public class SignalRPlugin : WebtTestPlugin
{
public override void PreWebTest(object sender, PreWebTestEventArgs e)
{
var hubConnection = new HubConnection("yourSignalRUrl");
var hubProxy = hubConnection.CreateHubProxy("notifications");
hubConnection.Start().Wait();
hubProxy.Invoke("addToGroup", "me");
hubProxy.On<string>("message", s =>
{
e.Webtest.AddCommentToResult(s);
e.Webtest.Context.Add("signalRMessages", s);
});
}
}
Use it by attaching the event handler in your test constructor.
public MyWebTest()
{
PreWebTest += new SignalRPlugin().PreWebTest;
}
Then once you have the signalR messages you can use a custom validation rule to validate that the response was received. Just have a while loop checking the WebTestContext for the "signalRMessages" key. I strongly suggest making sure you add a timeout feature so you are not waiting forever if the messages never come in.
The other option if you are writing CodedWebTests is to create a WaitForNotifications method that basically does the same thing as the validation rule. The advantage with this is that you can use an extraction rule to get data out of the last response and then use that data in validating your signalR messages. If you still need to fail a test in your WaitForNotification method use WebTest.InternalSetOutcome(Outcome.Fail);
The best way to load test a SignalR application is by building on the crank project included in the source.
This is a simple ramp up solution built with the .Net client but it is relatively easy to modify to call whatever hub methods you require and to analyse the responses.
You can always attach the Visual Studio profiler to your iis express instance to get detailed profiling data if required.

ASP.NET MVC - Real time updates using Web Service

I'm trying to find examples on how to get real time updates using a web service in ASP.NET MVC (Version doesn't matter) and posting it back to a specific user's browser window.
A perfect example would be a type of chat system like that of facebooks' where responses are send to the appropriate browser(client) whenever a message has been posted instead of creating a javascript timer on the page that checks for new messages every 5 seconds. I've heard tons of times about types of sync programs out there, but i'm looking for this in code, not using a third party software.
What i'm looking to do specifically:
I'm trying to create a web browser chat client that is SQL and Web Service based in ASP.NET MVC. When you have 2-4 different usernames logged into the system they chat and send messages to each other that is saved in an SQL database, then when there has been a new entry (or someone sent a new message) the Web Service see's this change and then shows the receiving user the new updated message. E.G Full Chat Synced Chat using a Web Service.
The thing that really stomps me in general is I have no idea how to detect if something new is added to an SQL table, and also I have no idea how to send information from SQL to a specific user's web browser. So if there are people userA, userB, userC all on the website, i don't know how to only show a message to userC if they are all under the username "guest". I would love to know hot to do this feature not only for what i'm trying to create now, but for future projects as well.
Can anyone point me into the right direction please? I know SQL pretty well, and web services i'm intermediate with.
You can use SignalR for this task.
Via Scott Hanselman:
Create Asp.net mvc empty application
install nuget package of SignalR
Add new Controller (as example HomeController):
public class HomeController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
}
Create view Index with javascript references:
#Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.6.4.min.js")"
"#Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.signalR.js")"
and function:
$(function () {
var hub = $.connection.chatHub;
hub.AddMessage = function (msg) {
$('#messages').append('<li>' + msg + '</li>');
};
$.connection.hub.start().done(function() {
$('#send').click(function() {
hub.send($('#msg').val());
});
});
});
Create class ChatHub:
public class ChatHub:Hub
{
public void Send(string message)
{
Clients.AddMessage(message);
}
}

How can I intercept all calls to methods in a WCF .svc service?

Ive got a WCF service which has multiple web methods in it. I want to be able to intercept the request on all methods and look at the Ip address. Id rather not put the logic into a method call at the top of each called web method is there a way to intercept all calls to these methods from one place?
If it was a page I would write a base page object but im nout sure if there are events raised on a wcf call?
WCF allows you to implement interceptors that are added to the stack. See this link for an example. I´m not sure whether this allows you the extract the senders IP but I think it´s worth a try.
You can implement IDispatchMessageInspector and do something like this.
public object AfterReceiveRequest(ref Message request,
IClientChannel channel, InstanceContext instanceContext)
{
RemoteEndpointMessageProperty remoteEndpoint = request.Properties
[RemoteEndpointMessageProperty.Name] as RemoteEndpointMessageProperty;
//remoteEndpoint.Address will give you the address.
return null;
}
You can use Custom Behaviors, they are part of WCF Extensibility features. Here's more information: Extending WCF with Custom Behaviors
There's a clever way to do this with the ServiceAuthorizationManager, and it's far easier than all the seriously hard work of the IDispatchMessageInspector.
Create a class in your WCF Service project like so:
public class MyServiceAuthorizationManager : ServiceAuthorizationManager
{
protected override bool CheckAccessCore(OperationContext operationContext)
{
string classMethod = operationContext.RequestContext.RequestMessage.Headers.Action;
if (classMethod.Contains("/transfer/Get"))
{
return true; // because someone is simply updating a client service reference
}
Console.WriteLine("Class Method Call: {0}",classMethod);
// do something with operationContext here as you need to inspect stuff
// return true if you want this class method call to succeed and go through
// return false if you want this class method to fail on the client
return true;
}
}
Then, in your service, right before your host.Open() call, add the link to MyServiceAuthorizationManager.
ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(MyProject.Service1));
host.Authorization.ServiceAuthorizationManager = new MyServiceAuthorizationManager();
host.Open();
Now when you test your client connections, you'll notice that the console outputs what class method was called. You can also work against all the stuff in the operationContext object.
One way I use this is for a security header check. In my client, I add a header. Then, in the service, in this CheckAccessCore() call, I verify that this custom header exists. If it doesn't, then I return false. This is one more layer of protection that keeps the hackers out, and is great for the limited security in Named Pipes configurations too. If you're wanting to also do that, then click here for more information on how to add custom headers that automatically get sent on every client's method call on the service.
And note, among all this, I didn't have to mess with behaviors, claims, listeners, or message dispatches. I also didn't need to edit my WCF Configuration.
Note the string check for /transfer/Get above. This is important if you're doing header checks as a security mechanism like I was. If you don't have that condition and return true, then your WCF client IDE can't update its ServiceReference because the IDE doesn't know about that extra header (if you're adding a custom header and not specifying that header in the WCF client's app.config). Otherwise, you'll get an error The URI prefix is not recognized.

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