C# application testing connection (ping, download, upload) to the web service - c#

I have created a simple web service that receives data and saves it in a database. I need to create an application (or service) that will test the connection to this web service (from time to time, e.g. every 1 minute).
I need information like download, upload, ping and save them in the database. I tried NetworkInterface, but the web service is not an interface, so it cannot find it. I don't know how to test this connection and get information about it, so I need help.

Solution 1: fully custom
High level description:
Create a new endpoint , something like api/healthcheck
Either
a. do a mock action (save/delete false data
b. Maintain a table or any other persistence (even a singleton would do) with statistics from recent calls
Add them to a class response object and return it to the caller.
Solution 2: Use custom telemetry
High level description:
Pick a service like application insight: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/app/app-insights-overview
Configure the telemetry if the out of the box configuration isn't enough.
Use the rest api to get your information

Related

How to create a SOAP Request C#

I know there are thousands of step-by-step samples for consuming a SOAP project with C#.
Actually, I tried many of those but didn't really get to understand how it works, how were needed components built or how to integrate a certificate for a secure connection.
I would be really grateful if any of you guys have a magical resource, since I read somewhere I shouldn't do it this way or another, I really want to know this well.
Thank you,
Best regards.
It's really simple actually. Suppose you have a service at http://myhost.com/XService.svc - right click References in the solution explorer and choose "Add a service reference" (older versions of VS called it web reference/web service)
A wizard appears; pop your URL into it, set a few options and hit Go
You'll get a client class set created that references the service, with methods that take a set of typed parameters based on what the service said it wanted when VS queried its WSDL. You might use it like:
var c = new XServiceClient();
bool result = c.CreateNewPerson("John Smith", 30, "js#hotmail.com");
The service client handles all of the xml creation, tcp socket connection, data transmission etc necessary to pass those 3 values you sent, to the web service so that the relevant method is called, the response is returned etc

Azure Notification Hubs Register Device Error 404

This is the first time I'm using Azure Notification Hubs and I'm having some trouble getting it working properly with my application.
The part I'm stuck on (at the moment) is registering my device with the notification hub. I'm using the backend method to do the registration ... that is, I'm creating an Installation object and using the CreateOrUpdateInstallationAsync method to register the device via my Web API. I'm only testing it at this stage so I'm hitting my API endpoint with dummy data via Postman.
When I step through my code, I'm getting the following error when I execute CreateOrUpdateInstallationAsync ...
The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found. Entity does not
exist.TrackingId:203cba37-007d-4dcb-ae25-ced33fa012aa_G1,TimeStamp:2/4/2018
10:24:02 PM
I've tested that I am connecting to the Notification Hub correctly by calling GetAllRegistrationsAsync. This returns an empty list (expected) and no error ... so I have my endpoints set up correctly. I'm wondering if there is a problem with my dummy data? For the installation Id, I've just created a random GUID (Guid.NewGuid). The Device ID and Push Notification Handle are random numbers and letters. And I'm testing this for the Android platform (NotificationPlatform.Gcm).
Has anyone seen this error before and know what it means? Am I able to just use random data for testing purposes (I'm only interested in registering devices at this stage) or do I need legitimate data (real device id's, etc)?
Thanks in advance.
The CreateOrUpdateInstallationAsync method would essentially invoke the REST API Create or Overwrite an Installation. When you register with a notification hub from your custom backend using the Installation, the core code would look like as follows:
NotificationHubClient hubclient = NotificationHubClient.CreateClientFromConnectionString(listenConnString, hubName);
await hubclient.CreateOrUpdateInstallationAsync(installation);
Note: You could install the Microsoft.Azure.NotificationHubs package for back end operations.
For a simpler way, I just created a console application and test this operation as follows:
Note: I just created a new Azure Notification Hub and did not set any notification settings. And I set a GUID as the InstallationId and a random string as the PushChannel, the rest operation could work as expected.
And I could retrieve the previous added registration as follows:
Has anyone seen this error before and know what it means? Am I able to just use random data for testing purposes (I'm only interested in registering devices at this stage) or do I need legitimate data (real device id's, etc)?
The operation could work on my side, I would recommend you debug your application and leverage fiddler to capture the network traces to narrow this issue. Moreover, you could follow Registration management for more details about registering devices with azure notification hubs.
Ok, it turns out that I had the wrong value for Hub Name when instantiating the NotificationHub object using NotificationHubClient.CreateClientFromConnectionString. I was using the namespace, instead of the hub name (visible on the Overview tab in the Azure Portal).

How to inform users that api maintenance is in progress

I am using azure app service and DB for my C# ODATA API and DB as the backend of of my phone app.
I only have one app service that hosts 10s of endpoints. There are times when I need to publish new versions and I don't want any incoming requests during that time of deployment.
I don't mind that users are not able to finish their requests during the maintenance.
Is there anything in Azure or API that can let me:
1. turn off the api/app service manually?
2. Be able to inform the user that a maintenance is in progress?
This is my trial:
the only thing I can come up with is this. While users always use the "odata" in their url requests: https://myserverl/odata/Users
which is setup in the webapi.config like this:
config.MapODataServiceRoute("odata", "odata", builder.GetEdmModel());
I put the routePrefix (2nd odata) in a web.config.
When I need to turn off access, I change my web.config (which I can access manually even after the publish of code into Azure) to be like this:
<add key="odata" value="noaccess" />
and in my webapi.config:
string odata = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["odata"].ToString();
config.MapODataServiceRoute("odata", odata, builder.GetEdmModel());
and then save the web.config which will reset the server and all incoming requests that has "odata" will result into error. I can always set it back later.
This method will stop the users from sending requests during maintenance but will not let them know what is going on.
I figured it out.
when I call the server from my client, I verify that the response is between 200 & 299 before parsing results or any other further processing.
So now, I check also for the possible response from the server that it could be either 403 (access is denied) or 503 (server is unavailable). That's where I can add code to notify the user.
In Azure, simply stopping the app service, will generate one of those 2 error codes.
Note: You must check for both: 403 & 503.

Custom SharePoint 2010 WCF Service - How to set MaxReceivedMessageSize parameter

I have developped a custom WCF Web Service within a SharePoint 2010 Visual Studio empty project.
My web service is working well. The problem is related to the size of the request I can send to this web service. I have realized that is something around 300Kb. If I go bigger than that, the service/client is sending me an exception.
I've looked around on the web and see that the MaxReceivedMessageSize setting may be my solution. I've tried using a FeatureActivated method to set this information using this kind of request:
// increase maximum size of requests to this web service: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff599489.aspx
SPWebService contentService = SPWebService.ContentService;
contentService.ClientRequestServiceSettings.MaxReceivedMessageSize = -1;
SPWcfServiceSettings csomWcfSettings = new SPWcfServiceSettings();
csomWcfSettings.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 10485760; // 10MB
contentService.WcfServiceSettings["PT-SP-P2S-DocumentCreator.svc"] = csomWcfSettings;
contentService.Update(); // access denied thrown here!
With that code, I have an Access denied (I'm actually the Site Collection Administrator).
I also know that this parameter may be set in the app.config of web service host but, in SharePoint, where to I need to change this parameter.
I think you should make this change in the web.config file of the Web Application in which the feature is activated. SharePoint provides APIs to make web.config changes. In fact, using APIs to make changes to your web.config is preferred option because SharePoint uses Timer Job and makes same updates to all Web Front End servers in your environment. There are 2 ways to make changes to web.config as described here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms460914.aspx
In your case, since you want to make the change only when your feature is activated, you would take the API approach as documented here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb861909.aspx

Web Services. Get input data, process it at background thread

I've got several web-services: asmx,wcf. At couple of them there are some methods, which take a lot of time for processing, but size of input data for these methods are small and it takes not much time to transfer on the wire. I want move to not sync model. Client passes data to service, service answers that data transfer was correct and process it at background thread witout connection with client. So agter transfering connection should be closed. IS it possible? Can u help me with articles or may be just google request.
John is right - Once you close an http connection, it is done. You can't get back to the same process.
So if you can use another technology that allows duplex on one connection (e.g. WCF), do it!
However,
if you have no choice but to use webservices,
here are three ways to make it work. You may get timeouts on any of them.
Option 1:
Forget the part about 'client answers data was correct.' Just have each thread make its request and wait for the data.
Option 2:
Now, assuming that won't work and you must do the validation, this way requires the client to make 2 requests.
First request: returns valid/invalid.
Second request: returns the long-running results.
Variation of option 2:
If you have timeout problems, you could have the first request generate a GUID or unique database key and start another process, passing it this key, and return the key to the client. (if you can get the server to allow you to start a process - depends on security settings/needs - if not you may be able to start an async thread and have it keep running after the websvc one ends?) The process will do the long task, update the row in the database w/ the unique id when finished, revealing the results plus a 'done' flag. The second request by the client could always return immediately and if the processing is not done, return that, if it is, return the results. The client will repeat this every 5 sec or so until done.
Hacks, I know, but we don't always have a choice for the technology we use.
Don't do this with ASMX web services. They weren't designed for that. If you must do it with ASMX, then have the ASMX pass the data off to a Windows Service that will do the actual work, in the background.
This is more practical with WCF.
We have been writing stuff to interact with the UK gov website and the way they handle something similar is that you send your request and data to the server and it responds saying, roughly, "thanks very much - we're processing it now, please call back later using this id" - all in an XML message. You then, at some point later, send a new http request to the service saying, essentially, "I'm enquiring about the status of this particular request id" and the server returns a result that says either it has processed OK, or processed with errors, or is still processing, please try again in xx seconds.
Similar to option 2 described previously.
It's a polling solution rather than a callback or 2 way conversation but it seems to work.
The server will need to keep, or have access to, some form of persistent table or log for each request state - it can contain eg, the id, the original request, current stage through the workflow, any error messages so far, the result (if any) etc. And the web service should probably have passed the bulk of the request off to a separate Windows service as already mentioned.

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