I've just created a simple asp.NET web service application with a WebMethod that passes the current server time and a Windows form application to run alongside this as a client.
As it stands, for the client app to be able to interact with the server app, the web service application needs to be running (runs in a web browser). If the browser is then closed, the client app cannot talk to the web service app.
Ideally, I would need this web service to always be running in the background on my server at all times (not just when a web browser is opened) and start when the server is booted up.
What would be the best way to achieve this? I have minnimal experience with asp.NET so is there a way to configure the web service to be a background service? Do I need to create a seperate Windows service application that uses asp.NET web services?
Any help appreciated, thanks.
Yes, by default, Visual Studio stops debugging your web application when you close the browser used for debugging... But you shouldn't run your application from Visual Studio. You deploy web applications to IIS. Then they'll start when the machine starts, and they don't need a browser to keep running.
Related
I have a clean up service that needs to be ran on a schedule and sometimes on demand. My first thought was to create a windows service but a windows service cant be ran on demand. So, I am thinking of creating a ASP.NET web api site to run this background process. This way I can run the cleanup service on demand from a webpage and I can have a windows service call the web api url to run the service.
So there will be a Web API site that will execute the cleanup logic and both a webpage and a windows service can call this web api service to cleanup.
Do you see anything wrong with this idea? Is there a better way to do this
Okay, I'm a very green developer (co-op student) so I'll try my best to make sense. Currently I have a web application (call it "Updater") that is an aspx and runs through IIS. My boss has asked my to look into creating a program (exe or command line) that can run the app through created encapsulated web server that can act like IIS. This is so that I can run the exe during an installer procedure on a client's machine so that the updater can configure the client's program.
So Far I've looked into sources upon sources on how to create a self hosted web server to handle a web app and I've managed to do the following:
-Create a command line server hosted at a given port #######.
-Use a StreamReader to read an html file
-Use HttpResponseMessage to set the Content to this html page.
Obviously this is very rudimentary, but I couldn't understand how to switch the app over to the server I created rather than the IIS.
Any help ont he matter would be appreciated, like I said I'm still quite new.
You can use OWIN to self host from within a console application.
Look for 'Self-Host OWIN in a Console Application' in the following link:
http://www.asp.net/aspnet/overview/owin-and-katana/getting-started-with-owin-and-katana
You need to start you self host server with the address your app is trying to contact. If your IIS is running with the default settings it should be http://localhost:80. Before you start the self host server you need to shut down your IIS website that is running on port 80. Two applications can not listen on the same port at the same time.
What you ask is a redistributable web server for ASP.NET. So, you might find interesting the UltiDev Web Server, formerly known as Cassini web server.
From their website:
UltiDev Web Server Pro (UWS) is an advanced, redistributable web server for Windows that can be use as a regular web server to host web sites and ASP.NET applications, or packaged with your ASP.NET web application and installed on your customers' systems along with your web app or site.
I faced problem with IIS web application. There is some RTF processing needed on server side and this can be done with windows control. This control requires to be created and shown in order to perform operations (RTF stuff).
I would like to expose web-service from IIS that could launch windows form on Windows Server (the one that is hosting IIS), perform some work and return data to web-service. Problem is that IIS does not allow to launch windows forms.
Requirement is to host whole app on IIS. Windows Service installed separately is not an option here. I tried deploying WCF service on IIS that that didn't worked too.
I built a Web API service that's hosted locally on my machine in IIS. I have an iOS app that I'm running via XCode that makes the call to the web service. The connectivity is there, and works. The iOS app successfully makes the connection to my published web service.
The problem is my web service is returning a non descriptive error to the client (iOS), so what I need to be able to do is step through the web service code while running my iOS app.
So, in summary:
I run an iOS app via my MacBook, and it connects to my .NET Web API service.
My Web API service is published to my local IIS, and is returning an error back to the client.
Breakpoints aren't being hit in Visual Studio - do I need to attach my Visual Studio debugger to a specific process? I've tried running my web service in debug mode while running my iOS app, to no avail.
How can I step through my web service code when running the client app (iOS) that accesses the web service?
Attach to process - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/3s68z0b3.aspx
Make sure "Show processes from all users" is checked, and pick w3wp.exe
You may need to hit the service once first to make sure its started.
To debug an app that's hosted by IIS, you want to attach to process (in Visual Studio it's Tools->Attach to Process or Ctrl+Alt+P) and pick w3wp.exe from the list (you might have to check a few boxes for the process to show up).
Another option is to use our free VS Extension called Conveyor
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vs-publisher-1448185.ConveyorbyKeyoti
With it you open up IIS Express to remote connections on your network (or even the web through tunnelling).
Once you've done that you can debug the project directly from VS and connect to the Conveyor port number (or domain name via tunnelling) and debug as you would locally.
you can use Postman client.
First : run the API FROM visual studio
Second : go to postman put the url and add the parameter in body
More information : http://www.tutorialsteacher.com/webapi/test-web-api
this often works for me i generally list all of the processes in IIS with appcmd command
appcmd list wp
and pretty much you know which process to attach by seeing the names of the web services
if appcmd is not available please visit
Here for configuring this
I have a C# application that needs to always be running. I originally planned on making this a windows service but I now have a requirement to make the application host a web admin console.
I haven't played with IIS in quite a few years so my question is this:
What would you recommend I use?
I've thought about making a windows service and embedding a web server such as Cassini but so far I'm not very happy with the open source web servers I've looked at.
Can IIS handle this? Do people use it for this type of scenario, and if so how?
This sounds like a job for two separate projects.
One is the original Windows Service. Windows Services are well suited for what you're doing.
The second is the Web Project that will be used to administer the Windows Service. This is the part that runs in IIS.
It depends on what you mean by always running. An ASP.NET web application deployed in IIS could very well be unloaded by the web server if there aren't any requests for certain amount of time killing all background threads. So if you want an ever running background thread it would be better suited to use a Windows Service. As far as the web admin is concerned, well, here you don't have much choice: ASP.NET in IIS. In order to do something useful those two applications should be able to find a common language to talk. So you could use a database to store the results into which could be used by both applications.
IIS will run your app on first request, not on server boot. So you will still need to run a service to ensure your app is always running.
You can use IIS as a webserver for your web admin part, and link your ASP.net app with your service by means of a configuration database (easy) or webservices (a little more tricky).
Windows and Web services are two very different creatures. A web service will expose external methods that you can implement against an application, while a windows service is an entity within itself. If you're planning on using this service on a timed interval to perform an operation, a Windows service would be the right way to go. If you use a web service, you will need to invoke the method you wish to run from a secondary application.
If you need to queue commands against your windows service, you could always create a database that was accessible by both your website and your windows service. This way you could send commands and query data between the two. Placing a web service in to serve as an intermidary between the two may be overkill.