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Microsoft Bot Framework Multi-Tenant Credentials C#

Background
I've created a working bot in C# but I'm failing to expand it to be a multi-tenant bot. I have created multiple bots in the Microsoft portal using this technique to identify themselves from the messaging endpoint:
https://example.com/api/messages/bot1
https://example.com/api/messages/bot2
https://example.com/api/messages/bot3
I can grab the LastSegment from the URL while in the MessagesController and store it in PrivateConversationData so I know which bot is talking in the current conversation. I intended use this stored 'bot id' in order to retrieve the Microsoft AppId & Password from the web.config (the bot's credentials are stored as a series of custom entries and not the standard appSettings as that only works for a single bot).
Credentials Problem
The authentication works well (nearly) as described here except when using async code with .ConfigureAwait(false) I can't get the HttpContext.Current as it becomes null when running on a different thread. This means I can't get the authenticated user's credentials either by looking them up in the web.config or by calling GetCredentialsFromClaims() since I've lost the authenticated user. If I use .ConfigureAwait(true) I just get deadlocks all over the place.
I have the credentials in the web.config but they are stored per bot and I need the 'bot id' from the URL above in order to get the credentials.
Question
The crux of the problem is: I need the URL to get the 'bot id' and I need the 'bot id' to get the credentials from the web.config but I can never reliably get access to the URL once I've passed a .ConfigureAwait(false) in the code. On the flip side, I can't get the 'bot id' from the PrivateConversationData since I need the bot's credentials in order to load it. A bit chicken and egg :-(
If anyone has any ideas of what I may be doing wrong or has an alternative approach to know which 'bot id' is currently executing I'd very much appreciate it.
Thanks

Please find below given the sample code.
public class StartUp {
public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app) {
var builder = new ContainerBuilder();
//Note: Initialize / register the Metadata Service that can bring the tenant details from the corresponding store
builder.RegisterType<TenantMetadataService>().As<ITenantMetadataService>();
//Note: This helps you in accessing the TenantMetadata from any constructor going forward after the below registry
builder.Register(ti => TenantMetadata.GetTenantMetadataFromRequest()).InstancePerRequest();
//TODO: Register the various services / controllers etc which may require the tenant details here
}
}
public class TenantMetadata {
public Guid TenantId { get;set; }
public Uri TenantUrl { get;set; }
public string TenantName { get;set; }
public static TenantMetadata GetTenantMetadataFromRequest() {
var context = HttpContext.Current;
//TODO: If you have any header like TenantId coming from the request, you can read and use it
var tenantIdFromRequestHeader = "";
//TODO: There will be a lazy cache that keeps building the data as new tenant's login or use the application
if(TenantCache.Contains(...))return TenantCache[Key];
//TODO: Do a look-up from the above step and then construct the metadata
var tenantMetadata = metadataSvc.GetTenantMetadata(...);
//TODO: If the data match does not happen from the Step2, build the cache and then return the value.
TenantCache.Add(key,tenantMetadata);
return tenantMetadata;
}
}
Note
The above code snippet uses the various service placeholders, cache and the other methods which will require to be used based on the designed application services. If you wish not to cache the tenant metadata, if it may contain some sensitive data, you can remove the caching implementation parts.
This implementation can be spread across all your web facing portals like your Web UI, Web Api and WebJobs etc so that it is same across all apps and it is easy to test and consume.
HTH.

Writing a simple OData client: how to query service?

I am trying to adapt this example to create a simple OData client. Before that, I added a service reference in Visual Studio to "http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/".
By this step I got many classes like "Alphabetical_list_of_product". But how do I get the alphabetical list of products, for example?
Specifically, in the example the author just starts with:
OdataClient.NorthwindOdataService.NorthwindEntities dc =
new OdataClient.NorthwindOdataService.NorthwindEntities(
new Uri("http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/"));
But where did he get the OdataClient.NorthwindOdataService.NorthwindEntities class from?
I am new to web services and OData, so apologies if the question is vague.

Here is an example of how the service reference can be used after it has been added to the project:
// Create a service context object
// "NorthwindEntities" is the name of the class in the generated service reference that derives DataServiceContext
// The URI in should be the same URI you used to add the service reference
var context = new NorthwindEntities(new Uri("http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/"));
// As Alphabetical_list_of_products is an entity set, it can be directly called from the context
// Call Execute() finally to send the request to the OData service and materialize the response got to "products"
var products = context.Alphabetical_list_of_products.Execute();
// Iterate through all the products and print "ProductName", which is the name of a property on "Alphabetical_list_of_product" entity
foreach (var product in products)
{
Console.WriteLine(product.ProductName);
}
As you are new to OData, it is recommended that you start from OData V4. Add Service Reference supports client side proxy generation of OData service up to OData V3. The OData V4 protocol on OASIS Comittee and the blog of the OData team of Microsoft can be referred to for details.

If you want a client for consuming OData service, a good choice should be OData code generator. You can start by reading the tutorial http://blogs.msdn.com/b/odatateam/archive/2014/03/12/how-to-use-odata-client-code-generator-to-generate-client-side-proxy-class.aspx .

Ajax call to the Asp.net Web API controller

As part of the project we have implemented ASP.Net Web API, which returns the Json data, which is consumed by the Javascript using Angular JS on the client.
Controller code is straight forward (Trimmed description):
public class CardController : ApiController
{
// code
[HttpGet]
public CardDataGetUI GetCardDataUI(int userID, int dashBoardID, int cardID)
{
// Access the application Cache object using HttpRuntime (System.Web.Caching)
var blCache = HttpRuntime.Cache;
// Create a user specific BL access key by concatenating the user ID
string userBLAccessKey = WebAPIConstant.BlUserDashboardCard + userID;
// Access the BL object stored in the Cache
accessBL = (Bl)blCache[userBLAccessKey];
// Other Code
// Fetch the data for the control being passed
cardDataUI = accessBL.GetCardDataUI(dashBoardID, cardID);
return (cardDataUI)
}
}
The above mentioned GetCardDataUI delivers the card data for different type of control like chart, map and grid on a same UI screen, so what UI does is make an Asynchronous call to all in one go, currently I have BL (business layer) object being accessed from application wide cache, which is an issue for Multi threaded access, as they would share same object, so I have converted that to a local copy and initialized the one for each call to the controller. However that is also good enough till the each ajax call is having it's unique controller instance to call the method. However in this case it seems the http call they make have same instance thus modifying the input variable of each call thus leading to unexpected result and exception, since it is modifying the internal DS at run time. It is akin to calling the static method
Ideally I did not expected a multi-threaded call to the business layer, but it seems in Angular JS client has to make such calls, they cannot be synchronous.
Currently I have resolved the situation by introducing a lock in the controller, which certainly allows one thread at a time
However was looking for a solution like each Ajax call can have it's own controller instance, when it make the http get call.
We also have an option of modifying the above mentioned controller method like:
public CardDataGetUI[] GetCardDataUI(int userID, int dashBoardID, int[] cardID)
{
// Code
}
In this case there will be one call for all cards and I will call the data fetch in a for loop, thus synchronizing the operation, but this is not much different from locking the controller, preferable will be a separate controller instance for each AJAX call
Any suggestion?

Writing a generic WCF service client config/endpoint checker?

I have a client application that consumes a number of services. It's not always immediately obvious when a service is down or incorrectly configured. I own the service side code and hosting for most of the services, but not all of them. It's a real mixed bag of client proxies - different bindings (basichttp/wshttp/nettcp), some have been generated using svcutil.exe, while others are made programatically with ChannelFactory where the contract is in a common assembly. However, I always have access to the address, binding and contract.
I would like to have a single component in my client application that could perform a basic check of the binding/endpoint config and the service availability (to show in some diagnostic panel in the client). As a minimum I just want to know that there is an endpoint at the configured address, even better would be to find out if the endpoint is responsive and supports the binding the client is trying to use.
I tried googling and was surprised that I didn't find an example (already a bad sign perhaps) but I figured that it couldn't be that hard, all I had to do was to create a clientchannel and try to open() and close() catch any exceptions that occur and abort() if necessary.
I was wrong - in particular, with clients using BasicHttpBinding where I can specify any endpoint address and am able to open and close without any exceptions.
Here's a trimmed down version of my implementation, in reality I'm returning slightly more detailed info about the type of exception and the endpoint address but this is the basic structure.
public class GenericClientStatusChecker<TChannel> : ICanCheckServiceStatus where TChannel : class
{
public GenericClientStatusChecker(Binding binding, EndpointAddress endpoint)
{
_endpoint = endpoint;
_binding = binding;
}
public bool CheckServiceStatus()
{
bool isOk = false;
ChannelFactory<TChannel> clientChannelFactory = null;
IClientChannel clientChannel = null;
try
{
clientChannelFactory = new ChannelFactory<TChannel>(_binding, _endpoint);
}
catch
{
return isOk;
}
try
{
clientChannel = clientChannelFactory.CreateChannel() as IClientChannel;
clientChannel.Open();
clientChannel.Close();
isOk = true;
}
catch
{
if (clientChannel != null)
clientChannel.Abort();
}
return isOk;
}
}
[Test]
public void CheckServiceAtNonexistentEndpoint_ExpectFalse()
{
var checker = new GenericClientStatusChecker<IDateTimeService>(new BasicHttpBinding(), new Endpointaddress("http://nonexistenturl"));
// This assert fails, because according to my implementation, everything's ok
Assert.IsFalse(checker.CheckServiceStatus());
}
I also tried a similar technique with a dummy testclient class that implemented ClientBase with the same result. I suppose it might be possible if I knew that all my service contracts implemented a common CheckHealth() method, but because some of the services are outside my control, I can't even do that.
So, is it even possible to write such a simple general purpose generic service checker as this? And if so how? (And if not, why not?)
Thanks!

Have you looked at WCF Discovery?
WCF Discovery allows a client to search for a service based on
different criteria including contract types, binding elements,
namespace, scope, and keywords or version numbers. WCF Discovery
enables runtime and design time discovery. Adding discovery to your
application can be used to enable other scenarios such as fault
tolerance and auto configuration.
For a first attempt, you could query the endpoint to see if it supports the expected contract.
The big benefit is that you can have the client “discover” which service it wants to talk to at runtime. Which removes a lot of the client side configuration errors that you are likely used to seeing.

You need to check out SO-AWARE. It is a web service management tool that can manage SOAP or REST WCF-based service across your organization. Further it has a Test Workbench!
Here are a couple of videos that show it off too:
Part 1
Part 2
To put it in perspective, this is so complex that these people make a living doing it, I don't think it's something you want to realistically build on your own.

Injecting host from HttpContext into Service layer

I need to apply filtering by requesting host name on all database calls in my Web API service.
This filtering works like so:
lookup the Site to profile against based on the requesting hostname
Apply Site.Id on all subsequent data access calls made in the request
Essentially a global filter so so that data returned by the API service is always contained to the host.
One solution would be to pass the host name in as an argument on all my service methods like so:
public IEnumerable<Profiles> GetProfiles ()
{
var host = HttpContext.Current.Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_NAME"];
return profilesService.Get(host);
}
But since this is a consistent rule on all requests I would like to come up with a more elegant way to handle this so my service calls are just profileSerivce.Get();
I think I need to inject a ISiteLocator into my service layer that has either the host name or even better the Id already retrieved from the database that I can then apply. But I'm struggling with this on how and where I can reference the HttpContext to get the host name and also if it was possible to optimise this using StructureMap lifecycles.

I think I need to inject a ISiteLocator into my service layer
It seems to me you are heading into the right direction.
I'm struggling with this on how and where I can reference the
HttpContext
This is really simple actually. Define the ISiteLocator in your business layer and define an AspNetSiteLocator implementation into your ASP.NET web application, preferably close to (or inside) your Composition Root. That implementation might look like this:
public class AspNetSiteLocator : ISiteLocator
{
private readonly ISiteRepository siteRepository;
public AspNetSiteLocator(ISiteRepository siteRepository)
{
this.siteRepository = siteRepository;
}
Site ISiteLocator.GetCurrentSite()
{
return this.siteRepository.GetById(CurrentHostName);
}
private static string CurrentHostName
{
get
{
return HttpContext.Current.Request
.ServerVariables["SERVER_NAME"];
}
}
}
that has either the host name or even better the Id already retrieved
from the database
Try to let your ISiteLocator return data in a way that is most convenient to the consumers of that locator. In my example I returned a Site entity (if you have such an entity in your domain). This is probably more convenient than the host name or the Id, since consumers possibly have to query for the site again thereselves. However, perhaps Id is the most convenient, but that's up to you to find out.
how [...] to optimise this using StructureMap lifecycles
The implementation above doesn't have any state, so it can be registered with any lifetime; singleton for instance. However, every call to ISiteLocator.GetCurrentSite() will result in a new request to the ISiteRepository, which can cause too much overhead. In that case you probably want an implementation that stores the Site in a private field and always returns that instance. In that case you shoud register that implementation on a 'Per Web Request' basis (since the SERVER_NAME will not change during the request).