call controller by timer - c#

I have to send query to remote program and recieve data. Then put them in my DB.
This is possible to call controller's action every 60 seconds for example?
Thanks.
PS. I think it's must be done on server side. Not JS solution.
UPDATE:
First, I have MS SQL Server DB.
Second, There is remote program that listen specific TCP port and waiting a query. I want to send a query every 60 seconds and parse response, then put parsed data in my MS SQL Server DB.

Using Ajax you could create a timer to send data to the controller every x seconds .
A spellchecker plugin in my web application does this , to do spell checking as you type .

I think you would be better off using a standalone service (windows, wcf, msmq, etc) that runs in the background and "sends the query" and saves to your DB.
Web Applications are not designed to be utilized as time-based "always alive" mechanisms. "Timing" needs state, and HTTP is a stateless protocol.
Don't try to shoehorn functionality into something that isn't designed to handle it.
Then again i could be completely misunderstanding your question. Quite possible.
Confusing statements:
This is possible to call controller's action
If it's external, how do you know it's a controller? Is this an external API?
There is remote program that listen specific TCP port and waiting a query
That doesn't sound like a web application/controller.

You could use cron on *nix base system. Or your program could trigger events every hours
0 * * * * lynx url-of-your-program-address.com/action/to/call

Your question is confusing. But since we are only here to guess at what you are on about here's a solution that might come close.
(P.S. I haven't compiled or tested this...because why should I care)
class ConsoleApplication
{
public static void Main()
{
Timer myTimer = new Timer();
myTimer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler( DoAction );
myTimer.Interval = 1000;
myTimer.Start();
while ( Console.Read() != 'q' )
{
; // do nothing...
}
}
public static void DoAction( object source, ElapsedEventArgs e )
{
Console.WriteLine("Made request at {0}", DateTime.Now);
using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
{
using (Stream stream = client.OpenRead("http://whereever"))
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
Console.WriteLine(reader.ReadToEnd());
}
}
}
}

Depending on how flexible your solution should be I would play around with Windows Service solution with Timer in it either with Quartz.Net.
You can find more details using the link below http://quartznet.sourceforge.net/

Related

Async TcpClient Connect different when deployed on Windows and Linux

I'm writing a client application, that has to connect to a server application via TCP socket. The framework of choice is .NET Core 2.0 (it is not ASP.NET Core it is just a console app). I'm using a TcpClient class, and its .BeginConnect() and .EndConnect() methods, to be able to set a connection timeout. Here is the code:
public class Program
{
public static void Main(String[] args)
{
var c = new TcpClient();
int retryCount = 0;
var success = false;
IAsyncResult res;
do
{
if (retryCount > 0) Console.WriteLine("Retry: {0}", retryCount);
retryCount++;
c.Close();
c = new TcpClient();
res = c.BeginConnect("10.64.4.49", 13000, null, null);
success = res.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));
Console.WriteLine(success.ToString());
}
while (!c.Connected);
c.EndConnect(res);
Console.WriteLine("Connected");
Console.ReadLine();
}
When I compile, publish and run this Console App, and nothing is listening on the IP address and port, the results if the app is running on Windows or Linux are different.
Here are the results on Windows:
Here is what it looks like on Linux:
The results are pretty the same, the only difference is on Windows it tries to connect every two seconds, but on Linux, it acts like this two seconds are ignored and goes on a "rampage connection session" as I call it.
I'm not sure if this is a .NET Core issue or some Linux tune-up, that Windows already have predefined.
Can anyone advice what might be the problem, and eventually propose a solution.
Thanks in advance,
Julian Dimitrov
I think I understand why you're having an issue, and it seems to be based upon a misunderstanding of what a timeout should do.
For the sake of testing, I changed your code to this:
var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
res = c.BeginConnect("127.0.0.1", 12, null, null);
success = res.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
On Windows, I can see that the connection fails after ~1 second, whereas running the same code within Linux, it fails almost instantly. It seems that Linux is capable of working out if a connection is possible faster than Windows is. I think perhaps you're mistaking the time Windows takes to work out it can't connect with the timeout you've specified.
Next: What is a timeout? A timeout is the maximum time a connection can take to be established. It's a limit. It means that the operation has to complete in less than X seconds (e.g. 10 seconds) or it fails. If an operation completes in 1 second, then it will be immediately returned.

Do you need to use inproc in netMQ to keep one thread for receiving messages or is there a better way?

I am just starting to learn NetMQ, derived from zeroMQ. I don't know C or C++ too well so I'm finding the zeroMQ tutorials a challenge, and the NetMQ ones seem to skim a lot. All I want is a two way binding between processes.
app1 ----- Request data ----> app2
app1 <---- Receives data --- app2
The basic example supplied is
using (var context = NetMQContext.Create())
using (var server = context.CreateResponseSocket())
using (var client = context.CreateRequestSocket())
{
server.Bind("tcp://127.0.0.1:5556");
client.Connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:5556");
client.Send("Hello");
string fromClientMessage = server.ReceiveString();
Console.WriteLine("From Client: {0}", fromClientMessage);
server.Send("Hi Back");
string fromServerMessage = client.ReceiveString();
Console.WriteLine("From Server: {0}", fromServerMessage);
Console.ReadLine();
}
And then just change the IPs. No issue there. But from what I understand this will block a thread? What I want is for the client to send a request, then do other stuff. Meanwhile the server receives the message, goes off and gets data or does other processing, and returns the result when it's done. But if I shove a big switch statement in there, do the relevant process and finally return a result, will it block the zeroMQ context/thread? Which leads onto my next question: is zeroMQ context multithreaded?
What I need is the system to work as asynchronously as possible, if I am going completely the wrong direction here I'd appreciate a point in the right one!
Many thanks
First, yes NetMQContext is thread safe. NetMQSocket is not.
You need to have a dedicate thread for NetMQSocket, one thread can also handle multiple sockets and timers using Poller. You can use the NetMQScheduler to run tasks on the thread as well. Please read the following:
http://netmq.readthedocs.org/en/latest/poller/
http://somdoron.com/2013/06/netmq-scheduler/

How Implementing a windows service on a server that is hosted with ISP

I am working on an assignment in asp.net to send notification email to users at specific intervals.
But the problem is that since the server is not privately owned i cannot implement a windows service on it.
Any ideas?
There's no reliable way to achieve that. If you cannot install a Windows Service on the host you could write a endpoint (.aspx or .ashx) that will send the email and then purchase on some other site a service which will ping this endpoint at regular intervals by sending it HTTP request. Obviously you should configure this endpoint to be accessible only from the IP address of the provider you purchase the service from, otherwise anyone could send an HTTP request to the endpoint and trigger the process which is probably undesirable.
Further reading: The Dangers of Implementing Recurring Background Tasks In ASP.NET.
There are several ways to get code executing on an interval that don't require a windows service.
One option is to use the Cache class - use one of the Insert overloads that takes a CacheItemRemovedCallback - this will be called when the cache item is removed. You can re-add the cache item with this callback again and again...
Though, the first thing you need to do is contact the hosting company and find out if they already have some sort of solution for you.
You could set up a scheduled task on the server to invoke a program with the desired action.
You can always use a System.Timer and create a call at specific intervals. What you need to be careful is that this must be run one time, eg on application start, but if you have more than one pools, then it may run more times, and you also need to access some database to read the data of your actions.
using System.Timers;
var oTimer = new Timer();
oTimer.Interval = 30000; // 30 second
oTimer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(MyThreadFun);
oTimer.Start();
private static void MyThreadFun(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
// inside here you read your query from the database
// get the next email that must be send,
// you send them, and mark them as send, log the errors and done.
}
why I select system timer:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164015.aspx
more words
I use this in a more complex class and its work fine. What are the points that I have also made.
Signaling the application stop, to wait for the timer to end.
Use mutex and database for synchronize the works.
Easiest solution is to exploit global.asax application events
On application startup event, create a thread (or task) into a static singleton variable in the global class.
The thread/task/workitem will have an endless loop while(true) {...} with your "service like" code inside.
You'll also want to put a Thread.Sleep(60000) in the loop so it doesn't eat unnecessary CPU cycles.
static void FakeService(object obj) {
while(true) {
try {
// - get a list of users to send emails to
// - check the current time and compare it to the interval to send a new email
// - send emails
// - update the last_email_sent time for the users
} catch (Exception ex) {
// - log any exceptions
// - choose to keep the loop (fake service) running or end it (return)
}
Thread.Sleep(60000); //run the code in this loop every ~60 seconds
}
}
EDIT Because your task is more or less a simple timer job any of the ACID type concerns from an app pool reset or other error don't really apply, because it can just start up again and keep trucking along with any data corruption. But you could also use the thread to simply execute a request to an aspx or ashx that would hold your logic.
new WebClient().DownloadString("http://localhost/EmailJob.aspx");

How to determine that a WCF Service is ready?

I have the following scenario:
My main Application (APP1) starts a Process (SERVER1). SERVER1 hosts a WCF service via named pipe. I want to connect to this service (from APP1), but sometimes it is not yet ready.
I create the ChannelFactory, open it and let it generate a client. If I now call a method on the generated Client I receive an excpetion whitch tells me that the Enpoint was not found:
var factory = new ChannelFactory<T>(new NetNamedPipeBinding(), new EndpointAddress("net.pipe//localhost/myservice");
factory.Open()
var Client = factory.CreateChannel();
Client.Foo();
If I wait a little bit before calling the service, everything is fine;
var Client = factory.CreateChannel();
Thread.Sleep(2000);
Client.Foo();
How can I ensure, that the Service is ready without having to wait a random amount of time?
If the general case is that you are just waiting for this other service to start up, then you may as well use the approach of having a "Ping" method on your interface that does nothing, and retrying until this starts responding.
We do a similar thing: we try and call a ping method in a loop at startup (1 second between retries), recording in our logs (but ultimately ignoring) any TargetInvocationException that occur trying to reach our service. Once we get the first proper response, we proceed onwards.
Naturally this only covers the startup warmup case - the service could go down after a successfull ping, or it we could get a TargetInvocationException for a reason other than "the service is not ready".
You could have the service signal an event [Edited-see note] once the service host is fully open and the Opened event of the channel listener has fired. The Application would wait on the event before using its proxy.
Note: Using a named event is easy because the .NET type EventWaitHandle gives you everything you need. Using an anonymous event is preferable but a bit more work, since the .NET event wrapper types don't give you an inheritable event handle. But it's still possible if you P/Invoke the Windows DuplicateHandle API yourself to get an inheritable handle, then pass the duplicated handle's value to the child process in its command line arguments.
If you're using .Net 4.0 you could use WS-Discovery to make the service announce its presence via Broadcast IP.
The service could also send a message to a queue (MSMQ binding) with a short lifespan, say a few seconds, which your client can monitor.
Have the service create a signal file, then use a FileSystemWatcher in the client to detect when it gets created.
Just while (!alive) try { alive = client.IsAlive(); } catch { ...reconnect here... } (in your service contract, you just have IsAlive() return true)
I have had the same issue and when using net.pipe*://localhost/serviceName*, I solved it by looking at the process of the self-hosted application.
the way i did that was with a utility class, here is the code.
public static class ServiceLocator
{
public static bool IsWcfStarted()
{
Process[] ProcessList = Process.GetProcesses();
return ProcessList.Any(a => a.ProcessName.StartsWith("MyApplication.Service.Host", StringComparison.Ordinal));
}
public static void StartWcfHost()
{
string path = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
var Process2 = new Process();
var Start2 = new ProcessStartInfo();
Start2.FileName = Path.Combine(path, "Service", "MyApplication.Service.Host.exe");
Process2.StartInfo = Start2;
Process2.Start();
}
}
now, my application isn't called MyApplication but you get my point...
now in my client Apps that use the host i have this call:
if (!ServiceLocator.IsWcfStarted())
{
WriteEventlog("First instance of WCF Client... starting WCF host.")
ServiceLocator.StartWcfHost();
int timeout=0;
while (!ServiceLocator.IsWcfStarted())
{
timeout++;
if(timeout> MAX_RETRY)
{
//show message that probably wcf host is not available, end the client
....
}
}
}
This solved 2 issues,
1. The code errors I had wend away because of the race condition, and 2
2. I know in a controlled manner if the Host crashed due to some issue or misconfiguration.
Hope it helps.
Walter
I attached an event handler to client.InnerChannel.faulted, then reduced the reliableSession to 20 seconds. Within the event handler I removed the existing handler then ran an async method to attempt to connect again and attached the event handler again. Seems to work.

Send SMS at a same point of time

Previously I posted a question regarding multithreading. Actually my intension is to send SMS for 1000 (or more) people at a same point of time (Ex: 12:00 AM sharp) by using c# and asp.net application. Is it ok to choose multithreading concept to achieve this?
That concept do not need Multi Threading ...
That concept is more of a Task Manager / Cron Job
Create an ASPX Script that sees the time and executes the method you need
Set up Task Manager to run this script every xx minutes
Create a method, that fetches the list of persons and send the SMS through an SMS API, and call it, for ex. SendSMSFromList( List usersList, string message ) {}
Now set everything up and you will run this anytime you need (just set it in the ASPX Script)
please, fell free to tell me, if you need any code for this.
edited for having all steps
If you have a hosted solution, in your hosting control panel you have something as Task Schedule that you can set up to run your script page every n minutes, if so please by pass the next steps. If, by other hand, you are running your own server (IIS) then do this first.
Install cUrl for windows from this location and add curl.exe to C:\WINDOWS
Open Task Manager (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler on win7)
Create a new task like this
Run the command
curl http://localhost/yourApp/taskManager.aspx
with this you just configured your system to run a file, just like if you execute that link in a browser, that will run every 15 minutes.
Now we need to create that taskManager.aspx file
public partial class taskManager : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
// Run after midnight
if (dt.Hour == 0 && dt.Minute <= 15)
{
Write2Log("Schedule Job Started", LogType.INFO);
SendSMSFromList(
GetUsersList(),
GetSMSMessage());
Write2Log("Schedule Job Finished", LogType.INFO);
}
}
private string GetSMSMessage()
{
// Fetch the text from DB...
return "This is the message content that I will send as SMS";
}
private List<string> GetUsersList()
{
// fetch the list form DB...
return new List<string>();
}
private void SendSMSFromList(List<string> usersList, string message)
{
// send SMS's
foreach (string phoneNr in usersList)
{
// send message
mySMSAPI.Send(phoneNr, message);
}
}
private void Write2Log(string text, LogType type)
{
// Log to a file what's going on...
try
{
string filename = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("") + "\\status.log";
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(filename, true)) // open to append
{
// example: 2008-12-17 13:53:10,462 INFO - Schedule Job Finished
string write = String.Format("{0} {1} - {2}",
DateTime.Now,
type.ToString(),
text);
sw.WriteLine(write);
}
}
catch (Exception)
{ }
}
private enum LogType
{ INFO, WARNING, ERROR }
}
Done...
I made everything in just one file for the sake of the example, you should divide things ... but what I was after was to show you the principle of it.
I don't know how you send them sms. But almost all big sms service providers will allow you to send 1000 within 1 seconds.
So Unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY need to be send them all at once, I suggest you just make a loop and send the information to the service provider one at the time.
Depends on how the SMS are actually sent. If you have let's say a web service that sends the SMS you'll end up in querying it 1000 times at one point which won't solve your problem.
To achieve this you need to make sure that the task of sending can be done simultaniously.
EDIT:
Furthermore I agree to astander that that amount of threads won't be healthy for your system at all.
Edit2:
How sharp does this needs to be? Assumeing that hh:mm is enough you'd have 60s to send
your about 1000 sms. This means that you need to send aprox 17 SMS per second. If you share
this to lets say 4 threads then you'd only need to make sure that your sending process /
device can send 4 SMS / s. this should be achievable I guess.
HTH
I dont think that is going to work for you, and creating such a large number of threads is not advised.
Also, see this link
maximum-number-of-threads-in-a-net-app
Does the SMS application allow for send-to-many? Or maybe use different services on various boxes to send these subset of sms. But i think sending such a volume at once will be difficult.
I suspect you'll have some transport issues getting that much data to your SMS provider at exactly that time presuming it is a realtime process.
I'd find a provider capable of doing scheduled sends and then queue up the messages to send at 12AM at my leisure.

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