.NET Core service startup configuration - asp.net-core

I've been assigned to upscale a project built by a former coworker. I'm not a .NET Core specialist, I understand most of it as is similar to any other language, but I'm having trouble understanding the Fluent configuration made at startup.
At the Startup.cs, there is this function declared:
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
At some point, there is an initialzation of a service that listens for something. I can manage that from the already initialized class/service, but I'd like to understand what is this:
app.UseRawRequestRequestBodyHandler(options => options
.Handlers
.AddRange(new[] {
new RawRequestHandler
{
ContentType = NotificationSubscriber.ContentType,
StartSegments = NotificationSubscriber.StartSegments,
Response = "[OK]",
Endpoint = new Uri(_configManager.Client.BaseAddress, "v1/payments").ToString(),
ModifyRequestBodyAsyncFunc = async (handler, context, bodyContent) =>
{
using (var scope = app.ApplicationServices.CreateScope())
{
var subscriber = scope.ServiceProvider
.GetRequiredService<INotificationSubscriber>();
await subscriber.QueueAndAkcknowledgeAsync(handler, context, bodyContent);
}
return bodyContent;
}
},
I'm having special trobule with the ModifyRequestBodyAsyncFunc function, that is declared (in the interface) like this:
public Func<RawRequestHandler, HttpContext, string, Task<string>> ModifyRequestBodyAsyncFunc { set; get; }
Also, I don't get how or where are initialized handler, context and bodyContent (RawRequestHandler handler, HttpContext context, string bodyContent as declared in the NotificationSubscriber class). I pressume these are loaded by Dependency Injection, but It would be different for other DI implementations I've seen.
Any help would be appreciated; also, I take reading recommendations.
Thank you very much!

I'm having special trobule with the ModifyRequestBodyAsyncFunc function
This is a special C# type, called a delegate. The delegate in question is a function that accepts RawRequestHeader, HttpContext, string and returns a Task<string>, which tells us that it's asynchronous.
Next, this is a syntax to create an anonymous async function and assign it to the delegate property:
/* SomeProp */ = async (handler, context, bodyContent) =>
{
// ...
return bodyContent;
}
Also, I don't get how or where are initialized handler, context and bodyContent
The .UseRawRequestRequestBodyHandler(...) registers a middleware which is basically a piece of code which runs for every request. So, somewhere inside that middleware, there is code that has access to said parameters and probably passes them like that:
// the params are not necessarily named exactly like this, only the types must match
string content = await rawRequestHeader.ModifyRequestBodyAsyncFunc(handler, context, bodyContent);
Notice the await keyword (we must await asynchronous functions) and also the fact that the delegate is invoked just like a normal method.

Related

Set value configuration.GetSection("").Value from header request

I need to set in my asp.net core configuration a value from the header in every request.
I'm doing like so:
public async Task Invoke(HttpContext context)
{
var companyId = context.Request.Headers["companyid"].ToString().ToUpper();
configuration.GetSection("CompanyId").Value = companyId;
await next(context);
}
It works fine. But is this the proper way? In case of multiple request at same time is there a risk of messing the values? I've searched around but couldn't find an answer.
I'm using .Net 3.1.
As far as I know, the appsetting.json value is a global setting value, you shouldn't be modifying global state per request, this action is not thread safe. At some point, you will face a rice condition.
If you still want to use this codes, I suggest you could try to add a lock. Notice: This will make your Invoke method very slowly.
Details, you could refer to below codes:
private static Object _factLock = new Object();
lock (_factLock)
{
Configuration.GetSection("CompanyId").Value = "";
}

How best to handle data fetching needed for FluentValidation

In the app I'm working on, I'm using Mediatr and its pipelines to handle database interaction, some minor business logic, validation, etc.
There's a few checks for things like access control I can handle in the pipeline, since I'm using a context object as described here https://jimmybogard.com/sharing-context-in-mediatr-pipelines/ to go from ASP.Net identity to a custom context object with user information and claims.
One problem I'm having is that since this application is multi-tenant, I need to ensure that even if an object exists, it belongs to that tenant, and the only way to be sure of that is to grab the object from the database and check it. It seems to me the validation shouldn't have side effects, so I don't want to rely on that to populate the context object. But then that pushes a bunch of validation down into the Mediatr handlers as they check for object existence, and so on, leading to a lot of repeated code. I don't really want to query the database multiple times since some queries can be expensive.
Another issue with doing the more complicated validation in the actual request handlers is getting what are essentially validation errors back out. Currently, if one of these checks fail I throw a ValidationException, which is then caught by middleware and turned into a ProblemDetails that's returned to the API caller. This is basically exceptions as flow control, and a validation failure really isn't "exceptional" anyhow.
The thoughts I'm having on how to solve this are:
Somewhere in the pipeline, when I'm building the context, include attempting to fetch the objects needed from the database. Validation then fails if any of these are null. This seems like it would make testing harder, as well as needing to decorate the requests somehow (or use reflection) so the pipeline can know to attempt to load these objects.
Have the queries in the validator, but use some sort of cache aware repository so when the same object is queried later, it's served from the cache, and not the database. The handlers would also use this cache aware repository (Currently the handlers interact directly with the EF Core DbContext to query). This then adds the issue of cache invalidation, which I'm going to have to handle at some point, anyhow (quite a few items are seldom modified). For testing, a dummy cache object can be injected that doesn't actually cache anything.
Make all the responses from requests implement an interface (or extend an abstract class) that has validation info, general success flags, etc. This can either be returned through the API directly, or have some pipeline that transforms failures into ProblemDetails. This would add some boilerplate to every response and handler, but avoids exceptions as flow control, and the caching/reflection issues in the other options.
Assume for 1 and 2 that any sort of race conditions are not an issue. Objects don't change owners, and things are seldom actually deleted from the database for auditing/accounting purposes.
I know there's no true one size fits all for problems like this, but I would like to know if there's additional options I'm missing, or any long term maintainability issues anyone with a similar pipeline has encountered if they went with one of these listed options.
We use MediatR IRequestPreProcessor for fetching data that we need both in RequestHandler and in FluentValidation validators.
RequestPreProcessor:
public interface IProductByIdBinder
{
int ProductId { get; }
ProductEntity Product { set; }
}
public class ProductByIdBinder<T> : IRequestPreProcessor<T> where T : IProductByIdBinder
{
private readonly IRepositoryReadAsync<ProductEntity> productRepository;
public ProductByIdBinder(IRepositoryReadAsync<ProductEntity> productRepository)
{
this.productRepository = productRepository;
}
public async Task Process(T request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
request.Product = await productRepository.GetAsync(request.ProductId);
}
}
RequestHandler:
public class ProductDeleteCommand : IRequest, IProductByIdBinder
{
public ProductDeleteCommand(int id)
{
ProductId = id;
}
public int ProductId { get; }
public ProductEntity Product { get; set; }
private class ProductDeleteCommandHandler : IRequestHandler<ProductDeleteCommand>
{
private readonly IRepositoryAsync<ProductEntity> productRepository;
public ProductDeleteCommandHandler(
IRepositoryAsync<ProductEntity> productRepository)
{
this.productRepository = productRepository;
}
public Task<Unit> Handle(ProductDeleteCommand request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
productRepository.Delete(request.Product);
return Unit.Task;
}
}
}
FluentValidation validator:
public class ProductDeleteCommandValidator : AbstractValidator<ProductDeleteCommand>
{
public ProductDeleteCommandValidator()
{
RuleFor(cmd => cmd)
.Must(cmd => cmd.Product != null)
.WithMessage(cmd => $"The product with id {cmd.ProductId} doesn't exist.");
}
}
I see nothing wrong with handling business logic validation in the handler layer.
Moreover, I do not think it is right to throw exceptions for them, as you said it is exceptions as flow control.
Introducing a cache seems like overkill for the use case too. The most reasonable option is the third IMHO.
Instead of implementing an interface you can use the nifty OneOf library and have something like
using HandlerResponse = OneOf<Success, NotFound, ValidationResponse>;
public class MediatorHandler : IRequestHandler<Command, HandlerResponse>
{
public async Task<HandlerResponse> Handle(
Command command,
CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
Resource resource = await _userRepository
.GetResource(command.Id);
if (resource is null)
return new NotFound();
if (!resource.IsValid)
return new ValidationResponse(new ProblemDetails());
return new Success();
}
And then map it in your API Layer like
public async Task<IActionResult> PostAsync([FromBody] DummyRequest request)
{
HandlerResponse response = await _mediator.Send(
new Command(request.Id));
return response.Match<IActionResult>(
success => Created(),
notFound => NotFound(),
failed => new UnprocessableEntityResult(failed.ProblemDetails))
);
}

Blazor concurrency problem using Entity Framework Core

My goal
I want to create a new IdentityUser and show all the users already created through the same Blazor page. This page has:
a form through you will create an IdentityUser
a third-party's grid component (DevExpress Blazor DxDataGrid) that shows all users using UserManager.Users property. This component accepts an IQueryable as a data source.
Problem
When I create a new user through the form (1) I will get the following concurrency error:
InvalidOperationException: A second operation started on this context before a previous operation completed. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread-safe.
I think the problem is related to the fact that CreateAsync(IdentityUser user) and UserManager.Users are referring the same DbContext
The problem isn't related to the third-party's component because I reproduce the same problem replacing it with a simple list.
Step to reproduce the problem
create a new Blazor server-side project with authentication
change Index.razor with the following code:
#page "/"
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
number of users: #Users.Count()
<button #onclick="#(async () => await Add())">click me</button>
<ul>
#foreach(var user in Users)
{
<li>#user.UserName</li>
}
</ul>
#code {
[Inject] UserManager<IdentityUser> UserManager { get; set; }
IQueryable<IdentityUser> Users;
protected override void OnInitialized()
{
Users = UserManager.Users;
}
public async Task Add()
{
await UserManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityUser { UserName = $"test_{Guid.NewGuid().ToString()}" });
}
}
What I noticed
If I change Entity Framework provider from SqlServer to Sqlite then the error will never show.
System info
ASP.NET Core 3.1.0 Blazor Server-side
Entity Framework Core 3.1.0 based on SqlServer provider
What I have already seen
Blazor A second operation started on this context before a previous operation completed: the solution proposed doesn't work for me because even if I change my DbContext scope from Scoped to Transient I still using the same instance of UserManager and its contains the same instance of DbContext
other guys on StackOverflow suggests creating a new instance of DbContext per request. I don't like this solution because it is against Dependency Injection principles. Anyway, I can't apply this solution because DbContext is wrapped inside UserManager
Create a generator of DbContext: this solution is pretty like the previous one.
Using Entity Framework Core with Blazor
Why I want to use IQueryable
I want to pass an IQueryable as a data source for my third-party's component because its can apply pagination and filtering directly to the Query. Furthermore IQueryable is sensitive to CUD
operations.
UPDATE (08/19/2020)
Here you can find the documentation about how to use Blazor and EFCore together
UPDATE (07/22/2020)
EFCore team introduces DbContextFactory inside Entity Framework Core .NET 5 Preview 7
[...] This decoupling is very useful for Blazor applications, where using IDbContextFactory is recommended, but may also be useful in other scenarios.
If you are interested you can read more at Announcing Entity Framework Core EF Core 5.0 Preview 7
UPDATE (07/06/2020)
Microsoft released a new interesting video about Blazor (both models) and Entity Framework Core. Please take a look at 19:20, they are talking about how to manage concurrency problem with EFCore
General solution
I asked Daniel Roth BlazorDeskShow - 2:24:20 about this problem and it seems to be a Blazor Server-Side problem by design.
DbContext default lifetime is set to Scoped. So if you have at least two components in the same page which are trying to execute an async query then we will encounter the exception:
InvalidOperationException: A second operation started on this context before a previous operation completed. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread-safe.
There are two workaround about this problem:
(A) set DbContext's lifetime to Transient
services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(opt =>
opt.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")), ServiceLifetime.Transient);
(B) as Carl Franklin suggested (after my question): create a singleton service with a static method which returns a new instance of DbContext.
anyway, each solution works because they create a new instance of DbContext.
About my problem
My problem wasn't strictly related to DbContext but with UserManager<TUser> which has a Scoped lifetime. Set DbContext's lifetime to Transient didn't solve my problem because ASP.NET Core creates a new instance of UserManager<TUser> when I open the session for the first time and it lives until I don't close it. This UserManager<TUser> is inside two components on the same page. Then we have the same problem described before:
two components that own the same UserManager<TUser> instance which contains a transient DbContext.
Currently, I solved this problem with another workaround:
I don't use UserManager<TUser> directly instead, I create a new instance of it through IServiceProvider and then it works. I am still looking for a method to change the UserManager's lifetime instead of using IServiceProvider.
tips: pay attention to services' lifetime
This is what I learned. I don't know if it is all correct or not.
I downloaded your sample and was able to reproduce your problem. The problem is caused because Blazor will re-render the component as soon as you await in code called from EventCallback (i.e. your Add method).
public async Task Add()
{
await UserManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityUser { UserName = $"test_{Guid.NewGuid().ToString()}" });
}
If you add a System.Diagnostics.WriteLine to the start of Add and to the end of Add, and then also add one at the top of your Razor page and one at the bottom, you will see the following output when you click your button.
//First render
Start: BuildRenderTree
End: BuildRenderTree
//Button clicked
Start: Add
(This is where the `await` occurs`)
Start: BuildRenderTree
Exception thrown
You can prevent this mid-method rerender like so....
protected override bool ShouldRender() => MayRender;
public async Task Add()
{
MayRender = false;
try
{
await UserManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityUser { UserName = $"test_{Guid.NewGuid().ToString()}" });
}
finally
{
MayRender = true;
}
}
This will prevent re-rendering whilst your method is running. Note that if you define Users as IdentityUser[] Users you will not see this problem because the array is not set until after the await has completed and is not lazy evaluated, so you don't get this reentrancy problem.
I believe you want to use IQueryable<T> because you need to pass it to 3rd party components. The problem is, different components can be rendered on different threads, so if you pass IQueryable<T> to other components then
They might render on different threads and cause the same problem.
They most likely will have an await in the code that consumes the IQueryable<T> and you'll have the same problem again.
Ideally, what you need is for the 3rd party component to have an event that asks you for data, giving you some kind of query definition (page number etc). I know Telerik Grid does this, as do others.
That way you can do the following
Acquire a lock
Run the query with the filter applied
Release the lock
Pass the results to the component
You cannot use lock() in async code, so you'd need to use something like SpinLock to lock a resource.
private SpinLock Lock = new SpinLock();
private async Task<WhatTelerikNeeds> ReadData(SomeFilterFromTelerik filter)
{
bool gotLock = false;
while (!gotLock) Lock.Enter(ref gotLock);
try
{
IUserIdentity result = await ApplyFilter(MyDbContext.Users, filter).ToArrayAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
return new WhatTelerikNeeds(result);
}
finally
{
Lock.Exit();
}
}
Perhaps not the best approach but rewriting async method as non-async fixes the problem:
public void Add()
{
Task.Run(async () =>
await UserManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityUser { UserName = $"test_{Guid.NewGuid().ToString()}" }))
.Wait();
}
It ensures that UI is updated only after the new user is created.
The whole code for Index.razor
#page "/"
#inherits OwningComponentBase<UserManager<IdentityUser>>
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
number of users: #Users.Count()
<button #onclick="#Add">click me. I work if you use Sqlite</button>
<ul>
#foreach(var user in Users.ToList())
{
<li>#user.UserName</li>
}
</ul>
#code {
IQueryable<IdentityUser> Users;
protected override void OnInitialized()
{
Users = Service.Users;
}
public void Add()
{
Task.Run(async () => await Service.CreateAsync(new IdentityUser { UserName = $"test_{Guid.NewGuid().ToString()}" })).Wait();
}
}
I found your question looking for answers about the same error message you had.
My concurrency issue appears to have been due to a change that triggered a re-rendering of the visual tree to occur at the same time as (or due to the fact that) I was trying to call DbContext.SaveChangesAsync().
I solved this by overriding my component's ShouldRender() method like this:
protected override bool ShouldRender()
{
if (_updatingDb)
{
return false;
}
else
{
return base.ShouldRender();
}
}
I then wrapped my SaveChangesAsync() call in code that set a private bool field _updatingDb appropriately:
try
{
_updatingDb = true;
await DbContext.SaveChangesAsync();
}
finally
{
_updatingDb = false;
StateHasChanged();
}
The call to StateHasChanged() may or may not be necessary, but I've included it just in case.
This fixed my issue, which was related to selectively rendering a bound input tag or just text depending on if the data field was being edited. Other readers may find that their concurrency issue is also related to something triggering a re-render. If so, this technique may be helpful.
Well, I have a quite similar scenario with this, and I 'solve' mine is to move everything from OnInitializedAsync() to
protected override async Task OnAfterRenderAsync(bool firstRender)
{
if(firstRender)
{
//Your code in OnInitializedAsync()
StateHasChanged();
}
{
It seems solved, but I had no idea to find out the proves. I guess just skip from the initialization to let the component success build, then we can go further.
/******************************Update********************************/
I'm still facing the problem, seems I'm giving a wrong solution to go. When I checked with this Blazor A second operation started on this context before a previous operation completed I got my problem clear. Cause I'm actually dealing with a lot of components initialization with dbContext operations. According to #dani_herrera mention that if you have more than 1 component execute Init at a time, probably the problem appears.
As I took his advise to change my dbContext Service to Transient, and I get away from the problem.
#Leonardo Lurci Had covered conceptually. If you guys are not yet wanting to move to .NET 5.0 preview, i would recommend looking at Nuget package 'EFCore.DbContextFactory', documentation is pretty neat. Essential it emulates AddDbContextFactory. Ofcourse, it creates a context per component.
So far, this is working fine for me so far without any problems...
I ensure single-threaded access by only interacting with my DbContext via a new DbContext.InvokeAsync method, which uses a SemaphoreSlim to ensure only a single operation is performed at a time.
I chose SemaphoreSlim because you can await it.
Instead of this
return Db.Users.FirstOrDefaultAsync(x => x.EmailAddress == emailAddress);
do this
return Db.InvokeAsync(() => ...the query above...);
// Add the following methods to your DbContext
private SemaphoreSlim Semaphore { get; } = new SemaphoreSlim(1);
public TResult Invoke<TResult>(Func<TResult> action)
{
Semaphore.Wait();
try
{
return action();
}
finally
{
Semaphore.Release();
}
}
public async Task<TResult> InvokeAsync<TResult>(Func<Task<TResult>> action)
{
await Semaphore.WaitAsync();
try
{
return await action();
}
finally
{
Semaphore.Release();
}
}
public Task InvokeAsync(Func<Task> action) =>
InvokeAsync<object>(async () =>
{
await action();
return null;
});
public void InvokeAsync(Action action) =>
InvokeAsync(() =>
{
action();
return Task.CompletedTask;
});
#Leonardo Lurci has a great answer with multiple solutions to the problem. I will give my opinion about every solution and which I think it is the best one.
Making DBContext transient - it is a solution but it is not optimized for this cases..
Carl Franklin suggestion - the singleton service will not be able to control the lifetime of the context and will depend on the service requester to dispose the context after use.
Microsoft documentation they talk about injecting DBContext Factory into a component with the IDisposable interface to Dispose the context when the component is destroied. This is not a very good solution, because a lot of problems happen with it, like: performing a context operation and leaving the component before it finishes that operation, will dispose the context and throw exception..
Finally. The best solution so far is to inject the DBContext Factory in the component yes, but whenever you need it, you create a new instance with using statement like bellow:
public async Task GetSomething()
{
using var context = DBFactory.CreateDBContext();
return await context.Something.ToListAsync();
}
Since DbFactory is optimazed when creating new context instances, there is no significante overhead, making it a better choice and better performing than Transient context, it also disposes the context at the end of the method because of "using" statement.
Hope it was useful.

Is it possible to return a response from a Web API constructor?

I have a Web API ApiController base class and I would like to perform some validations in the constructor. This might include checking the current load on the server. If it's high, I'd like to return an appropriate HttpResponseMessage indicating the requestor should try again later.
Is something like this possible?
I Haven't tested it but that's not what the constructor is for. I don't think all plumbing is set at that time.
You could use global filters for this purpose. Here you have a sample that sets a global filter for authorization, you should use a similar logic but creating your own filter for your specific purposes.
A global filter would intercept all your requests and is executed before the controller actions so is a good place to perform your task.
Even though what you are doing sounds like it may be better to revise the approach. Note that you can throw HttpResponseException since the WebApi is Rest Service HttpResponseException is the recommended way to throw Exceptions back to the client.
var resp = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound)
{
Content = new StringContent("No idea what happened "),
ReasonPhrase = "Something was not Not Found"
}
throw new HttpResponseException(resp);
As long as you're using .NET 4.5, then you'd be better off creating a custom MessageHandler. You'll need to extend DelegatingHandler in order to do that.
public class MyHandler : DelegatingHandler {
protected override async Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(
HttpMessageRequest request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) {
// Access the request object, and do your checking in here for things
// that might cause you to want to return a status before getting to your
// Action method.
// For example...
return request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Forbidden);
}
}
Then inside your WebApiConfig, just add the following code to use the new Handler:
config.MessageHandlers.Add(new MyHandler());
You can't throw HttpResponseException in constructor, that will always cause 500.
Easiest way is to override ExecuteAsync():
public override Task<HttpResponseMessage> ExecuteAsync(HttpControllerContext controllerContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken) {
if (!myAuthLogicCheck()) {
// Return 401 not authorized
var msg = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized) { ReasonPhrase = "User not logged in" };
throw new HttpResponseException(msg);
}
return base.ExecuteAsync(controllerContext, cancellationToken);
}

Resolving HttpRequestScoped Instances outside of a HttpRequest in Autofac

Suppose I have a dependency that is registered as HttpRequestScoped so there is only one instance per request. How could I resolve a dependency of the same type outside of an HttpRequest?
For example:
// Global.asax.cs Registration
builder.Register(c => new MyDataContext(connString)).As<IDatabase>().HttpRequestScoped();
_containerProvider = new ContainerProvider(builder.Build());
// This event handler gets fired outside of a request
// when a cached item is removed from the cache.
public void CacheItemRemoved(string k, object v, CacheItemRemovedReason r)
{
// I'm trying to resolve like so, but this doesn't work...
var dataContext = _containerProvider.ApplicationContainer.Resolve<IDatabase>();
// Do stuff with data context.
}
The above code throws a DependencyResolutionException when it executes the CacheItemRemoved handler:
No scope matching the expression 'value(Autofac.Builder.RegistrationBuilder`3+<>c__DisplayClass0[MyApp.Core.Data.MyDataContext,Autofac.Builder.SimpleActivatorData,Autofac.Builder.SingleRegistrationStyle]).lifetimeScopeTag.Equals(scope.Tag)' is visible from the scope in which the instance was requested.
InstancePerLifetimeScope(), rather than HttpRequestScoped(), will give the result you need.
There is a caveat though - if IDatabase requires disposal, or depends on something that requires disposal, this won't happen if you resolve it from the ApplicationContainer. Better to do:
using (var cacheRemovalScope =
_containerProvider.ApplicationContainer.BeginLifetimeScope())
{
var dataContext = cacheRemovalScope.Resolve<IDatabase>();
// Do what y' gotta do...
}