I've got a .NET project that I have to deploy on different machines with different enviroments.
Some machines use internal network addresses to access the DB others have to do it over public internet IPs.
What are the best practices to configure SQL connection strings in the web.config for such a task?
you may have a setting form in your project witch can be accessed by user before any activity with DB. Probably in the project's login section (if the project has any!). In that form you can ask user to input appropriate DB setting (IP,UserID and Password) and then reset conectionString in App.config and then restart the App.
This action has to take place just for the very first time the application runs on specific machine.
Deploy your database on one machine with fixed IP and store this IP in connection string in web.config, Then, use this connection string to access database in your application.
Create application in 3 tier architecture, which help you deploy your application in above stated environment.
Related
I have a windows form written in vb.net and I want to encrypt the connection string in app.config and distribute it to other machines. I can encrypt it fine on the machine its compiled on but it does not work on other machines because the encryption is tied to that machine. How can I make it so other machines within my domain can use it ? I am connecting to a database that people would not have access to without the app so I cannot use domain credentials.
It's "simple" really; you just distribute a connectionstring that cites a uer with the minimum permissions required to let the application work or, if your appetite for hacking doesn't extend that far, you create a webservice that does all the grunt work and you never release the connection string at all. If you don't want a web service, you might be able to achieve the same end result by using stored procedures and restricting access to tables directly
Thinking that you can encrypt a connection string in a config, and then bundle with it an application that has to decrypt it to make use of it, is something of a fool's errand. If you don't want someone to know something, you don't give it to them in the first place!
This is my Azure configuration:
I have a Virtual Network with a couple of subnets and a gateway
configured to allow point-to-site.
There is one Virtual Machine with SQL Server (2014) installed. There
are some databases in there already. SQL Server is set up to allow
SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode. This VM is in the Virtual Network
I have an empty Azure Web App
I deployed my main MVC WebApp to the empty Azure Web App and looks good, except when it tries to retrieve information from the database.
Is it a connection string error? or there can be something else...
My connection string looks like this:
<add name="MyEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/Data.MyModel.csdl| res://*/Data.MyModel.ssdl| res://*/Data.MyModel.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;
provider connection string="
data source=tcp:10.0.1.4;
initial catalog=MyDataBase;
persist security info=False;
user id=MySystemAdmin;
password=SystemAdminPassword;
multipleactiveresultsets=True;
App=EntityFramework""
providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
Here is the error thrown by the azure web app...
So it seems to be related to either the way I'm providing the connection string or the end-points/firewall configuration.
Check your connection string against this connection string for Entity Framework designer files (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/jj556606.aspx#Connection)
Just from a quick glance I see two possible errors:
Semicolon missing added after provider=System.Data.SqlClient (the example on the page I provided the link to doesn't have one)
The IP address you specify to connect to is a local one (10.0.0.1) and should be the IP/DNS name of your database in Azure.
Not sure if this is the issue or if StackOverflow just clobbered your markup. In addition you talk about a lot of gateways so I would check to make sure you can talk between your systems. Finally posting error messages and capturing exceptions about what's actually going on will help diagnose the error because at this point it's all guesswork.
Hope that helps.
What the guys said above plus:
The Web App needs to have a hybrid connection to the VNET the VM is if you want to use the local IP address, otherwise you have to use the PIP.
Check the firewall on the VM if the proper ports are open. This has to be both on the VM firewall and the endpoints. Also, if there are any ACLs on the VM, you have to check those too.
The other answers gave me the guidelines to find out the solution.
I'll try to describe the steps I followed:
Using the new azure portal (portal.azure.com currently in preview) I
established a connection between the Azure Web App and the Virtual
network:
Home > Browse > Click on Azure Web App name
In the Azure Web App blade click on Networking tile
In Virtual Network blade, click on the Virtual Network where the database is located (it's important to mention that the Virtual Network ought to have a gateway previously configured)
My intention was to provide certain level of security to the VM with
the databases by placing it inside a Virtual Network, so I had not
considered opening ports. Turns out that it's necessary, so, in the VM:
I enabled the TCP/IP protocol for SQL Server using the Sql Server Configuration Manager (How to? here)
Then I created a new Inbound Rule opening the 1433 port, but only for private connections (very nice).
It was not necessary to create an endpoint in the VM for this port (very happy with this).
Finally, I published the the app to the Azure Web App using the connection strings as shown in the question (with internal database IP)
Final touch: in the new Azure Portal > Azure Web App > Settings, I was able to enter Connection Strings. Settings created in the portal are not overwritten; so now I'm sure this Azure Web App will always use the correct connection string.
Final note: in theory (not tested yet) the internal IP will not change as long as the VM is not Stopped (Deallocated).
Azure VM, Cloud service or Web job?
I have a configurable console application which runs continuosly. Currently it is running on a VM and consumes lot of memory (it is basically doing data mining).
The current requirement is to have multiple instances of this application with different set of configuration which can be changed by specific users.
So where should I host this application such that the configuration can be modified using some front end which provides access managements(like Sharepoint),ability to stop it/restart (like WCF service) without logging on the VM?
I am open to any suggestions/ideas. Thanks
I don't think there's any sold answer to this question as there is the preference variable but for what it's worth, if it were up to me I would deploy it against individual azure VM's for each specific set of users. That way if the server resources went up because of config changes the user group made it is isolated to that group, and with azure, will scale automatically to meet the resource demand. Then just build a little .net web app to allow user to authenticate and change configuration settings.
You could expose an "admin" endpoint for your service (obviously you need authentication here!) that:
1. can return the current configuration
2. accept new configuration
3. restart the service (if needed). Stopping the service will be harder, since that leaves the question on how to start it again.
Then you need to write your own (or use a 3-party (like sharepoint or a CMS)) application that will handle your users and under the hood consume your "admin" endpoint.
Edit: The hosting part: If I understand you correctly your app is just an console application today, and you don't know how to host it? Well, there are many answers to that question. If you have a operations department go talk to them, if you are on your own play around and see what fits you and your environment best!
My tip: go for a http/https protocol/interface - just because there are many web host out there, and you can easy find tools for that protocol. if you are on the .NET platform check out Web.API or OWASP
Azure now has Machine learning to process data mining.
You should check if it's suit to you.
Otherwise, you can use Webjob:
Allow you to have multiple instances of your long time running job (Webjon scaling out).
AppSettings can be change from the Azure Portal or using the Azure Management API
I have multiple content servers on different machines. I need to check the status of every server. I'm concerned about things like disk size, priority etc.
One solution that I'm using now is to install a Window Service on each machine which regularly checks the server but I have to manually install the service on each server.
Is there any way I can get the server information like disk space from a WCF service or using a windows application? I want to create a single watcher for my servers as I have to add servers sometimes.
Look at windows WMI you can make remote calls to machines so long as you have permissions to do so. You will only have to run one service on one server that can connect to the others.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa394582(v=vs.85).aspx
I have a Web application and a WCF service hosted on the same Windows 2003 development server. They each have their own IIS website node responding to drs.displayscreen.web and drs.displayscreen.service host headers respectively. The hosts file contains entries for both headers pointing back to 127.0.0.1. The web site has a service reference to drs.displayscreen.service.
Both applications work perfectly when their application pool uses the 'Network Service' account.
I need to perform some COM processing under the hood on the service so I want to run the applications under a customised identity. Both sites run on a new application pool.
When I change the application pool identity to use a new windows account created for the purpose, I get the following (inner) exception:
[EndpointNotFoundException: Could not connect to http://drs.displayscreen.service/Handler.svc. TCP error code 10060: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond 192.168.98.2:8080. ]
192.168.98.2:8080 is the address of a DNS server that is no longer in use. It is not referenced anywhere in the solution. It is not referenced by ipconfig at all.
I have made sure that the new account is a member of IIS_WPG and I have run aspnet_regiis -ga . I have also given the account explicit permission to read the hosts file.
Why does the application attempt to use the defunct DNS server to resolve the temporary url (drs.displayscreen.service) instead of the hosts file entry? It has to be a permission of some sort because it does not have this problem when running under the network service account. Help!!
Well, it appears that the answer might involve a bug in the .Net framework. I found a blog posting that clued me in to the fact that the MS .Net implementation of SocketCache.GetSocket might cache invalid sockets and another one that suggests a workaround/hack in the form of an explicit don't-use-proxies configuration setting.
We don't actually use a proxy server in the environment where this problem cropped up but it appears that SocketCache.GetSocket is overridden or behaves differently when the don't-use-proxies setting is in place. Strangely, removing the setting causes the problem to come back so obviously the SocketCache is not repaired when a valid ip/hostname is discovered and successfully used. According to the author of the first post mentioned above, the bug does not exist in Mono. :)