Roundtripping DataContracts andDenial Of Service attacks - wcf

I am working on a datacontract as follows that uses IExtensiblesDataObject to make it forward compatible with version 02 of this contract, but am worried about possible 'accidental' denial of service via clients passing excessive quantities of data over the wire that needs to be de-serialised, re-serialised and sent back.
Without turning the support off via the ignoreExtensionDataObject in the config file, is there a way of protecting against such an eventuality, i.e. can you cap the quantity somehow ?
[DataContract(Namespace="http://schemas.myComany.com/sample/01")]
public class Sample : IExtensibleDataObject
{
[DataMember]
public int32 sample_ID;
private ExtensionDataObject _data;
public virtual ExtensionDataObject ExtensionData
{
get { return _data; }
set { _data = value; }
}
....
}
Thanks in advance

The way to protect your service is limiting MaxReceivedMessageSize (by default it is 65KB) and reader quotas in your binding.

Related

WCF DataContract Versioning

Alright here goes nothing. After reading Best Practices on Service Versioning and Data Contract Versioning (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733832.aspx) I mostly understand how its all done. I am planning to use Agile Versioning for Data Contracts but cant figure out what the difference or better practice is between Creating a WorkRequestV2 to add new properties or just adding the new properties to WorkRequestV1. Now I tried doing both ways and it worked but when I do create WorkRequestV2 I have to modify ServiceContractor to use WorkRequestV2 why do this rather than just adding properties to WorkRequestV1? What is the difference?
The Example I looked at was here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731138.aspx)
CarV1 and CarV2 why not add HorsePower to CarV1 and not have to create a whole new Contract.
[DataContract(Name = "WorkRequest")]
public class WorkRequestV1 : IExtensibleDataObject {
[DataMember(Name = "workrequest",Order=1,IsRequired=true)]
public int workrequest { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "CQ")]
public string CrewHeadquarter { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "JobCode")]
public string JobCode { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "JobType")]
public string JobType { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "Latitude")]
public string Latitude { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "Longitute")]
public string Longitute { get; set; }
private ExtensionDataObject theData;
public ExtensionDataObject ExtensionData {
get {
return theData;
}
set {
theData = value;
}
}
}
Have another read of the Data Contract versioning (your second link)
Here is a quote from that page:
Breaking vs. Nonbreaking Changes
Changes to a data contract can be
breaking or nonbreaking. When a data contract is changed in a
nonbreaking way, an application using the older version of the
contract can communicate with an application using the newer version,
and an application using the newer version of the contract can
communicate with an application using the older version. On the other
hand, a breaking change prevents communication in one or both
directions.
For your case, adding some additional properties is a non-breaking change. You can quite safely add the properties to the existing data contract rather than create a new one, as long as you don't have strict schema validation (such as the new properties don't have 'required' marked on them)
Old clients communicating with new services still continue to work, values of the new properties will remain the default value. New clients communicating with old services will also work, as the new properties will be ignored.
But as you can see, you will run into the problem of how can you ensure new clients communicate with new services, and old clients with old services? If this isn't an issue, then you don't have a problem. Otherwise you may need to introduce a new data contract.
Further reading:
MSDN Service Versioning
IBM Best practice for Web service versioning
Oracle Web services versioning
What are your WebService Versioning best practices?

WCF Msmq problem reading messages using netMsmqBinding

I have a WCF service using netMsmqBinding that I am using to add messages of Msmq<string> to a queue. The messages are added fine and I can see them in the queue via the computer management console.
I have another WCF service that is trying to retrieve the messages from the queue, this is where I'm having a problem. My method in my service is getting called whenever a message is added to the queue (that bit is working fine) but the Msmq<string> message seems to have all null values.
I'm not sure how I can get the message from that Msmq<string>? Here is my service details... any help appreciated..
[ServiceContract]
[ServiceKnownType(typeof(Msmq<string>))]
public interface IMessageListener
{
[OperationContract(IsOneWay = true, Action = "*")]
void ListenForMessage(Msmq<string> msg);
}
public class MessageListener : IMessageListener
{
[OperationBehavior(TransactionScopeRequired = false, TransactionAutoComplete = true)]
public void ListenForMessage(MsmqMessage<string> msg)
{
//this gets called and seems to remove the message from the queue, but message attributes are all null
}
}
I think you're not quite "getting" the idea of WCF over MSMQ.
When using WCF with the netMsmqBinding, the whole idea is that you don't need to deal with the details of MSMQ - let the WCF runtime handle that!
So basically, your approach should be as with any WCF service:
define your service contract and its methods (operation contract)
define your data structures as a [DataContract] and use those in your service methods
implement the service
So your service should be something like:
[DataContract]
public class Customer
{
[DataMember]
public int ID { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
...
}
[ServiceContract]
public interface ICustomerService
{
[OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)]
void SaveCustomer(Customer myCustomer)
[OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)]
void CreateCustomer(int ID, string name);
}
You should have a data contract to describe your data - just your data, no MSMQ details needed here! Then you should have one set of service methods that will deal with the Customer object - you can put it into the queue for storing, create a new one etc.
You would then implement the client and the server side for this service contract, and the WCF runtime will handle all the details of MSMQ transport, putting the payload (the Customer object) into a MSMQ message and getting it back out again and so on... you don't have to deal with that, really.

WCF app in IIS7: Losing singleton instance

I have a WCF application , with multiple WSDL webservices, hosted in IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 64Bit.
The application requires a singleton to be assigned with some configuration values once, when the first webservice method is invoked (no matter what is invoked first).
Edit: The backend of the system requires the use of this singleton approach.
I get the configuration assigned once, but the values become null again....
Here is the code (simplified):
public class SingletonSettings
{
private static readonly SingletonSettings _s;
public SingletonSettings Instance { get {return _s;} }
public object SomeValue { get; set; }
}
public abstract class AbstractWebservice
{
static AbstractWebservice()
{
WebserviceGlobalInitializer.Initialize();
}
}
//Just a webservice
public class Webservice1 : AbstractWebservice, ISomeServiceConctract1
{
public void DoStuff1();
}
//Just a webservice
public class Webservice2 : AbstractWebservice, ISomeServiceConctract2
{
public void DoStuff2();
}
internal class WebserviceGlobalInitializer
{
private static readonly object Lock = new object();
private static bool Initialized = false;
public static void Initialize()
{
lock (Lock)
{
if (!Initialized)
{
InitStuff();
Initialized = true;
}
}
}
private static void InitStuff()
{
string s = SingletonSettings.Instance.SomeValue = "just a ref";
}
}
WebserviceGlobalInitializer.InitStuff() gets invoked only once. Still SingletonSettings.SomeValue becomes null.....
The issue occurs randomly.
I have tried
1) Invoking WebserviceGlobalInitializer.Initialize() from a normal constructor in the base class.
2) Commenting out: Initialized = true; in hope that the settings would then be initialized every time (causing massive overhead, so it would not be a long term solution anyway)
Still the value becomes null.
Any ideas?
With process recycling, all state that is not in session state or application state will disappear into the black hole. This, eye-openingly, includes the static variables, one of which is the singleton instance.
My gut feeling is that the InstanceContextMode of singleton has been implemented as a variable in the ASP.NET Application state. To check this, I will be doing some reflectoring today and will update my answer.
UPDATE
NO IT DOESN'T!!! With process recycling, even if you set the WCF Instancing mode to Single, you lose all state you had with your singleton instance (e.g. counter, whatever) with process recycling.
After a few more days of searching i found the source of the problem. Aliostad's answer gave me a hint.
My webservice uses behavior configurations. One with authentication and one without.
The authentication/session handling is implemented in an IDispatchMessageInspector which is invoked before the webservice is loaded.
The problem occurred when an application that uses my webservice was online when the application pool was recycled. Then application would then a request to a webservice using the authenticated behavior.
The IDispatchMessageInspector implemention would then try to load the settings, but they have not yet been initialized from the static constructor in the webservice....
Thank you for the answers...
You can use the WCF runtime infrastructure to take care of this for you. Try adding the following attribute to the WebService class:
[ServiceBehavior(
ConcurrencyMode = ConcurrencyMode.Multiple,
InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.Single)]

WCF with shared objects and derived classes on client

I have a WCF service and I'm sharing types with a client in a shared assembly.
If the client create a derived class will it be possible to pass back the derived type to the service so that I can read the added properties through reflection ?
I tried but having issues with KnownTypes since the service don't know how to deserialize the derived type.
[Serializable]
public abstract class Car : ICar
{........
//on the client :
[Serializable]
public class MyCar : Car
{......
when passing myCar to Service I get the exception complaining about knownType but I cant add this on the server since I wont know what the client will be sending through and I want to handle extra properties through reflection.
Possible to register client types as knowntypes at runtime ?
Is this maybe the solution ?
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sowmy/archive/2006/03/26/561188.aspx
This is not possible. Both service and client has to know what types will be sent in messages. If you want to use known type you have to define that relation to parent type on the service.
Why do you need to know added properties on the server?
I think there is a way.
I vaguely remember that when I studied WCF, I met ExtensionData which should be a mechanism to get everything that does not match the serialization of the class. for example, if you enable ExtensionData and you are in this situation
//Server
public class GenericRQ
{
public string GenericProperty {get;set;}
}
public Service GenericService
{
Public void GenericMethod(GenericRQ RQ)
{
}
}
// client
Public class MoreSpecificRQ : GenericRQ
{
public string SpecificProperty {get;set;}
}
At
Public void GenericMethod(GenericRQ RQ)
{
// the serializer adds automatically in RQ.ExtensionData everything that has come and that does not match the class GenericRQ.
}
On how to enable ExtensionData you to easily search on the web

WCF method that updates object passed in

Am I correct in thinking that if I have a WCF OperationContract takes in an object and needs to set a property on that object so the client gets the update, I need to declare it to return the object.
e.g. given a datacontract:
[DataContract]
public class CompositeType
{
[DataMember]
public int Key { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public string Something { get; set; }
}
this will not work with WCF:
public void GetDataUsingDataContract(CompositeType composite)
{
composite.Key = 42;
}
this will work:
public CompositeType GetDataUsingDataContract(CompositeType composite)
{
composite.Key = 42;
return new CompositeType
{
Key = composite.Key,
Something = composite.Something
};
}
IMO, authoring methods that produce output via side-effects is a "bad" thing. Having said that however, are there circumstances that necessitate this model? Yes.
Certainly C# programming model permits this, is WCF broken? No. At a certain point, one must realise they are consuming WCF, and as a framework it attempts to satisfy a majority of use-cases [for instance, replicating all input parameters on all round trips to preserve implicit side effect semantics is, in a word, silly].
Of course, there are ways to work around this - C# also provides for explicit declaration of these scenarios and WCF supports these as well!
For instance
// use of "ref" indicates argument should be returned to
// caller, black-eye and all!
public void GetDataUsingDataContract (ref CompositeType composite)
{
composite.Key = 42;
}
Give it a go!
Hope this helps :)
If you use 'out of the box' WCF, you are actually using a form of webservices, that uses serialized versions of the objects that are sent from client to server.
This is the reason you cannot 'by reference' change properties on objects. You will always have to use a request / response pattern.