How to allow a user to enter html comments - vb.net

Using MVC, EF 4.2. I am working on an application that has a comment section. Right now if a user enters a comment that contains HTML e.g.
<b>text</b>
and hits submit i get the message
"A ptentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected..."
How do i handle html on the way into the db? Should I just strip the html? Or encode it? I tried server.htmlencode the text but i still had the same error message.
I have read a number of posts on the matter including some here at SO - this one and this one
Ideally, i'd like to be able to allow a limited number of html tags such as em strong, a. Would Anti-XSS, HTML Agility, some kind of BB code, or a markdown style editor still be the recommended way? I know Jeff has a whitelist bit of code - however it is few yrs old.

you can do
[ValidateInput(false)]
public ActionResult foo()
{
}
or you can decorate the model property with AllowHtml
public class Foo
{
[AllowHtml]
public string bar{ get; set; }
}

You may also need to set the requestValidationMode in your web.config:
</system.web>
<httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" />
</system.web>
See this link for more details.

MVC has an attribute that allows you to specify a property should allow html without disabling validation completely. It's still dangerous, but it can be limited to a single property so the risk can be mitigated. Here is the MSDN article for the AllowHtmlAttribute. Proper usage of the attribute should be to decorate the appropriate property in your model:
public class MyModel
{
public MyModel()
{
}
// Some other stuff in here
[AllowHtml]
[HttpPost]
public string MyHtmlString { get; set; }
}

My solution for allow html incomments is as follows:
AllowHtml on the CommentText property in my comment class
Allow a narrow subset of tags. Use an Html Sanitizer class to scrub Html and inline script that is not allowed via a whitelist
Then save the result to the db as i normally would
At output time, use Html.Raw to show the Html in the comments

Related

Blazor #page route url define with variable

I have a question for Blazor Server Side.
I want to #page route url define with variable or property.
I can use now with below default method
#page "/route-url"
<h1>Page Test</h1>
#code {
}
But i want use like as below method
#page MenuItem.Role
<h1>Page Test</h1>
#code {
}
I'm tried above method then throwed exception. Like as below exception.
C:\Projects\TestBlazorProject\Pages\TestPage.razor(1,7): error RZ1016: The 'page' directive expects a string surrounded by double quotes. [C:\Projects\TestBlazorProject\TestBlazorProject.csproj]
How to define #page route url with any different variable or any class property?
Can this be done?
Yes
How?
Page file
#attribute [Route(PageRoute.TaskList)]
<div>PAGE HTML HERE</div>
#code{ ... }
PageRoute.cs:
public static class PageRoute
{
public const string TaskList = "/route-url";
}
Explanation
The page directive gets compiled down to an attribute and has the same restrictions as C# attributes.
You can use the #attribute with the [Route] attribute and use string concatenation instead of string interpolation to define a constant for the route, since that's what the C# compiler supports.
Why would anybody do this?
This is a good coding practice, because you are not hardcoding the page/component name in multiple places, but only in one place.
So one fine day when you manager asks to change page name "Earth" to "Planet3",
you just change it in 1 place, and be 98% sure that your app wont crash because of it.
#page isn't C#, it's Razor talk. Razor files are pre-compiled into c# files during compilation.
As an example, this is the important section of the C# pre-compiled file for Index.razor (Index.razor.g.cs):
[Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.RouteAttribute("/")]
public partial class Index : Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.ComponentBase
{
#pragma warning disable 1998
protected override void BuildRenderTree(Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Rendering.RenderTreeBuilder __builder)
{
__builder.AddMarkupContent(0, "<h1>Hello, world!</h1>\r\n\r\nWelcome to your new app.\r\n\r\n");
__builder.OpenComponent<Blazor.Starter.Shared.SurveyPrompt>(1);
__builder.AddAttribute(2, "Title", "How is Blazor working for you?");
__builder.CloseComponent();
}
#pragma warning restore 1998
}
Note that #page has become a compile time attribute [Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.RouteAttribute("/")]. It's fixed at compiletime, you can't change it at runtime.
Routes are set this way because the router builds a routemap - essentially a dictionary of route url/component class pairs - when the application loads by trawling the application assembly for any component classes with a Route attribute. On a routing event it reads the new url, finds the component class and loads it into the layout. Any variables - stuff in curly brackets - get passed into the component as Parameters.
You haven't made it clear what the line below is supposed to do:
#page MenuItem.Role
Do you want to capture a variable supplied in the route into MenuItem.Role?
Do you want to set this page's route to the value in MenuItem.Role?
If 1, either the other answers will work for you. If 2, you'll need to consider writing your own router. A subject beyond a simple answer here.
I think you can achieve that by following.
#page "/{Role}"
#code{
[Parameter]
public string Role { get; set; }
}
Building off of the above you can I was able to get this to work with the code isolation approach.
Client/Pages/Foo/
----Index.razor
----Index.cs
namespace Client.Pages.Foo;
[Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.RouteAttribute(Path)]
public partial class Index
{
public const string Path = "/Foo";
}

How to bind dynamic complex objects created using partial-view to a collection property in view-model

I'm unable to bind a collection of child-complext objects created dynamically using a partial-view to view-model IEnumerable property.
I have successfully bound objects created dynamically using partial-views to a view-model using a technique I found on this blog https://haacked.com/archive/2008/10/23/model-binding-to-a-list.aspx/. I have followed the same technique but I'm unable to bind a collection to a IEnumerable property in a view-model.
[BindRequired]
public class EmployeeViewModel
{
other properties....
public IEnumerable<ContactDetailViewModel> EmployeeContact { get; set; }
}
[BindRequired]
public class ContactDetailViewModel
{
// I use this as my indexer for dynamic elements
public string RecordId { get; set; } = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
public string Telephone { get; set; }
public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
public string ContactDescription { get; set; }
}
I call into this action-method via ajax to add dynamic contact detail elements and it returns the partial-view as html and it works fine.
[Route("[action]", Name = "BlankEmployeeContactDetail"), HttpGet("AddBlankContactDetail")]
public PartialViewResult AddBlankContactDetail()
{
return PartialView("_ContactInformation", new ContactDetailViewModel());
}
The initial contact detail is added to the main-view using the following, kindly follow this link https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkRSHVUtFlKhuHaxH96Ik4ineATE to download the main view and partial-view cshtml files. It is also noteworthy to mention that model binding fails for all other properties when I include this partial-view but works when I comment it out. I'm baffled and would greatly appreciate any help you can afford me.
<section id="widget-grid" class="">
<div class="row contactContainer">
#{ await Html.RenderPartialAsync("_ContactInformation", new ContactDetailViewModel()); }
</div>
</section>
This is the controller action method I'm trying to bind posted data to:
[Route("[action]"), HttpPost, AllowAnonymous, ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public IActionResult Register([FromForm] EmployeeViewModel model, [FromQuery] string returnUrl = null)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
}
return View(model);
}
In order to bind, the input names much follow a particular convention that maps to what you're binding to. While it's unclear from your question, my best guess is that you're trying to ultimately bind to an instance of EmployeeViewModel, which means that your contact information inputs would need names like: EmployeeContact[0].Telephone, but when you pass an instance of ContactDetailViewModel along as the "model" of the partial view, the names will be just Telephone, and worse, these same names will be repeated over and over, i.e. each contact information set of fields you create will all have an input named just Telephone.
Long and short, you need the context of the whole model to generate the correct input names. You have a couple of options.
Since you're retrieving the set of fields via an AJAX request, it would be possible to pass the "prefix" to use along with that request. In other words, you can keep track of an index value, counting how many of these sections you've added, and then send along with the request for a new section something like
prefix: 'EmployeeContact[' + (i + 1) + ']',
Then, in your partial view:
#{ await Html.RenderPartialAsync("_ContactInformation", new ContactDetailViewModel(), new ViewDataDictionary { TemplateInfo = new TemplateInfo { HtmlFieldPrefix = ViewBag.Prefix } } ); }
That's a little hacky, and honestly probably rather prone to error, though. The better option would be to take an entirely different approach. Instead of calling back to get the partial view, define it just once as a template:
<script type="text/html" id="ContactInformationTemplate">
<!-- HTML for contact information inputs -->
</script>
Then, using a library like Vue, React, Angular, etc., you can set up a "foreach" construction tied to a particular JavaScript array which uses this template to render items in that array. Then, adding a new set of inputs is as simple as adding a new item to the array. You will have to do some works to customize the input names based on the index of the item in the array, but all of these client-side frameworks have ways to do that. That would also have the side benefit of not having to make an AJAX request every time you want to add a new section.

MVC 4 is overwriting specific Action-Parameters

MVC 4 does present me some strange behaviour at the moment.
Imagine the following Code:
TestController.cs
public class TestController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index(Function function, string action)
{
return View();
}
public class Function
{
public string Action { get; set; }
}
}
It seems, that when I call the URL directly through the browser (localhost:PORT/Test), the Action-Property gets automatically filled with "Index".
If the Action would be named "MySuperDuperActionWhichGetsInvokedQuiteOften", exactly this Methodname would be in the property.
Can somebody explain what MVC is doing here?
The Problem is, that I of course want to fill that stuff myself, for example through an AJAX-Query. But if MVC is filling in this property all by itself, this breaks some behaviour.
I could, of course, just rename my property and it would be working, but it would still be quite interesting what's going on.
EDIT
I would understand it that my second parameter, string action, get's filled with the method-name. But why on earth would MVC bind any property/parameter that is named the same to the request-value of it?
It is problem with default model binder. It "maps" request fields to properties in your class. There is an article of MSDN describing how does it works but to simply this situation the code will be like this:
Action = Request["action"] //where of course Request["action"] equals to name of your action

fluent nhibernate polymorphism. how to check for type of class

I have an Icon which has a Content (one to one) relationship.
public class Icon
{
public virtual Content Content {get; set;}
}
By default, it is lazy loaded which is what I want.
However, at some point in the code, I need to check what kind of Content is, Content being polymorphic, something like
if(icon.Content is TextContent)
{
...
}
Icon is part of another association and it is automatically obtained by the NHibernate, I do not get it manually.
What is the recommended way of checking for the actual type in this situation?
I can have a specific property like ContentType which will be an enum in order to identify the actual content type, but I am looking to know if there's a different way.
If you want to do that kind of check, you have to remove the proxy from the property.
There is a few ways to do it:
If you have access to the session call:
session.PersistenceContext.Unproxy(icon.Content);
Implement a virtual method (in a base class if possible) that forces the removal of the proxy by returning the instance with the proper type.
public virtual U As<U>() where U : YourType {
return this as U;
}
Disable the lazy initialization of the property.
This is very similar to another recent question.
To add to csanchez's list, a fourth method is to add a Self property to the Content base class that returns the un-proxied type:
public virtual void Self
{
get { return this; }
}
And a fifth method is to use 'lazy="no-proxy"` in the mapping as described on Ayende's blog.
Thanks for the suggestions but meanwhile I found an interesting solution, better I think.
Using the Visitor pattern, I can define an IconContent visitor and pass an Action to be executed to it.
For example, suppose there is a TextContent and an ImageContent, it will be something like this:
IconContentVisitor.Func(()=> { Console.WriteLine("this is TextContent"; }, ()=> { Console.WriteLine("this is ImageContent"));
Idea came from here: http://mookid.dk/oncode/archives/991

How to hide a Model class field based on custom logic in MVC Web Api RC

I am using Asp.Net Mvc Web api RC.
I wanted to hide the fields/properties of my model class using custom attribute. Below is my class:
public class Employee
{
public int EmpId { get; set; }
public string Name{ get; set; }
//Wanted to hide this attribute based on custom logic. Like for a certain role, i want to hide the designation
public string Designation{ get; set; }
public string Department{ get; set; }
}
How can we achieve using Data Annotations. I mean i wanted to create a separate attribute to use in this manner:
[HideForRoles(Roles="Admin,Writer")]
public string Designation{ get; set; }
UPDATE :
As i am developing web api. The response is serialized to either XML or Json format depend upon the formatter. So better question would be how not to allow the fields to be serialize while writing to the response.
However one option could be using IgnoreDataMember attribute. Like
[IgnoreDataMember]
public string Designation{ get; set; }
But the above is a compile time declaration where i cannot impose any condition.
Question: How to ignore the field/property while serializing based on some condition at runtime?
Totally missed on the first go-round that you were using Web Api, my apologies.
What you want to do is to create a custom formatter.
There's a good article here on the flow/differences between MVC and Web Api (which I'm getting that you already understand, still some valid points here):
http://lostechies.com/jimmybogard/2012/04/10/asp-net-web-api-mvc-viewmodels-and-formatters/
And here's a sample implementation of a custom formatter:
http://www.tugberkugurlu.com/archive/creating-custom-csvmediatypeformatter-in-asp-net-web-api-for-comma-separated-values-csv-format
Building from that, you would use reflection to read from the attributes, building on the custom ActionFilterAttribute you would have to write, where you evaluate the user's roles and determine which fields should be omitted/included. Here's a sample of an action filter:
https://github.com/MisterJames/MovieFu/blob/master/MovieFu/ActionFilters/UserNameFilter.cs
Hope this helps more.
Cheers.
Your best bet is to return a dynamic object. In this case you can say:
dynamic viewModel = new ExpandoObject();
viewModel.Id = 12;
if(role == "Admin")
{
viewModel.SecureStuff = "Others should not see it";
}
It won't be as straightforward as that, as you'll need to have the fields conditionally rendering in the view. But you can get most of the way there through the attribute.
You will need to make your custom attribute meta-data aware, then check the attribute in your view. A solution is posted here: Can't get Custom Attribute Value in MVC3 HTML Helper.
Cheers.
I have done the authorization checking in the model repository itself. Rather ideal way was to create custom formatters for hiding the certain fields based on some condition.
After getting the list of Employees from db and have them in list, i iterated again and place a NULL to the fields i don't want to display.
The code i have written as:
foreach (var employee in listEmployees)
{
//get all props. of Employees object using reflection
var props = employee .GetType().GetProperties();
//loop through each field to match with the field name to remove/place null
foreach (var propertyInfo in props)
{
var fieldName = propertyInfo.Name;
if (fieldsNamesToRemove .Contains(fieldName))
{
propertyInfo.SetValue(employee , null, null);
}
}
}
here fieldsNamesToRemove is a list that i created dynamically based on roles of current user.
This solution actually placing a NULL for the fields we do not want display. As a result in JSon format the fields are not displaying but in the XML the fields are displaying with syntax like lt; Designation i:nil="true"/ gt;, but manageable as we need to deal mostly with json response.
Thanks Ali and MisterJames for your valuable suggestions