Managing Configuration Changes in WCF - wcf

What is the preferable way to manage configuration file changes in WCF webservices? I know usually in desktop applications people use a FileSystemWatcher to watch for changes in App.config, but how exactly does one go about configuring one in WCF? I tried using something like the following code:
public class Service : IService
{
private static readonly FileSystemWatcher ConfigurationWatcher = new FileSystemWatcher(PathToRootDirectory);
private void ReloadConfiguration(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e)
{
ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("appSettings");
ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("connectionStrings");
}
// IService implementation goes here.
static Service()
{
ConfigurationWatcher.Filter = "web.config";
ConfigurationWatcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilter.LastWrite;
ConfigurationWatcher.Change += ReloadConfiguration;
}
}
However, that didn't seem to work since ConfigurationWatcher seemed to being initialized upon every call to the service... How does one go about accomplishing this?

This happens automatically for a service hosted in IIS.
Any change to the web.config or any assembly in the bin folder will cause the current AppDomain to shut down and a new AppDomain to be started for subsequent requests - just like with ASP.NET.

Related

Service not calling OnShutdown() when windows shuts down

I have .net core console application, which is hosted as windows service.
I want to catch an event if the user logs off/shutdown the computer.
I have found ways to catch this event in .net framework (here & here).
But I cant figure out how to achieve this in .net core.
To create service I am using "ServiceBase" class. Sample code is as given below:
public class MyService : ServiceBase
{
readonly string LogPath = "D:\\TestAppService.txt";
#region Constructors
public MyService()
{
this.CanShutdown = true;
}
#endregion
#region Protected Functions
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
//your code here
// call the base class so it has a chance
// to perform any work it needs to
base.OnStart(args);
}
protected override void OnStop()
{
//your code here
// Call the base class
base.OnStop();
}
protected override void OnShutdown()
{
using (StreamWriter sw = File.AppendText(LogPath))
{
sw.WriteLine("shutdown == true");
}
//your code here
base.OnShutdown();
}
#endregion
}
The OnStop and OnStart methods are being called.
but when I shutdown the computer my OnShutdown method is not called.
According to aspisof.net, you should be able to use the SessionEnding API. This is because it is listed as being exposed in the windows Compatibility Pack - available on NuGet here.
This article on learn.microsoft.com shows how you can include it in a .NET Core application.
tl;dr
Add the NuGet package
Target Windows only
One thing to note: this was originally designed to be a temporary fix for porting Windows specific .NET code over to .NET Core.
The more accepted way to implement Windows only features is to move as much code to .NET Standard libraries as possible, and to use conditional compilation directives to include platform specific code when building for that platform.
By design dotnet core is not "friendly" with platform specific stuff
(like listening to log off event seems to me).
The solution I use in one of Windows-hosted services is described here.
When application domain is forced to close by operating system on shutdown - there is a room for using AppDomain event handlers.

WCF Task based asynchronous callback

I have created WCF service in VS2015:
[ServiceContract(CallbackContract = typeof(IMyCallback))]
public interface IMyService { }
IMyCallback looks like:
[ServiceContract]
public interface IMyCallback {
[OperationContract]
Task<string> OnServerEvent(UserAppEventData evData);
I've built the server, run it, then added service reference (by right click on solution explorer).
The client object is defined as
[CallbackBehaviorAttribute(
ConcurrencyMode = ConcurrencyMode.Reentrant,
IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults = true,
UseSynchronizationContext = true,
ValidateMustUnderstand = true
)]
public class QMyClient : IMyCallback { }
Automatically generated interface implementation made method in sync manner:
public string OnServerEvent(UserAppEventData evData) { }
This code does't work (and isn't asynchronous) and hangs client at OnServerEvent.
When I changed code manuallly to
public async Task<string> OnServerEvent(UserAppEventData evData)
and have done the same in auto generated "service references\...\Reference.cs, all works fine. But I don't want to change Referenece.cs every time I'm updating Service Reference.
Is there any method to force "Update Service Reference" make TBA OperationContractAttribute on callback?
At ordinary WCF service direction everything works OK, VS generates task based operations.
By default the service reference you've added to solution doesn't have asynchronous operations, but you can enable them and decide which option you use for your async methods - task-based or old-fashion asynchronous. This option is available in Advanced settings for service reference.
If you're using a svcutil tool, it will create the task-based methods by default, however, you can change that behavior by some flags like /async or /syncOnly.
What #VMAtm suggested will work out just fine.
I think, you could also use ChannelFactory for this scenario. It is very flexible and you can then await on the service operations from client side. Additional benefit, you don't need to modify client when there are these kind of changes on service side.
Something like:
var channelFactory = new ChannelFactory<IService>(
"WSHttpBinding_IService" // endpoint name
);
IService channel = channelFactory.CreateChannel();
string result = await channel.OnServerEvent();
Console.WriteLine(result);
Please note that for this scenario, you will have to import common interface library to client side as dll because then it will need to know about contracts and data contracts.

How to detect application pool restart of a WCF service?

In my WCF service I use a static dictionary to hold some resource intensive data. I need to clean up the resources when the application pool gets recycled. Is there any method (for example event) by which I can detect that application pool is being recycled?
if your application pool gets recycled all your static objects will be reset. you can clean all external resources (like files or ...) when creating an instance of your static dictionary. something like this:
public static partial class ProjectValues
{
public static ConcurrentDictionary<string, string> MessageDictionary { private set; get; }
static ProjectValues()
{
try
{
MessageDictionary = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, string>();
//then clear the resource here
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return;
}
}
}
Is there any method( for example event) by which I can detect that
application pool is being recycled?
Kinda.
According to Phill Haack, IIS exposes a static method called HostingEnvironment.RegisterObject, which allows you to pass implementations of IRegisteredObject into it.
In theory, this tells IIS to call the IRegisteredObject.Stop operation before it decides to kill the w3wp.exe process your app is running in.
I say in theory because this approach is not fail-safe and there are instances where the AppDomain can go away without calling, or even to call but then shut down anyway, before you're finished doing your cleanup.

Global.asax's Application_Start method doesn't get called

I have a WCF web service hosted on my Local IIS (not Express). I've included a Global.asax in its root directory, where it is supposed to be. Since I'm using Ninject with WCF extensions, the class Global extends NinjectHttpApplication instead of HttpApplication (as seen here).
Also, I'm using the AutoMapper library in order to circumvent writing boring boilerplate code.
The problem arises because a static method I defined for configuring AutoMapper isn't being called causing AutoMapper to throw exceptions when I call Mapper.Map(). That static method's call is defined in Global.asax's Application_Start() method since I want these mappings to be performed once per the web service's lifetime.
Ninject's CreateKernel() method gets called just fine, by the way.
Am I missing something here? I've tried debugging it, it doesn't hit the breakpoint even though I've attached the debugger to w3wp.exe and also tried putting an explicit Debugger.Break() call in its body.
This is how it looks like so far:
Global.asax
<%# Application Codebehind="Global.asax.cs" Inherits="MyApp.WebHost.Global" Language="C#" %>
Global.asax.cs
public class Global : NinjectHttpApplication
{
protected override IKernel CreateKernel()
{
IKernel kernel = new StandardKernel();
/* various bindings */
return kernel;
}
protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
AutoMapperConfig.RegisterMappings();
}
/* rest of Global.asax methods (Session_Start, Application_BeginRequest, etc.) with empty bodies */
RegisterMappings method
public static class AutoMapperConfig
{
public static void RegisterMappings()
{
/* multiple calls to Mapper.CreateMap() */
Mapper.AssertConfigurationIsValid();
}
}
Svc file markup
<%# ServiceHost Language="C#"
Debug="true"
Service="MyApp.Services.MyAppService"
Factory="Ninject.Extensions.Wcf.NinjectServiceHostFactory" %>
Everything else works, I've already created a test client (a simple console app) and added a service reference. Service methods get called just fine, it is just that these mappings are a bit problematic since AutoMapper keeps throwing AutoMapperMappingException exceptions ("Missing type map configuration or unsupported mapping.") for the obvious reasons.
The application's app pool is DefaultAppPool. Should I create a separate one?
I really don't understand the problem here. Thank you in advance.
Well, it required some additional searching but I found the answer here - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ninject/wRy3ELSV4bU
The problem was that NinjectHttpApplication class itself implements the Application_Startup method so it is impossible to implement it in your own derived class (Global class).
To simulate such behavior one needs to override the OnApplicationStarted Ninject's method.
This is how it looks like regarding my particular problem:
protected override void OnApplicationStarted()
{
AutoMapperConfig.RegisterMappings();
}

How to share fluent configuration in a Castle Windsor IOC container

I am trying to create an IOC container in Castle Windsor that's configuration is shared across assemblies.
(What follows is an example of how this works in Unity. What I want to do is to make it work the same way using Castle Windsor)
I have the following project configuration...
TestCompany.Services.Host
(Web project hosting a number of .svc files)
PrintService.svc
Web.Config
Unity.Config
TestCompany.Services.PrintService
IPrintService.cs
PrintService.cs
The actual implementation of my "PrintService" is not implemented inside my Services.Host but in the TestCompany.Services.PrintService assembly.
As part of my shared project code (not shown) I have a container helper which is responsible for loading the unity configuration...
public static IUnityContainer GetContainer()
{
// Checks for existance of container (_container == null) ommitted.
var section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("unity") as UnityConfigurationSection;
section.Configure(_container, name);
...
...
}
This method loads the unity configuration section from the Unity.Config and uses it to configure the container.
The advantage of this method is that one Unity.Config loaded inside (I presume) the AppDomain can service a number of assemblies. Simply calling GetContainer() from any of the assemblies consumed by my service host will return a container populated with the same type resolution's etc.
I really want to use the fluent configuration in Castle Windsor but I dont see how without this "shared" configuration file that can be acheived. PrintService and any future services will all need to resolve the same dependencies and I dont want to have to repeat my fluent configuration between these services.
Ideally I need some sort of container configured in the service host app that can "flow" into all of the assemblies that it makes use of.
Thanks.
I think I may not be understanding your question but I think I understand your scenario and here is how I do something similar, if it helps at all...
My Philosophy:
Each part of the application should be in charge of registering what
it knows about and nothing more, so there is no need for a single
central configuration file and things that are shared between
components are registered in one place and their interfaces are
available everywhere via a common library.
So let's take an example...
First of all, let us just say (for the purposes of my example) that IPrintService is something that you want to register an implementation of once and use throughout the application and that we have some other component that needs to be implemented by some external module from the main application. We, therefore, create an assembly called Common like so:
Common
public interface IPrintService
{
void Print();
}
public interface IMyService
{
void DoSomething();
}
Now let us think about the main part of the application (maybe it is an ASP .NET application, maybe justa console application, does not really matter). Here we construct the container and ask it to find all the possible components. We can do that like so:
Main Application
// Could be the Global.asax code behind but for simplicity this is
// just a console application
class Program
{
private static readonly IWindsorContainer Mycontainer
= BootstrapContainer();
// Allow access to the raw container - this is probably a bad idea but
// in the rare case that you need it you can get it from here
public static IWindsorContainer Container { get { return Mycontainer; } }
private static IWindsorContainer BootstrapContainer()
{
// Here we will just install every IWindsorInstaller found in any
// assembly in the same folder as the application (so no need for
// references or anything).
var c = new WindsorContainer();
string folder = Path.GetDirectoryName(
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
c.Install(FromAssembly.InDirectory(new AssemblyFilter(folder)));
return c;
}
}
// Here is the print service implementation
public class MyPrintService : IPrintService
{
public void Print()
{
// Print!
}
}
// This is the installer for the main module - here we are saying exactly
// what is implementing the interface
public class MainApplicationInstaller : IWindsorInstaller
{
public void Install(IWindsorContainer container,
IConfigurationStore store)
{
container
.Register(Component
.For<IPrintService>()
.ImplementedBy<MyPrintService>());
}
}
So now we have a common library with our shared inetrfaces and a main application that will register an implementation for our shared interface and also load up any other modules in the system.
The only thing, therefore, left to do is to consume that print service and use it. We can do this anywhere that is using the container so let's create a third assembly that references only Common (we will call it test module.
Test Module
// This installer installs just the things inside this module since that
// is all it knows about but those things can use things that are
// registered in the container by anybody.
public class TestModuleInstaller : IWindsorInstaller
{
public void Install(IWindsorContainer container,
IConfigurationStore store)
{
container
.Register(Component
.For<IMyService>()
.ImplementedBy<MyServiceThatDoesSomething>());
}
}
public class MyServiceThatDoesSomething : IMyService
{
private readonly IPrintService _printService;
public MyServiceThatDoesSomething(IPrintService printService)
{
_printService = printService;
}
public void DoSomething()
{
// Use the print service!
_printService.Print();
}
}
Finally compile everything and copy the test module to the same folder as the main application and then from the main you can do this:
Container.Resolve<IMyService>().DoSomething();
And then the magic happens! Well, some code runs and you find that the print service is called by the class from the module even though it knows nothing about it.
Anyway, maybe that helps a little bit, maybe not, good luck!