How to instruct IIS to use environment variable from web.config, to run the .net core application? - iis

Recently, I'm facing a strange issue while hosting .net core 2.2 application on IIS.
After hosting, I get "An error occurred while starting the application". In order to identify the root cause I enabled the log file and found that its because of environment variable issue.
I configured the environment variable in my web.config file as like below,
<aspNetCore processPath="dotnet" arguments=".\PctrClient.Api.dll" stdoutLogEnabled="true" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" hostingModel="InProcess">
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" value="Development" />
</environmentVariables>
</aspNetCore>
Program.cs
public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
CreateWebHostBuilder(args).Build().Run();
}
public static IWebHostBuilder CreateWebHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
.UseStartup<Startup>()
.UseIISIntegration();
}
But web app interprets it as Development;Development. How is it possible?
Info from log file
info Hosting environment: Development;Development

i have got problems about IIS and i changed applicationHost.config with tags. now i can use same IIS with different env. for each web app.

In order to resolve this issue, we have to set the environment variable either in system level or in web.config file. (if we set the environment variable in both places, it will get appended by .net core 2.2 framework)
From my perspective, it looks like a strange behavior, so I have raised this issue in GitHub/AspNetCore to know other community users thoughts, hope this issue will get addressed soon.

Related

ASP.NET Core deployment to IIS error: Development environment should not be enabled in deployed applications

I followed this article to deploy my ASP.NET MVC Core 1.0 app to local IIS on my Windows 10 that is using IIS 10. The application deployed successfully and it opens the home page fine. I'm using Individual User Accounts Authentication. On the home page when I enter login/password and click Login button, I get the following error. I'm using the latest versions of ASP.NET Core and VS2015. I used VS2015 Publish wizard to publish the app. Everything is done on the same machine:
An error occurred while processing your request.
Development Mode
Swapping to Development environment will display more detailed information about the error that occurred.
Development environment should not be enabled in deployed applications, as it can result in sensitive information from exceptions being displayed to end users. For local debugging, development environment can be enabled by setting the ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT environment variable to Development, and restarting the application.
First, check the value of ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT variable. You will have to set this environment variable to "Production" (or other environment than Development)
Otherwise, you can update web.config like this-
<configuration>
<!--
Configure your application settings in appsettings.json. Learn more at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=786380
-->
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="aspNetCore" path="*" verb="*" modules="AspNetCoreModule" resourceType="Unspecified" />
</handlers>
<aspNetCore processPath=".\Application.exe" arguments="" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" forwardWindowsAuthToken="false">
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" value="Production" />
</environmentVariables>
</aspNetCore>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
Refer this post for more details.
I wanted to run it in development environment, so I added following in web.config file, and it worked for me:
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" value="Development" />
</environmentVariables>
If you are developing using ASP.NET CORE. You can find this setting inside properties and then in launchSetting.json file.
"profiles": {
"IIS Express": {
"commandName": "IISExpress",
"launchBrowser": true,
"environmentVariables": {
"ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Production"
},
"nativeDebugging": false
},
"Ecommerce": {
"commandName": "Project",
"launchBrowser": true,
"environmentVariables": {
"ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Production"
},
"applicationUrl": "https://localhost:5001;http://localhost:5000"
}
}
Change "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development" to "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Production"
You can find the launchSetting.json file by expanding properties
I had the same problem (ASP.NET CORE 3.1) but changing "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" did not helped.
Scouring through the web I found that in Startup.cs, Configure method, this code was hiding the real issue.
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
}
Then I deleted the If block and added Database error pages ( You might need to Install Microsoft.AspNetCore.Diagnostics.EntityFrameworkCore from NuGet )
app.UseDatabserrorPages();
So your Startup.cs will look like this
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
app.UseDatabaseErrorPage();
app.UseHttpsRedirection();
//Others will be Okay
Then you will see the real errors on the webpage. For me it was
Login failed for user IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool
So I had to run a GRANT SCRIPT. I just had to run this script on my SQL Server
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT name FROM sys.server_principals WHERE name = 'IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool')
BEGIN
CREATE LOGIN [IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool]
FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master],
DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=[us_english]
END
GO
CREATE USER [WebDatabaseUser]
FOR LOGIN [IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool]
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_owner', 'WebDatabaseUser'
GO
You can see this link : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-forms/overview/deployment/visual-studio-web-deployment/deploying-to-iis
And my problem was solved. Hope this helps somebody.
There is a runtime exception in code. in Production mode it can not be show. so that it show "Development environment should not be enabled in deployed applications, as it can result in sensitive information from exceptions being displayed to end users"
in web.config file you will find
<aspNetCore processPath="dotnet" arguments=".\PortfolioApp.dll" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" hostingModel="inprocess" />
replace it with
<aspNetCore processPath=".\Application.exe" arguments="" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" forwardWindowsAuthToken="false">
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" value="Development" />
</environmentVariables>
</aspNetCore>
now you run app in browser. It will show actual error message. Now it's time to fix the runtime exception.
I just replaced this:
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
app.UseMigrationsEndPoint();
}
else
{
app.UseExceptionHandler("/Error");
// The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
app.UseHsts();
}
with this:
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
app.UseMigrationsEndPoint();
When your connection string is not correct, you get this error. When I correct my connection string it worked fine.
Eg: for correct azure db connection string
Server={Server Name};Initial Catalog={Database Name};Persist Security Info=False;User ID={DB User Name};Password={your_password};MultipleActiveResultSets=False;Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=False;Connection Timeout=30;
For me, it was a matter of adding the EnvironmentName property to the pubxml.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/visual-studio-publish-profiles?view=aspnetcore-5.0
First, this error occurs where you publish a web site that raises errors in the run-time. So check your code again in the pages that give this error.
Then, set the value of ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT variable to Production (instead of Development), you should also check the layout page and change <environment"development"> to <environment"Production">.
Finally, publish your web site.
This is tested in VS2017
This might not be the case for everyone, however I was trying to deploy a "release" configuration to a server that had an environment variable of "uat". I set up a uat configuration to use with my deployment and the message no longer appeared when navigating to my site url. Long story short, just make sure your intended build configuration matches the destination server as others have alluded to above!
The only way I could get rid of the Development Mode message was to change appsettings.json context from
Integrated Security=True
to specifying
User Id=username;Password=password and making sure the user was a db_owner.
By default, in production, you will see this error page unless you create/customize your own. Depending on the project type, it can be in different places like Pages/Error.razor or as a controller action.
This error message is just a hard-coded text in the Error.cshtml file, not the actual error message, only the RequestID is dynamically generated, but not helpful. It only comes up when you publish it to a production web server, and if there is an error.
The template wizard adds an Error.cshtml and Error.cshtml.cs files to the Pages folder if the project is a Razor Pages while it only adds an Error.cshtml to the Views\Shared folder if the project is MVC. This file was there since ASP.NET Core 2.0, still unchanged.
Code in the Error.cshtml file as follows (ASP.NET Core Razor Pages project):
#page
#model ErrorModel
#{
ViewData["Title"] = "Error";
}
<h1 class="text-danger">Error.</h1>
<h2 class="text-danger">An error occurred while processing your request.</h2>
#if (Model.ShowRequestId)
{
<p>
<strong>Request ID:</strong> <code>#Model.RequestId</code>
</p>
<p>#Model.</p>
}
<h3>Development Mode</h3>
<p>
Swapping to the <strong>Development</strong> environment displays detailed
information about the error that occurred.
</p>
<p>
<strong>The Development environment shouldn't be enabled for deployed applications.</strong>
It can result in displaying sensitive information from exceptions to end users.
For local debugging, enable the <strong>Development</strong> environment by setting the <strong>ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT</strong> environment variable to <strong>Development</strong>
and restarting the app.
</p>
In the MVC project, the code is the same except first 2 lines, it has only one line, replacing ErrorModel with ErrorViewModel:
#model ErrorViewModel
If there is an error this file will show if the environment is NOT the DEVELOPMENT, while it will show the actual error message in the development environment, based on the code in the Configure method in Startup.cs file. The code below shows for Razor Pages, for MVC only change is the path to the Error file app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");:
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
app.UseDatabaseErrorPage();
}
else
{
app.UseExceptionHandler("/Error");
app.UseHsts();
}
We do not need to change the above code.
So this Development Mode message will come up for any error pops from the application. If you want to show the proper error messages, More information can be found here in the doc.
To avoid confusion, change the original message as shown above, <h3> header and <p> to:
<h3>This is Production Mode </h3>
<p>Contact the developers of the app. If you are the developer swap to the
Development environment to see detailed information about the error that occurred.
</p>
Now if we take a look at the line with <aspNetCore in the Web.config file in your server:
<aspNetCore processPath=".\OurASPNETCoreApplication.exe" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" hostingModel="inprocess" />
That indicates that this is in production mode by default since it doesn't include the child <environmentVariables> node. Now to change the environment to development change that line to:
<aspNetCore processPath=".\OurASPNETCoreApplication.exe" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" hostingModel="inprocess" >
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" value="Development" />
</environmentVariables>
</aspNetCore>
and restart the web server. It will show the actual error message.
Most of the time it will be the database configuration errors.
Alternatively use a third-party logging provider, like Serilog to write logs into a text file.
This is an old thread. I didn't find the answer here.
But I found a solution and want to share it.
All worked perfectly on my computer. But when I publish to the web server and open the new page "MyLogin" I get the error. Solution that worked for me:
Delete the "bin" and "obj" folder in the current Project.
Remove all files/folders on the destination folder on the web server.
This is the default error page with generic error message.
I got this error after deploying the ASP.NET Core 3.1 MC published application on shared hosting. Default Home and Privacy pages were working as expected but when I tried to open a page that was fetching data from database the above error shown.
Error reason: In appsettings.json, I updated connection string Data Source=MyPC\MSSQLSERVER14 with Data Source=.\MSSQLSERVER2. I copied this data source ".\MSSQLSERVER2" from shared hosting connection string and pasted it in appsettings.json
Resolution: Changed data source ".\MSSQLSERVER2" to ".\\MSSQLSERVER2".
"ConnectionStrings": { "AppCon": "Data Source=.\\MSSQLSERVER2xxx;Initial Catalog=sqldb;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=sqluser;Password=********" }

NLog with DNX Core 5.0

I am attempting to implement NLog logging using ASP.Net 5 and MVC 6. Be default, both DNX 451 and DNX Core 50 are included in the project template.
I am attempting to implement NLog Logging by following the example here.
However, in the sample app, there is the following line -
#if !DNXCORE50
factory.AddNLog(new global::NLog.LogFactory());
#endif
And if I run the app, this line never gets hit because the mvc application has dnx core 50 installed by default.
Is there any loggers that are available for DNX Core 50? If not, what purpose does dnx core serve in the default mvc app - is it actually needed?
Edit: If I remove the #if !DNXCORE50.... line above, I get a the following error -
DNX Core 5.0 error - The type or namespace name 'NLog' could not be found in the global namespace'
DNX Core 5.0 is only necessary if you want the cloud-optimized cross-platform version of the .Net framework; if you still plan on using the MVC app within only a Windows environment, you can remove your dnxcore50 framework reference from your project.json.
NLog for .NET Core (DNX environment) is currently available in version 4.4.0-alpha1.
Steps:
Create NLog.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<targets>
<target xsi:type="ColoredConsole" name="ToConsole" />
</targets>
<rules>
<logger name="*" minlevel="Info" writeTo="ToConsole" />
</rules>
Load and parse configuration
private static ILogger _logger;
public static void LoggerSetup()
{
var reader = XmlReader.Create("NLog.config");
var config = new XmlLoggingConfiguration(reader, null); //filename is not required.
LogManager.Configuration = config;
_logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();
}
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
LoggerSetup();
// Log anything you want
}
When dealing with the MVC tooling in MVC6 (dnx stuff), the answer to this is very fluid.
In order to get NLog to work with my web app, I had to do a couple steps:
-> Big thanks to two NLog discussions(here and here)
I just needed to add the configuration setup in my Startup.cs's constructor:
public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
{
// Set up configuration sources.
var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
.AddJsonFile("appsettings.json")
.AddEnvironmentVariables();
// Set up logging configuration
// from: https://github.com/NLog/NLog/issues/641
// and: https://github.com/NLog/NLog/issues/1172
var reader = XmlTextReader.Create(File.OpenRead(Path.Combine(builder.GetBasePath(),"NLog.config"))); //stream preferred above byte[] / string.
LogManager.Configuration = new XmlLoggingConfiguration(reader, null); //filename is not required.
log.Info("NLogger starting");
Configuration = builder.Build();
}
I consider this a bit of a stop-gap as Microsoft is introducing a new Logging interface (that I hope will end up being like SLF4J.org is in Java). Unfortunately, documentation on that is a bit thin at the time I'm writing this. NLog is working diligently on getting themselves an implementation of the new dnx ILoggingProvider interface.
Additional information about my project setup
My NLog.config file is located in the project root folder, next to
the project.json and appsettings.json. I had to do a little digging
inside AddJsonFile() to see how they handled pathing.
I used yeoman.io and their aspnet generator to set up the web project.
Version of NLog, thanks to Lukasz Pyrzyk above:
"NLog": "4.4.0-alpha1"

outputCacheProfiles with Redis cache

I have an MVC web project and I am trying to setup OutputCache for some of the pages using redis cache running locally, eventually to be hosted in azure.
I have decorated my ActionResult with
[OutputCache(CacheProfile = "cacheprofile1")]
and have the following in my web.config under system.web / caching
<outputCacheSettings>
<outputCacheProfiles>
<add name="cacheprofile1" duration="1800" varyByParam="none"/>
</outputCacheProfiles>
</outputCacheSettings>
My Cache provider is set accordingly
<outputCache defaultProvider="localRedisOutputCache">
<providers>
<add name="localRedisOutputCache" type="Microsoft.Web.Redis.RedisOutputCacheProvider" host="127.0.0.1" accessKey="" ssl="false" />
</providers>
</outputCache>
No entries are being made into my cache. If I change my ActionResult decoration to
[OutputCache(Duration=1800)]
it works, but I'd rather not have to set this manually against each method.
Any ideas on why the cache profile is being ignored and how to resolve would be appreciated.

Microsoft.Owin.StaticFiles works in console host but I get a 404 in IIS on file requests

I have Microsoft.Owin.FileServer (v2.1.0) set up in my Owin pipeline, and setting up FileServerOptions with EnableDirectoryBrowsing = true works great for showing the directory contents in both my console host and iisexpress.
It's when I try to view a particular file (so, the StaticFiles part) I have problems in iisexpress. Still works great in the console host, but in iisexpress I get a 404:
HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found
The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
Most likely causes:
- The directory or file specified does not exist on the Web server.
- The URL contains a typographical error.
- A custom filter or module, such as URLScan, restricts access to the file.
I do have the latest Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb referenced in the web host.
Adding <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"> didn't work for me (VS2013, IIS Express).
Forcing all requests to use the Owin pipeline did:
(in web.config)
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="Owin" verb="" path="*" type="Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb.OwinHttpHandler, Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb"/>
</handlers>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
I had to add the following setting:
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
to get the module that Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb automatically registers to run for routes like *.txt, *.js that IIS was assuming were static files to run through the Owin pipeline.
This setting does have performance implications for actual static files, but this works for me.
I've just struggled with this for the last couple of hours, adding the handler below did work however I don't believe this was the correct approach, it caused public void Configuration(IAppBuilder appBuilder) to be invoked twice.
<add name="Owin" verb="" path="*" type="Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb.OwinHttpHandler, Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb"/>
I did some reading and found https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/aspnet/overview/owin-and-katana/owin-middleware-in-the-iis-integrated-pipeline
which then lead me to use UseStageMarked().
So now my call to UseStaticFiles() is followed by a called to UseStageMarker() like so:
appBuilder.UseStaticFiles();
//allows owin middlwares to be executed earlier on in the pipeline.
appBuilder.UseStageMarker(PipelineStage.Authenticate);
There is a very good read on it here:
You can find UseStageMarker inside the Microsoft.Owin package here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Owin/
I hope this helps someone else.
Thanks
Steve

Asp.net application error running with Sitecore 6.4.1

I have Sitecore as site root (which is running ok) and under it I need to have a bunch of asp.net applications running.
So far, created a virtual directory for the child application, turned it into an app. But as soon as I browse the child app it comes with this error message.
Compilation Error
Description: An error occurred during the compilation of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific error details and modify your source code appropriately.
Compiler Error Message: CS0246: The type or namespace name 'Sitecore' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
Source Error:
Line 3264: </providers>
Line 3265: </roleManager>
Line 3266: <profile defaultProvider="sql" enabled="true" inherits="Sitecore.Security.UserProfile, Sitecore.Kernel">
Line 3267: <providers>
Line 3268: <clear/>
It seems that the child asp.net app is inheriting Sitecore settings which are coming from Sitecore web.config.
Any ideas?
This should be possible. You'll have to author a web.config for that non-Sitecore application in virtual directory, and overwrite the sections under <system.web> and <system.webserver> which reference Sitecore classes. This includes:
httpModules / httpHandlers (for these you should "remove all" and add those of that web app)
security section (put the default ASP.NET provider classes back)
in Sitecore main web.config add the path of this web app to IgnoreUrlPrefixes setting to let Sitecore know it should not handle requests to those
It might be something else, but you should get the general idea.
This answer is similar to Yan, but is different enough for a separate answer. Hope it helps.
Go into IIS and select the Child Application. Select Modules. Remove all the Sitecore related modules that are present. Don't worry, the parent Sitecore app will still retain these modules.
When you do this, you are actually changing the child app web.config, so you will see the elements removed in the web.config file like so.
<remove name="SitecoreConfigWatcher" />
<remove name="SitecoreHttpModule" />
You also may have to clear out some other inherited settings.
<profile enabled="false"><providers><clear/></providers></profile>
<roleManager enabled="false"><providers><clear /></providers></roleManager>

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