Calling into my own DLL when depolyed on Azure - azure

I have a simple Windows Azure cloud service that does random number generation running on my local machine. I have then published this to azure
public string GetNumber()
{
Random number = new Random();
return "number = " + number.Next(1, 100).ToString() + " number ";
}
When I call this method from my client everything works fine.
ie
ServiceReference1.RandomNumbersClient client = new ServiceReference1.RandomNumbersClient();
Console.WriteLine("Starting .... ");
Console.WriteLine(client.GetNumber());
Now, the next step is I have added some code that requires "C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.5.2\System.Speech.dll" to be available in the project. This is easy on my local server as I just add the reference to the dll in my VS project.
New method ....
public string GetNumberAsString()
{
Random number = new Random();
SpeechSynthesizer synth = new SpeechSynthesizer();
synth.SetOutputToDefaultAudioDevice();
synth.Speak("This example demonstrates a basic use of Speech Synthesizer");
return "number = " + number.Next(1, 100).ToString() + " number ";
}
Problem now is when I publish to Azure. How do I make the DLL available to my app running in Azure?
When I call the GetNumber() method it works fine but any call to GetNumberAsString() fails because of the additional code.
ServiceReference1.RandomNumbersClient client = new ServiceReference1.RandomNumbersClient();
Console.WriteLine("Starting .... ");
Console.WriteLine(client.GetNumberAsString());
How do I actually inspect the logs for the Webservice running on Azure so I can make a start at finding out what the problem is.

Related

Azure connection attempt failed

I'm using the following code to connect. I can connect to other Azure Resources ok.
But for one resource I get the following error: URL and Key are correct.
{"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"}
The Code is as follows
_searchClient = new SearchServiceClient(searchServiceName, new
SearchCredentials(apiKey));
_httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("api-key", apiKey);
_searchServiceEndpoint = String.Format("https://{0}.{1}",
searchServiceName, _searchClient.SearchDnsSuffix);
bool result = RunAsync().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
Any ideas? thx in advance? How can I troubleshoot this?
I will show how this is done in c#
you will need a appsettings.json
you will need this code in the program.cs file
there are a lot of other files in the example from the document
that you may need to use , learn and edit for ur usecase
When working in c# and azure, always know what is unique about the file structured your solution first. This is why we build the examples from the docs as we learn the solution. Next we must study the different blocks of code that when executed deliver one feature or functionality to the solution as a whole.
appsettings.json
{
"SearchServiceName": "[Put your search service name here]",
"SearchIndexName": "hotels",
"SearchServiceAdminApiKey": "[Put your primary or secondary Admin API key here]",
"SearchServiceQueryApiKey": "[Put your primary or secondary Query API key here]"
}
Program.cs
namespace AzureSearch.SDKHowTo
{
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading;
using Microsoft.Azure.Search;
using Microsoft.Azure.Search.Models;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Spatial;
// This sample shows how to delete, create, upload documents and query an index
static void Main(string[] args)
{
IConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder().AddJsonFile("appsettings.json");
IConfigurationRoot configuration = builder.Build();
SearchServiceClient serviceClient = CreateSearchServiceClient(configuration);
string indexName = configuration["SearchIndexName"];
Console.WriteLine("{0}", "Deleting index...\n");
DeleteIndexIfExists(indexName, serviceClient);
Console.WriteLine("{0}", "Creating index...\n");
CreateIndex(indexName, serviceClient);
ISearchIndexClient indexClient = serviceClient.Indexes.GetClient(indexName);
Console.WriteLine("{0}", "Uploading documents...\n");
UploadDocuments(indexClient);
ISearchIndexClient indexClientForQueries = CreateSearchIndexClient(indexName, configuration);
RunQueries(indexClientForQueries);
Console.WriteLine("{0}", "Complete. Press any key to end application...\n");
Console.ReadKey();
}
private static SearchServiceClient CreateSearchServiceClient(IConfigurationRoot configuration)
{
string searchServiceName = configuration["SearchServiceName"];
string adminApiKey = configuration["SearchServiceAdminApiKey"];
SearchServiceClient serviceClient = new SearchServiceClient(searchServiceName, new SearchCredentials(adminApiKey));
return serviceClient;
}
private static SearchIndexClient CreateSearchIndexClient(string indexName, IConfigurationRoot configuration)
{
string searchServiceName = configuration["SearchServiceName"];
string queryApiKey = configuration["SearchServiceQueryApiKey"];
SearchIndexClient indexClient = new SearchIndexClient(searchServiceName, indexName, new SearchCredentials(queryApiKey));
return indexClient;
}
private static void DeleteIndexIfExists(string indexName, SearchServiceClient serviceClient)
{
if (serviceClient.Indexes.Exists(indexName))
{
serviceClient.Indexes.Delete(indexName);
}
}
private static void CreateIndex(string indexName, SearchServiceClient serviceClient)
{
var definition = new Index()
{
Name = indexName,
Fields = FieldBuilder.BuildForType<Hotel>()
};
serviceClient.Indexes.Create(definition);
}}
Azure concepts to learn
How and why we create azure clients
Why do we use appsettings.json
What is some example file structures for azure search solutions
What coding lanague do you want to use to build that solutio
do u want to use the azure sdk
How to find and create api keys
C# concepts to learn
What is an interface and how do you use it
How to import one file in the file structure into another
How the main function works
How to call variables in to a function
How to call a function with a function
How to write server side code vs client side code
How to deploy c# code to azure
What version of c# are u using What’s is asp.net and what version will u use
What is asp.net core and what version will u use
As u can see azure and c# have a high learning curve.
Luckily you have stack overflow and documentation to research all of the above questions and more:)
For how u would troubleshoot...what I do is research each block of code in the documentation example and run all of the code locally. Then I test each block of code one at a time. Ur always testing data flowing thought the block of code. So you can just console log the result of a block a code by creating a test varable and print that varable to the console.
Because each block of Code represents one feature or functionality, each test will output either a pass or fail delivery of that feature or functionality. Thus you can design functionality, implement that design and create a test for new Feature.

Data From REST API In Azure

I have implemented REST API calls using a standalone c# console application. The API returns JSON which i'm deserializing and then storing it in the database.
Now i want to implement the entire logic in Azure platform so that it can invoked by passing start date and an end date and store location (it should run for three location) Below is the code:
static void Main()
{
MakeInventoryRequest();
}
static async void MakeInventoryRequest()
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
var queryString = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(string.Empty);
// Request headers
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key", "5051fx6yyy124hhfyuscf34f57ce9");
// Request parameters
queryString["query.locationNumbers"] = "4638";
queryString["availableFromDate"] = "2019-01-01";
queryString["availableToDate"] = "2019-03-07";
var uri = "https://api-test.location.cloud/api/v1/inventory?" + queryString;
using (var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, uri))
using (var response = await client.SendAsync(request))
{
var stream = await response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync();
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode == true)
{
List<Inventory> l1 = DeserializeJsonFromStream<List<Inventory>>(stream);
InsertInventoryRecords(l1);
}
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode == false)
{
throw new Exception("Error Response Code: " + response.StatusCode.ToString() + "Content is: " + response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result.ToString());
}
}
}
}
Please suggest the best possible design using Azure components
With the information in hand I think you have multiple options , you need to find out which works for you the best . You can use Cloud service to host the console app ( you will have to change it to worker role , Visual studio will help you to convert that ) . I am not sure about the load which you are expecting but you can always increase and decrease the instance and these can be deployed to different geographies .
I see that you are persisting the data , if you want to do that you can use many of the SQL offerings . For invoking the REST API you can also azure functions and ADF.
Please feel free to comment if you want any more details on the same.

Why won't my ASP.NET application export CSV when hosted as an Azure Web app?

MY application exports CSV's fine when I test it from Visual Studio, but when I deploy it to an Azure as a Web app, instead of exporting a CSV I get a Error code: ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE.
Below is the method I use :
public void ExportEmpReport(int? er_id)
{
var er_hdr = db.expense_report_hdr.Include(w => w.employeeExpUser).Where(x => x.ID == er_id).FirstOrDefault();
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
sw.WriteLine("Employee Name: " + er_hdr.employeeExpUser.fullname + ", Period: " + er_hdr.period + ", Expense Report ID: " + er_id);
sw.WriteLine("Date of Expense , Expense Class , Detail , Cust/Conv , Notes , Amount , GL Code , Project Code");
Response.ClearContent();
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=ExpenseReport_" + er_id + ".csv");
Response.ContentType = "text/csv";
var lines = db.expense_report_line.Where(y => y.er_id == er_id);
foreach (var line in lines)
{
string exp_class = line.expenseType.expense.ToString().Replace(",", "");
string detail = (line.expense_detail != null) ? line.expense_detail.Replace(",", "") : "";
string cust_conv = (line.cust_conv != null) ? line.cust_conv.Replace(",", "") : "";
string notes = (line.notes != null) ? line.notes.Replace(",", "") : "";
sw.WriteLine(string.Format("{0},{1},{2},{3},{4},{5},{6},{7}", line.expense_date, exp_class, detail, cust_conv, notes, line.amount, line.gl_code.GL_code, line.project_code));
}
Response.Write(sw.ToString());
Response.End();
}
Here are some suggestions you may use to try and troubleshoot it:
A. Debug the web app locally, while connected to the DB on Azure. Are the tables being read correctly?
If the code fails to read the data from the database, make sure that the database is updated to the latest schema.
B. If it reads the data correctly, debug it step by step, and watch exactly where it fails.
If it fails at a particular line, remove/replace some lines of code until the local web app is running correctly against the DB on Azure. You may be able to identify the offending line(s) of code, and then report back here to allow others to help you troubleshoot further.
C. Once you get it working with the local app against the DB on Azure, deploy the updated project code to the Web App on Azure to see if it still runs correctly.
If it still doesn't work, maybe there's a setting on your Web App that is preventing it from running the code successfully.
D. Check the version of the .NET Framework on the Web App in Azure. The choices should be v3.5 or v4.6 (for non-Core 1.0 applications).
If it has the wrong version selected, make sure you select the correct version.
E. Enable Remote Debugging of the Web App running on Azure.
There's a Remote Debugging feature that you can toggle on/off in the Application Settings blade, where you can also select the VS version (2012, 2013, 2015). Turn it on to pinpoint which line of code it's failing at.

wkhtmltopdf fails on Azure Website

I'm using the https://github.com/codaxy/wkhtmltopdf wrapper to create a pdf from a web page on my website (I pass in an absolute url e.g. http://mywebsite.azurewebsites.net/PageToRender.aspx It works fine in dev and on another shared hosting account but when I deploy to an Azure website it fails and all I get is a ThreadAbortException.
Is it possible to use wkhtmltopdf on azure, and if so, what am I doing wrong?
UPDATE:
This simple example just using Process.Start also doesn't work. It just hangs when run on Azure but works fine on other servers.
string exePath = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("\\App_Data\\PdfGenerator\\wkhtmltopdf.exe");
string htmlPath = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("\\App_Data\\PdfGenerator\\Test.html");
string pdfPath = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("\\App_Data\\PdfGenerator\\Test.pdf");
StringBuilder error = new StringBuilder();
using (var process = new Process())
{
using (Stream fs = new FileStream(pdfPath, FileMode.Create))
{
process.StartInfo.FileName = exePath;
process.StartInfo.Arguments = string.Format("{0} -", htmlPath);
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
process.Start();
while (!process.HasExited)
{
process.StandardOutput.BaseStream.CopyTo(fs);
}
process.WaitForExit();
}
}
Check out this SO question regarding a similar issue. This guy seems to have gotten it to work. RotativaPDF is built on top of wkhtmltopdf hence the connection. I am in the process of trying it myself on our Azure site - I will post in the near future with my results.
Azure and Rotativa PDF print for ASP.NET MVC3

Staging or Production Instance?

Is there anywhere in the service runtime that would tell me if I'm currently running on 'Staging' or 'Production'? Manually modifying the config to and from production seems a bit cumbersome.
You should really not change your configurations when you're based upon if you're in Prod or Staging. Staging area is not designed to be a "QA" environment but only a holding-area before production is deployed.
When you upload a new deployment, current deployment slot where you upload your package to is destroyed and is down for 10-15minutes while upload and start of VM's is happening. If you upload straight into production, that's 15 minutes of production downtime. Thus, Staging area was invented: you upload to staging, test the stuff, and click "Swap" button and your Staging environment magically becomes Production (virtual IP swap).
Thus, your staging should really be 100% the same as your production.
What I think you're looking for is QA/testing environment? You should open up a new service for Testing environment with its own Prod/Staging. In this case, you will want to maintain multiple configuration file sets, one set per deployment environment (Production, Testing, etc.)
There are many ways to manage configuration-hell that occurs, especially with Azure that has on top of .config files, its own *.cscfg files. The way I prefer to do it with Azure project is as follows:
Setup a small Config project, create folders there that match Deployment types. Inside each folder setup sets of *.config & *.cscfg files that match to particular deployment environment: Debug, Test, Release... these are setup in Visual Studio as well , as build target types. I have a small xcopy command that occurs during every compile of the Config project that copies all the files from Build Target folder of Config project into root folder of the Config project.
Then every other project in the solution, LINKS to the .config or .cscfg file from the root folder of the Config project.
Voila, my configs magically adapt to every build configuration automatically. I also use .config transformations to manage debugging information for Release vs. non-Release build targets.
If you've read all this and still want to get at the Production vs. Staging status at runtime, then:
Get deploymentId from RoleEnvironment.DeploymentId
Then use Management API with a proper X509 certificate to get at the Azure structure of your Service and call the GetDeployments method (it's rest api but there is an abstraction library).
Hope this helps
Edit: blog post as requested about the setup of configuration strings and switching between environments # http://blog.paraleap.com/blog/post/Managing-environments-in-a-distributed-Azure-or-other-cloud-based-NET-solution
Sometimes I wish people would just answer the question.. not explain ethics or best practices...
Microsoft has posted a code sample doing exactly this here: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/CSAzureDeploymentSlot-1ce0e3b5
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// You basic information of the Deployment of Azure application.
string deploymentId = RoleEnvironment.DeploymentId;
string subscriptionID = "<Your subscription ID>";
string thrumbnail = "<Your certificate thumbnail print>";
string hostedServiceName = "<Your hosted service name>";
string productionString = string.Format(
"https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deploymentslots/{2}",
subscriptionID, hostedServiceName, "Production");
Uri requestUri = new Uri(productionString);
// Add client certificate.
X509Store store = new X509Store(StoreName.My, StoreLocation.LocalMachine);
store.Open(OpenFlags.OpenExistingOnly);
X509Certificate2Collection collection = store.Certificates.Find(
X509FindType.FindByThumbprint, thrumbnail, false);
store.Close();
if (collection.Count != 0)
{
X509Certificate2 certificate = collection[0];
HttpWebRequest httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(requestUri);
httpRequest.ClientCertificates.Add(certificate);
httpRequest.Headers.Add("x-ms-version", "2011-10-01");
httpRequest.KeepAlive = false;
HttpWebResponse httpResponse = httpRequest.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
// Get response stream from Management API.
Stream stream = httpResponse.GetResponseStream();
string result = string.Empty;
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
result = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
if (result == null || result.Trim() == string.Empty)
{
return;
}
XDocument document = XDocument.Parse(result);
string serverID = string.Empty;
var list = from item
in document.Descendants(XName.Get("PrivateID",
"http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure"))
select item;
serverID = list.First().Value;
Response.Write("Check Production: ");
Response.Write("DeploymentID : " + deploymentId
+ " ServerID :" + serverID);
if (deploymentId.Equals(serverID))
lbStatus.Text = "Production";
else
{
// If the application not in Production slot, try to check Staging slot.
string stagingString = string.Format(
"https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deploymentslots/{2}",
subscriptionID, hostedServiceName, "Staging");
Uri stagingUri = new Uri(stagingString);
httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(stagingUri);
httpRequest.ClientCertificates.Add(certificate);
httpRequest.Headers.Add("x-ms-version", "2011-10-01");
httpRequest.KeepAlive = false;
httpResponse = httpRequest.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
stream = httpResponse.GetResponseStream();
result = string.Empty;
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
result = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
if (result == null || result.Trim() == string.Empty)
{
return;
}
document = XDocument.Parse(result);
serverID = string.Empty;
list = from item
in document.Descendants(XName.Get("PrivateID",
"http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure"))
select item;
serverID = list.First().Value;
Response.Write(" Check Staging:");
Response.Write(" DeploymentID : " + deploymentId
+ " ServerID :" + serverID);
if (deploymentId.Equals(serverID))
{
lbStatus.Text = "Staging";
}
else
{
lbStatus.Text = "Do not find this id";
}
}
httpResponse.Close();
stream.Close();
}
}
Staging is a temporary deployment slot used mainly for no-downtime upgrades and ability to roll back an upgrade.
It is advised not to couple your system (either in code or in config) with such Azure specifics.
Since Windows Azure Management Libraries and thanks to #GuaravMantri answer to another question you can do it like this :
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
using Microsoft.Azure;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Management.Compute;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Management.Compute.Models;
namespace Configuration
{
public class DeploymentSlotTypeHelper
{
static string subscriptionId = "<subscription-id>";
static string managementCertContents = "<Base64 Encoded Management Certificate String from Publish Setting File>";// copy-paste it
static string cloudServiceName = "<your cloud service name>"; // lowercase
static string ns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration";
public DeploymentSlot GetSlotType()
{
var managementCertificate = new X509Certificate2(Convert.FromBase64String(managementCertContents));
var credentials = new CertificateCloudCredentials(subscriptionId, managementCertificate);
var computeManagementClient = new ComputeManagementClient(credentials);
var response = computeManagementClient.HostedServices.GetDetailed(cloudServiceName);
return response.Deployments.FirstOrDefault(d => d.DeploymentSlot == DeploymentSlot.Production) == null ? DeploymentSlot.Staging : DeploymentSlot.Production;
}
}
}
An easy way to solve this problem is setting at your instances an key to identify which environment it is running.
1) Set at your production slot:
Set it Settings >> Application settings >> App settings
And create a key named SLOT_NAME and value "production". IMPORTANT: check Slot setting.
2) Set at your staging slot:
Set it Settings >> Application settings >> App settings
And create a key named SLOT_NAME and value "staging". IMPORTANT: check Slot setting.
Access from your application the variable and identify which environment the application is running. In Java you can access:
String slotName = System.getenv("APPSETTING_SLOT_NAME");
Here are 4 points to consider
VIP swap only makes sense when your service faces the outside world. AKA, when it exposes an API and reacts to requests.
If all your service does is pull messages from a queue and process them, then your services is proactive and VIP swap is not a good solution for you.
If your service is both reactive and proactive, you may want to reconsider your design. Perhaps split the service into 2 different services.
Eric's suggestion of modifying the cscfg files pre- and post- VIP swap is good if the proactive part of your service can take a short down time (Because you first configure both Staging and Production to not pull messages, then perform VIP Swap, and then update Production's configuration to start pulling messages).

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