Suneet.Net- Technology Evangelist's Blog.

AppFabric Cache Diagnostic

Suneet Nangia — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:38:23 GMT

Quick trick to see what is being sent and received by AppFabric cache server is to enable WCF logging on AppFabric server by updating its config file i.e. DistributedCacheService.exe.config.

You should be able to log full SOAP messages (if encryption is not turned on) coming to the server and the ones sent back to the client.

Updated-
It does not show you the details i.e. cache object requests/response. You will probably have to run tracelog.exe to get more insight as already said by many people on the web.

WSDL Error: Change the method's message name using WebMethodAttribute or change the type's root elem

Suneet Nangia — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:55:14 GMT

Bumped into this error in the morning today while adding multiple methods to the WCF service contract with same input and output parameters.

Error-
Change the method's message name using WebMethodAttribute or change the type's root element using the XmlRootAttribute. Multiple methods with same parameters.

Cause-
If you have the similar WSDL generated then you will notice the part names are same for all messages. This is fine as long as element type is different but as soon as you have another method with same parameters then this is not the case as shown below and this cause the above error to occur-

<wsdl:message name="IService_ReceiveRequest1_InputMessage">
    <wsdl:part name="parameters" element="cns:ClientRequest" />
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="IService_ReceiveRequest1_OutputMessage">
    <wsdl:part name="parameters" element="cns:ClientResponse" />
</wsdl:message>

<wsdl:message name="IService_ReceiveRequest2_InputMessage">
    <wsdl:part name="parameters" element="cns:ClientRequest" />
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="IService_ReceiveRequest2_OutputMessage">
    <wsdl:part name="parameters" element="cns:ClientResponse" />
</wsdl:message>

Resolution-
In our project we use WSDL exporter component (IWsdlExporter) for a different reason but having that in place made it easy for me to change the part names to be unique and that resolved the issue. You may be able to resolve it using certain attributes as well.

SSL Passthrough With TranspoprtWithMessageCredential security mode.

Suneet Nangia — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:15:48 GMT

After spending hours on looking at options on internet and solution provided by Pedro Felix here I have cracked it using a new feature available in .net 4.0 and 3.5 SP1. Pedro's solution is great but it was deviced when 3.5 SP1 was not available to hand and therefore not the best option today.

Problem: Many organisations use hardware accelerated NLB for SSL encryption and decryption. This alleviates SSL processing load from actual web servers and also makes it easier to update the SSL certificate as there is only place to update the certificate. The problem is if you want to use Username/Password as a credential over secure transport (SSL) you need to chose security mode as "TranspoprtWithMessageCredential" in binding (WSHttpBinding). As soon as you do this WCF will ensure message received in IIS is encrypted with SSL. Now as SSL encryption/decryption is performed by NLB here WCF throws the error.

Solution: .Net 3.5 SP1 and 4.0 comes with a new properties allowInsecureTransport and enableUnsecuredResponse on SecurityBindingElement. Setting these properties to True allows WCF to ignore the strict rule of checking if message is SSL encrypted. This property is however not exposed by built in WSHttpBinding. To make use of it you will need to create a custom binding which set these properties correctly and also allow username/password in SOAP header using standard WS security protocols. Following custom binding works like "TranspoprtWithMessageCredential" mode but without HTTPS.

Server binding and endpoint config-

<endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="customHttpBinding" name="processMessage" bindingName="customHttpBinding" contract="SecurityCheckService.IService1"

Client binding and endpoint config-

Note ClientVia behavior. This is required as service on IIS does not know about SSL. SSL is stripped off by NLB. This client config will ensure that the request is sent to Https address but "To" Soap Header block contains Http based address so that you do not get Address Filter mismatch error.

I use custom authenticator/validator to validate the credentials coming into the SOAP header. Idea is to store credentials in SSO and validate them against the hash of the password. It's easy to create a custom validator which is explained here

AppFabric Cache Configuration and Topologies

Suneet Nangia — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:14:51 GMT

I ve been recently working on AppFabric cache design and implementation. When it comes to configuration storage in AppFabric Cache there are quite a lot of options available at hand.

Find here the Pdf containing all the options and their pros and cons to some extent. Please note I ve considered 6 cache nodes across the sites (primary and secondary).

Here is the link

Logical vs User Connections SQL Server 2005 onwards

Suneet Nangia — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:22:16 GMT

SQL Server gives two performance counters around connections it is servicing.
Very quickly, Logical connections are the ones which are made over the same physical (user) connection by the client and can service multiple result sets at the same time.
If you enable Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS) on your client connection string, .Net will use up to 10 logical connections on a single physical connection. Hence, on SQL you will se 1 user connection and more than 1 (up to 10) logical connections.

IIS 7.x Clean Install

Suneet Nangia — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:45:02 GMT

Ran into this issue with my IIS on windows 7 machine off late where IIS was just corrupted and was not loading the apps. So I thought of re-installing IIS but it did not work on first attempt so here it goes-

1. Remove IIS feature from "Turn Windows features on or off"
2. Reboot the machine.
3. Remove Windows Process Activation service from "Turn Windows features on or off"
4. Reboot the machine.
5. Install IIS and Windows Process Activation back again from "Turn Windows features on or off".
6. Install asp.net 4.0 if you use it via aspnet_regiis.exe -i

Sorted.

Named Pipes in WCF, IIS 7.x

Suneet Nangia — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:01:28 GMT

If you have an endpoint using Named pipes as a binding it may not work properly in IIS 7.x unless you have "Net.Pipe Listener Adapter" service running. WAS use this service to receive requests via Named Pipe protocol.

You may get the error like following if the above service is not running-

There was no endpoint listening at net.pipe://xxxService.xamlx/System.ServiceModel.Activities_IWorkflowInstanceManagement that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.

There are similar services for TCP and MSMQ in the services mmc.

Microsoft Access SSIS Package Error

Suneet Nangia — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:33:39 GMT

If you are designing SSIS packages on 64 bit machine like me then be aware of this-

Microsoft Access does not have 64 bit driver for SSIS so when you run your package in business intelligence studio you will get the following error-

The AcquireConnection method call to the connection manager "SourceConnectionOLEDB" failed with error code 0xC0202009.

Solution-
Change the property "Run64BitRuntime" to "False" of your SSIS project.
More details- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141766.aspx

Free Windows Phone 7 Book- Charles Petzold

Suneet Nangia — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:04:41 GMT

Mike Taulty tweeted about this book lately. I think this is the perfect time for this book to be used and explored... I remember reading Charles Petzold's one of the most popular (Win API) books long back in my Uni days and no doubt it served as a bible for Win API references. I am quite excited to read this one now...

WP7 Book Url- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2010/10/28/free-ebook-programming-windows-phone-7-by-charles-petzold.aspx

Exemplary WPF Apps

Suneet Nangia — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 11:07:40 GMT

Was watching Mike Taulty's blog space lately and came accross this really good presentation on WPF apps and how different they are from the old school windows form apps.

Original blog -
http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2010/10/21/modern-windows-7-applications-uk-steve-ballmer-event-recording.aspx