Category: SignalR

Practical ASP.NET Core SignalR: Azure SignalR Service

Derek Comartin Leave a comment

ASP.NET Core SignalR Scaling

In this section, I’m going to cover how to deal with scaling SignalR by using the Azure SignalR Service. This is a managed service that is an alternative to using the Redis backplane that I’ve described in the previous section.

You may want to use this option as it eliminates having to manage your own Redis instance as well as dealing with a load balancers configuration of sticky sessions (client affinity). Everything is all pre-configured for you, and is a fully managed service.

This blog post is apart of a course that is a complete step-by-setup guide on how to build real-time web applications using ASP.NET Core SignalR. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to build real-world, scalable, production applications using the tools and techniques provided in this course.

If you haven’t already, check out the prior sections of this course.

  1. Course Overview
  2. ASP.NET Core SignalR Overview
  3. Basics
  4. Server Hubs
  5. HubContext
  6. Authorization
  7. Scaling with Redis

SignalR Scaling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-qH9OZdSF4

I’ve covered the basics of scaling in the previous section and how having a web farm poses problems when using SignalR.

If you haven’t already or are need an overview of a webfarm scenario with SignalR, check out that section which covers how to scale using Redis as a backplane.

Azure SignalR Service

First thing to do is add a new resource in Azure by and search for the SignalR Service.

As you are creating the new service, when selecting the pricing tier, note that the free tier does not support changing the unit count. Meaning you are limited to 20 connections and 20k messages/day. The standard tier gives you 1k connections per unit and 1M messages/day/unit and allows you to scale up to 100 units (depending on the region).

Once created, go to the Settings > Keys page where you will need to copy the Connection String

Configuration

First, you’ll need to reference the Microsoft.Azure.SignalR package in your csproj.

From here you simply need to change the ConfigureServices() to use AddAzureSignalR() and modify the Configure() to call UseAzureSignalR()

User Secrets

Now we need to place our Azure SignalR Service connection string in user secrets. To add to our secrets via the dotnet CLI:

dotnet user-secrets set Azure:SignalR:ConnectionString "Connection String Goes Here"

If you’re unfamiliar with user secrets, check out my blog post on handling sensitive configuration data.

That’s it. You’ll now be using the Azure SignalR Service and be able to scale to 1000’s of connections.

Get The Course!

You’ve got several options:

  1. Check out my Practical ASP.NET Core SignalR playlist on my CodeOpinion YouTube channel.
  2. Access the full course now by enrolling for free on Teachable.
  3. Follow along with the blog post series here on CodeOpinion.com
    1. Course Overview
    2. ASP.NET Core SignalR Overview
    3. Basics
    4. Server Hubs
    5. HubContext
    6. Authorization
    7. Scaling with Redis
    8. Scaling with Azure SignalR Service
Follow @CodeOpinion on Twitter

Source Code

All of the source code for this blog post and this course is available the Practical.AspNetCore.SignalR repo on GitHub.

Practical ASP.NET Core SignalR: Authorization

Derek Comartin Leave a comment
HubContext

In this section, I’m going to cover how to configure your clients to send access tokens to an ASP.NET Core SignalR Hub for Authorization.

This blog post is apart of a course that is a complete step-by-setup guide on how to build real-time web applications using ASP.NET Core SignalR. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to build real-world, scalable, production applications using the tools and techniques provided in this course.

If you haven’t already, check out the prior sections of this course.

  1. Course Overview
  2. ASP.NET Core SignalR Overview
  3. Basics
  4. Server Hubs
  5. HubContext
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFC56aztigI

Authorization

For the most part, everything works as expected when using Authrozation behind ASP.NET Core. Meaning, you can use the [Authorize] attribute on Server Hubs just like you would on Controllers.

However, if you are using WebSockets as the transport and are using access tokens, then there is a bit of configuration required.

Client Configuration

In the signalR.HubconnectionBuilder().withUrl() allows us to specify an options object that has a property called accessTokenFactory which is a function needs to return the access token.

Where “MyTokenGoesHere” is a string, you would likely be using a means to return the access token you send with all of your other HTTP calls from the rest of your frontend application.

Query String

When the browser/client connects to the hub, it will add a query string parameter called “access_token“. The value will be what is returned from the accessTokenFactory.

ws://domain/messages?id=XXX&access_token=MyTokenGoesHere

Authorization Header

The reason for the SignalR client library for using the Query String to send the access token is that web sockets do not support the Authorization header. You can read more about this over at this GitHub issue.

Setting Token

Now that the access token is being sent via the query string, we need to configure out authentication in the Startup.cs to look for it in the query string and set it on the HttpContext.Token so that our authorization can use it as if it were coming from the Authorization header.

To do this with JWT, we can specify Events option and implement the OnMessageReceived property which is an Action<HttpContext>

We will implement this to look for the access_token in the query string, and if it exists, set it to the Httpcontext.Token

Get The Course!

You’ve got several options:

  1. Check out my Practical ASP.NET Core SignalR playlist on my CodeOpinion YouTube channel.
  2. Access the full course now by enrolling for free on Teachable.
  3. Follow along with the blog post series here on CodeOpinion.com
    1. Course Overview
    2. ASP.NET Core SignalR Overview
    3. Basics
    4. Server Hubs
    5. HubContext
    6. Authorization
    7. Scaling with Redis
    8. Scaling with Azure SignalR Service
Follow @CodeOpinion on Twitter

Source Code

All of the source code for this blog post and this course is available the Practical.AspNetCore.SignalR repo on GitHub.

Practical ASP.NET Core SignalR: HubContext

Derek Comartin Leave a comment
HubContext

In this section, I’m going to cover how you can use SignalR outside of a Hub. In most asp.net core applications, you will likely want to communicate with the connect clients from within your application but outside of a Hub. You can accomplish this by using the HubContext.

For example, an ASP.NET Core MVC Controller or any other class that is instantiated by ASP.NET Core’s Dependency Injection.

This blog post is apart of a course that is a complete step-by-setup guide on how to build real-time web applications using ASP.NET Core SignalR. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to build real-world, scalable, production applications using the tools and techniques provided in this course.

If you haven’t already, check out the prior sections of this course.

  1. Course Overview
  2. ASP.NET Core SignalR Overview
  3. Basics
  4. Server Hubs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVGE9PKeODw&list=PLThyvG1mlMzltDxuQj0uQw1TDu1gJUNeG

HubContext

The HubContext allows you to send messages to your connected clients. It has many of the same features to communicate with clients as when you are inside of a Hub.

In order to get an instance of the HubContext, you need to be using dependency injection by specifying you want an IHubContext<T> in the constructor. Where T is your Hub.

In the example below I’m creating an ASP.NET Core MVC Controller that is taking the IHubContext<MessageHub> injected via the constructor.

Once you have the IHubContext<T> in your controller or any class that was created by the DI container, you can access almost all of the similar methods that are on a Hub.

In this example, I’ve created a HttpPost route that will accept a string and then I’m using the Clients.All.SendAsync() to send a message to all connected clients.

Get The Course!

You’ve got several options:

  1. Check out my Practical ASP.NET Core SignalR playlist on my CodeOpinion YouTube channel.
  2. Access the full course now by enrolling for free on Teachable.
  3. Follow along with the blog post series here on CodeOpinion.com
    1. Course Overview
    2. ASP.NET Core SignalR Overview
    3. Basics
    4. Server Hubs
    5. HubContext
    6. Authorization
    7. Scaling with Redis
    8. Scaling with Azure SignalR Service
Follow @CodeOpinion on Twitter

Source Code

All of the source code for this blog post and this course is available the Practical.AspNetCore.SignalR repo on GitHub.