Skip to main content

ASP.Net Services - Custom SOAP Headers


ASP.Net Services With Custom SOAP Headers 
Beginning here, I’ll not be discussing what web services are, WSDL, Disco Files etc, anyone can  easily get tons of data on these, from internet.

I am more concerned here about the Security aspect of Webservices.
If you are interested in exploring all the aspects of ASP.Net service security, here is the link

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w67h0dw7%28VS.80%29.aspx

Having said all this time, let’s start the real story.

SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol (uses XML and HTTP)

The protocol contains SOAP packets that have following three components.
  1. SOAP Envelope: the container in which the actual data will be packaged.
  2. SOAP Header (Optional).
  3. SOAP Body (generally used for returning results)

A typical SOAP message looks like this 

 version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap: Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <Soap: Header>
  soap: Header>
  <Soap: Body>
   soap: Body>
soap:Envelope>


Steps to be followed:

1.Create a Custom SOAP Header
2.Tell Webservice method to use this header
3. Pass the Credentials to the Service proxy and invoke the methods

Create Custom SOAP Header:
Following are the steps needed to create the custom header
  1. Add  using System.Web.Services.Protocols(in case it is still not added)
  2. Create a Class, deriving it from SoapHeader Class
  3. Create logic in the file

    public class MyHeader : SoapHeader
    {
        //Add logic/code here
    }

This is all that is required for creating a custom  SOAP header.
 
Now let’s create a Service that’ll use this header .The Code itself is o documented that it conforms to the article.


using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Services;
//Included for SOAPHeader
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using config = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager;

namespace SoapWebServices
{
 

    ///
    /// This is SOAP Header Based Service requiring Username and Password
    ///
    [WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
    [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
    [ToolboxItem(false)]
   [System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService]
    public class Service1 : System.Web.Services.WebService
    {
       
        //Create Refrence toCustomer SOAP Header
        public MyHeader header;

        [WebMethod]
        //Tell the method to use custom header
        [SoapHeader("header", Required = true, Direction = SoapHeaderDirection.InOut)]
        public string Authenticate()
        {
           
                //Extract the information from SOAP Header and perform Authentication
            if (string.Compare(header.UserName, config.AppSettings["uname"]) == 0) //enter into it only if uname matches the stored value
            {
                if (string.Compare(header.Password, config.AppSettings["pwd"]) == 0) { }
                return "Log-in SuccessFul";
            }
            else return "Enter Valid CredentialsSupplied Credentials are InCorrect!!";
          
        }

       
    }
    //Custom Soap Header
    public class MyHeader : SoapHeader
    {
        public string UserName;
        public string Password;
    }
}



Let’s Create a Web App, Add reference to the service  and call it  as follows:

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        //Create Proxy
        localhost.Service1 proxy = new SoapServiceClient.localhost.Service1();

        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            //Check if the Custom SOAPHeader object is NULL
            if (proxy.MyHeaderValue == null)
            {
                proxy.MyHeaderValue = new SoapServiceClient.localhost.MyHeader();

            }
            callService();
        }

        private void callService()
        {
            //PAss the Credetials to SOAPHeader
            proxy.MyHeaderValue.UserName = "pradeep1";
            proxy.MyHeaderValue.Password = "pa55w0rd";
            //Call the  Service Method
            Response.Write(proxy.Authenticate());
        }

       
    }


This was a quick overview of implementing security in WebServices.

Hope this was Helpful.

Til Next Time…Happy Coding.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Authentication using Social Networking portals(Facebook, Gmail, and Yahoo)

There are tons of sites, which offer sign on using the social networking site credentials (Facebook, gtalk, twitter and the list continues).It can be termed a “SINGLE SIGNON” and offers a lot of benefits compared to traditional database authentication approach. However, not storing user credentials in the DB imposes an additional risk. How to track who all logged into the system. Now the question is, which approach to follow. The best approach is to use inbuilt asp.net users for storing the logging info about user activities and using single signon technique for authentication. This article will explore the approach and provide the details of implementation using some third party libraries and customizing it to the requirements. The Authentication will be done using the following networking portals Yahoo  Gmail Facebook    Special thanks to my friend Sumit Khandelwal, for implementation of Facebook part (in fact he did it all!!) Except Facebook, all other ca...
2 comments
Read more

WPF Overview-Part-II

This post is in continuation to the last post. In this Post I’ll be exploring the Dependency Properties Dependency properties are similar to CLR properties with more advanced and complex features. The main difference between the CLR properties and dependency properties is, that the value of a normal .NET property is read directly from a private member in your class, whereas the value of a DependencyProperty is resolved dynamically when calling the GetValue() method that is inherited from DependencyObject . In case this description did not make sense, no need to worry, It will become clear by the time you reach end of this article. How the Value is Resolved in Dependency properties Every time a dependency property is accessed, it internally resolves the value by following the precedence from high to low. It checks if a local value is available, if not, check if a custom style trigger is active and I the similar manner continues until it finds a value. At last the default value is alwa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Asp.Net 4.0: An Overview-Part-III

This is the last post in the series which will explore the following new features of ASP.Net 4.0  Performance Monitoring for Individual Applications in a Single Worker Process Web.config File Refactoring Permanently Redirecting a Page Expanding the Range of Allowable URLs Performance Monitoring for Individual Applications in a Single Worker Process It is a common practice to host multiple ASP.NET applications in a single worker process, In order to increase the number of Web sites that can be hosted on a single server. This practice results in difficulties for server administrators to identify an individual application that is experiencing problems. ASP.NET 4 introduces new resource-monitoring functionality introduced by the CLR. To enable this functionality, following XML configuration snippet is added to the aspnet.config configuration file.(This file is located in the directory where the .NET Framework is installed ) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8...
Post a Comment
Read more