Sunny Ahuwanya's Blog

Mostly notes on .NET and C#

Exploring System.Void Part I

When calling a method in a dynamically created instance of a type that is discovered at runtime, it's useful to discover the types of the method parameters and the method return type. This information is needed to successfully call the method and retrieve its return value.

It's also useful to discover if the method doesn't have a return type, so that we know not to expect a return value.
One way to find out is to check if the MethodBase.Invoke call returns a null, since a dynamically invoked method that has no return type will return a null. However, this is not the best approach for the following reasons.

Firstly, any method that returns a reference type can return a null, rendering such null checks unreliable.

Secondly, this approach cannot be used to determine the return type before invoking the method.

Fortunately, MethodInfo objects have a ReturnType property that developers can inspect to determine the return type before invoking the method. For instance, if the method returns a string type, MethodInfo.ReturnType will evaluate to typeof(string). It would seem that the natural way to determine if a method does not define a return type would be to check if MethodInfo.ReturnType == typeof(null), however, that won't work because the expression typeof(null) is illegal in C#. Null is not a type.

What's needed is a specially marked type that can be used in the typeof() evaluation to determine that the method does not have a return type. Think about that for a few seconds to get a feel of how counter-intuitive that sounds.
The issue with this approach is that if a method returns an instance of the proposed special type, then the test becomes inconclusive and unreliable. To prevent this from happening, the runtime must bar creation of methods that return this special type.

Enter the System.Void structure. This type is specially designated by .NET for just this purpose. In C#, the void keyword is an alias for the System.Void structure, thus MethodInfo.ReturnType == typeof(void) is a reliable means of discovering if a method has a return type. As expected, no method is allowed to define System.Void as its return type.

This solution looks good and seems like a perfect answer to the "no return type detection" problem. However, there may be a lot more involved. C# and the CLR strangely takes it one step further by disallowing instantiation of the System.Void type by any means. Allow me to demonstrate:

Attempt 1: Try to instantiate System.Void normally

static void Main()
{
    object o = new System.Void();
    //object o = new void() is illegal in C# lingo
}
You'll get a "System.Void cannot be used from C# -- use typeof(void) to get the void type object" (CS0673) error message if you try to compile the code.

Attempt 2: Try to instantiate System.Void dynamically

static void Main(string[] args)
{

    object o = Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(void));
            
}	
It compiles, but when you try to run it, you get a "Cannot dynamically create an instance of System.Void." error message.

Attempt 3: Bypass the C# compiler, Try to create it directly from IL

// Metadata version: v2.0.50727
.assembly extern mscorlib
{
  .publickeytoken = (B7 7A 5C 56 19 34 E0 89 )
  .ver 2:0:0:0
}
.assembly ConsoleApplication1
{

  .hash algorithm 0x00008004
  .ver 1:0:0:0
}
.module ConsoleApplication1.exe
// MVID: {47CAF74F-C24A-400E-A0F9-26EB27500120}
.imagebase 0x00400000
.file alignment 0x00000200
.stackreserve 0x00100000
.subsystem 0x0003       // WINDOWS_CUI
.corflags 0x00000001    //  ILONLY
// Image base: 0x00D10000


// =============== CLASS MEMBERS DECLARATION ===================

.class private auto ansi beforefieldinit Program
       extends [mscorlib]System.Object
{
  .field public static valuetype [mscorlib]System.Void o
  .method private hidebysig static void  Main() cil managed
  {
    .entrypoint
    // Code size       12 (0xc)
    .maxstack  8
    IL_0000:  ldsflda    valuetype [mscorlib]System.Void Program::o
    IL_0005:  initobj    [mscorlib]System.Void
    IL_000b:  ret
  } // end of method Program::Main

  .method public hidebysig specialname rtspecialname 
          instance void  .ctor() cil managed
  {
    // Code size       7 (0x7)
    .maxstack  8
    IL_0000:  ldarg.0
    IL_0001:  call       instance void [mscorlib]System.Object::.ctor()
    IL_0006:  ret
  } // end of method Program::.ctor

} // end of class Program

The IL code above is equivalent to the following C# code
using System;

class Program
{
	public static System.Void o;
	static void Main()
	{
		o = new System.Void();
	}
}
If you compile the IL code with ilasm, It compiles successfully, however it fails verification when you run Peverify against the compiled assembly. If you try to run the assembly, it runs into a fatal InvalidProgramException exception.
If you replace occurrences of System.Void in the IL code to any other struct in the System namespace (besides the ones that map to simple types -- they have a different syntax in IL), the IL code will compile and run smoothly.

From the examples shown above, we have established that the C# compiler and runtime prevents instantiation of the System.Void type. In my next post, We'll explore the System.Void type some more and try to figure out why the runtime doesn't want it to exist.

Happy new year!!

A Simple ASP.NET State Server Failover Scheme

Introduction

A common question that comes up when setting up a web application to use the state server is “what happens if the state server fails?” and the answer is that the web application fails.
This article proposes a failover solution, such that if one state server goes down, the web application switches to another one. In addition, the solution performs state server load balancing by distributing requests across available state servers.

Overview

The proposed failover system monitors a specified list of state servers to determine which ones are running; the web application can then decide on which one to use. The process of monitoring a state server is expensive, so it is handled by a dedicated external service. This service notifies the web application (and other web applications) when state servers come online or go offline. The process is illustrated below.

How it works

The failover system comprises two parts.

The first part is the monitoring service, which polls the status of a given list of servers by simply connecting and disconnecting to the servers continuously. If there are any changes in the availability of servers, for instance, a server that was previously unavailable becomes available or vice versa; one or more status files are updated to reflect the change. A status file contains information about the state servers in use and their online status. ASP.NET applications can detect changes to these status files and react accordingly.

The monitoring service has a configurable time period, within which a monitored server that comes online must stay online before the service will update the status files with the change in status for that server. This helps reduce connections to servers that are successively coming online and going offline -- the so called flapping server phenomenon. The length of this time period is determined by the ServerWarmUpTime configuration setting.
It's important to note that the monitoring service can detect the availability of other types of servers, not just ASP.NET state servers, and so can be used for other purposes.

The second part consists of configuration settings and code in the web application that expands upon Maarten Balliauw's most excellent series on state server partitioning and load balancing. The web application is configured such that the configuration file is extended to the external status file. Changes made to the status file cause the application configuration settings to be re-read and updated with the new values. Thus, the web application always has the latest server availability information and uses the information to distribute requests to available state servers -- achieving both load balancing and failover support.

For example, if there are five state servers in use and they are all running, the status file will indicate that the five servers are available; the web application then distributes state server requests evenly across the five servers. If two of the state servers were to suddenly go down, the status file will be updated to indicate that only three state servers are available; the web application then redistributes state server requests to only those three. The overall effect is that during a state server downtime, users will be able to continue using the application. Some sessions will be lost, but that is a slight annoyance compared to the entire application going down for a long period of time.

To use this load-balanced, failover-supported setup, the web application needs a few configuration changes and two code files in the App_Code folder; namely ServerListSectionHandler.cs and PartitionResolver.cs. ServerListSectionHandler.cs enables the status file to be read as part of the application configuration. PartitionResolver.cs contains a custom state server partition resolver class that decides which state server to connect to. This class also tries to pin users to particular state servers so that changes in the status file only affects users whose session was stored on the failing server.

Using the code

To set up the server monitoring service

  1. Download the source files.
    You can download the source code at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/stateserverfailover.aspx


  2. Open up the ServerMonitor solution in visual studio.

    The solution contains two projects. One runs the service as a console application and the other one runs it as a windows service. The ServerMonitorService project compiles as a windows service and can be installed and uninstalled with the included install_service.bat and uninstall_service.bat files. The ConsoleServerMonitor project runs the service as a console application, which is a lot easier to test and debug. Both projects share the same sources and function identically.

  3. Open up the project's application configuration file.

  4. In the Servers section, specify the state servers you want to use, like as shown below:

    <Servers>
        <!-- List of servers to poll -->
        <add key="Server1"  value="localhost:42424" />
        <add key="Server2"  value="appserver1:42424" />
        <add key="Server3"  value="72.27.255.9:42424" />    
    </Servers>
     

  5. In the StatusFilePaths section, add the full file pathname of the status file.
    This file should be located in the folder containing your web application or in subfolders.

    You can add multiple paths, if you want to notify multiple web applications, as shown below:

    <StatusFilePaths>
        <!-- List of file paths where status files are saved/updated -->
        <add key="Web1" value="C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\MyWeb1\server_status.config.xml"/>    
        <add key="Web2" value="C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\SuperWeb2\server_status.config.xml"/>        
    </StatusFilePaths>
      

  6. Build the project.

  7. If you built the ServerMonitorService project, navigate to the output folder and run install_service.bat to install the service.

  8. If you built and installed the windows service, you can start Server Monitoring Service in the Services list. If you built the console server, run ConsoleServerMonitor.exe or simply start debugging from Visual Studio.

  9. Note that the status files are created in the specified folders.

To configure your web application

  1. Open your web application in visual studio

  2. Add an App_Code ASP.NET folder to your application, if your application does not have one.

  3. Copy PartitionResolver.cs and ServerListSectionHandler.cs from SampleWeb\App_Code folder to your web application's App_Code folder.

  4. Open the project's web configuration file. (Add a new web configuration file if your application does not have one)

  5. Add a new SessionStateServers section element in the configSections collection as shown below:

    <configSections>
    	<section name="SessionStateServers" type="ServerListSectionHandler" restartOnExternalChanges="false"/>
    </configSections>
    

  6. Configure the newly added SessionStateServers section to be read from an external file as shown below:
    <SessionStateServers configSource="server_status.config.xml"/>
    
    
    (If the status file has a different filename, specify that instead)

  7. In the system.web element, configure the application to use the custom partition resolver as shown below:
    <system.web>    
        <sessionState mode="StateServer" partitionResolverType="PartitionResolver"/>
    ...
    
    

  8. Your web application is now set up to use the state server failover system

Points of Interest

I originally wanted the monitoring service to update a single status file, which multiple web applications could share. That plan didn't work because ASP.NET only works with external configuration files that are located in the application folder or in its subfolders. Because of this restriction, different web applications can not share one external configuration file.

It's not necessary to set the restartOnExternalChanges attribute of the section element in the web.config file to true. Setting this attribute to true causes the web application to restart whenever the external config file is updated, which will cause any data stored in the Application object to be lost.
The web application will still read the latest data in the external config file, if the attribute's value is set to false, without restarting the application.

The name of the root element of the status file is determined by the StatusXMLRootTag setting of the monitoring service's configuration.
The name must match the name of the new section you add to your web application's web.config file. The name must also be specified in the state server partition resolver class (PartitionResolver.cs)


Why Session State Should Not Be Stored In A Distributed Cache

Web developers often refer to session state stores and caches interchangeably, while in actuality they serve different purposes.

A cache serves as a caching layer between a web application and an external data source. Caches exist mainly to lighten the load on the external data source, thus improving the performance of the application.

The purpose of a session state store is to store a user’s workspace. Session state stores enable client activity to be persisted consistently across several HTTP requests.

Applications that utilize a cache write to the external data source, typically a database, and read from the cache. This technique can significantly improve the performance of applications that mostly read from the data source.
Caches are designed to be read speedily, simultaneously by many clients and threads. Some cache implementations can link the cached object to the data source, such that if the data source is updated, the cache is invalidated.

Session state stores are not linked to external data sources by design, although it can be consumed by an application to do so. While it may be necessary to store certain parts of a client’s session state to a database, there is usually no need to store all of the session state to a database. In fact, many database-less web applications rely solely on session state to operate.
Session state implementations are designed such that each client has exclusive access to its session data. Even though caches can be consumed by an application to simulate this, exclusivity is not enforced and there is always a chance that a client will be able to access another client’s session data due to either poor design or security flaws.

A distributed cache spreads out an application’s caching layer across many machines, which allow high-traffic web applications to scale out by adding more machines as demand increases. Performance can also be improved by distributing session state data across many machines; therefore, it is worthwhile to examine the requirements and nuances of cached data and session state before deciding on a distributed solution to apply.

Distributed caches, like local caches, are most effective when used to cache data that changes infrequently. They also support simultaneous fast reads of a cached object by many threads. This is where session state sharply differs from cached data.

Session state has little need for speedy multiple-thread access to a single stored resource because a client can only exclusively read or update its session. In addition, the usage pattern of session state is unpredictable. Some applications update session data very frequently while some do not. Session state storage designers normally safely assume that session state is write-heavy.

Caches are configured by default to use either an optimistic concurrency mechanism or no concurrency control at all, to access cached data. This design is driven by the strong requirement to eliminate blocking by any means possible, and works superbly due to the lower proportion of writes to reads.
Session state stores, on the other hand, utilize a pessimistic concurrency mechanism to access stored data. This works effectively because of the exclusive nature of resource access.

The number of concurrent session state accesses to a stored resource can increase if a user opens up several web browser instances of the same application or if the application makes use of numerous AJAX calls. Notwithstanding multiple instances and AJAX-intensive applications, a user’s session cannot have more than a handful of concurrent access attempts.
A pessimistic concurrency mechanism, as used by session state stores, can gracefully handle a few concurrent accesses on a write-heavy resource, and more importantly, provide consistent data to all operations. Inconsistencies in served data can arise, if a cache with no concurrency control is employed to store write-heavy session state. This problem becomes more apparent if the application is AJAX-intensive.

Critical applications that rely on session state require failover and redundancy support. These features are usually built into commercial session state storage solutions.
Caches have no need for failover or redundancy because caches are simply a caching layer: if the requested data cannot be retrieved from the cache, it can always be fetched from the primary source. Therefore, most distributed cache implementations do not support failover or redundancy; issues solution architects seldom remember when moving session storage to a distributed cache.

The conundrum of where to store session state arises when an application needs to scale to accommodate more users.
While there are a few commercial distributed session state storage solutions, there are no free robust alternatives, and the usual consensus is to store session state in freely available distributed cache solutions, or eliminate session state entirely from the application.

Moreover, even when session state is manageably stored in a distributed cache, most often, the same servers that are caching infrequently changing data are used to store session state. Sharing the cache this way leads to performance degradation.
This occurs because whenever the cache server needs to store a new cached object or remove an expired one, it has to momentarily suspend all read operations internally on all other cached objects until the object is added or removed. The overall outcome is sub-optimal reads for cached infrequently changing data.

Developers and architects should carefully weigh the aforementioned issues before moving locally stored session state to a distributed storage and should, whenever possible, opt for a solution that was specifically built for distributed session state storage.

When Documentation Does Not Match Implementation

Update: Microsoft has addressed these concerns. The state service documentation is now quite accurate.

Not too long ago, I needed to piece out the communication protocol between the ASP.NET state server and the web server, because I was working on a peer to peer version of the ASP.NET state server.

I made some effort to obtain the protocol as described in this post. Along the way, I found the protocol documentation by Microsoft, and was delighted. I could now design my implementation of the state server based on this information.

While going through the documentation, I noticed that the format of some of the messages did not match what I had earlier observed, so I decided to verify the protocol to be extra sure – Boy, was I in for a surprise.

First, there are bold, wrong statements in the documentation:

From section 3.1.5.3: “Because a client sends a lock-cookie value along with the session state data, the state server MUST store the lock-cookie value. Internally, the state server MUST also store the date and time when the state server received the lock-cookie value. This information is necessary if the state server ever has to send response-locked messages, as specified in sections 2.2.5.2 and 2.2.5.4.”

This is a wrong, misleading statement. A LockCookie value is used by a Set Request message to unlock a locked session entry (if it is locked) before storing the new data.
The state server has no use for storing the client LockCookie value, in fact, the state service MUST never store any LockCookie value sent by the client or in any way let the client influence LockCookie values as they are exclusively generated by the server.

From section 3.1.5.5: “A client can acquire an exclusive lock on session state by using either a successful GetExclusive_Request or Set_Request message.”

This is another off the mark statement. A client can only acquire an exclusive lock with the GetExclusive Request.
Even a cursory look at the SessionStateStoreProviderBase class is sufficient to confirm that this statement is wrong.

Then, there is important information that is left unstated:

The document does not mention anywhere that the ActionFlags header actually indicates that the server should only store the presented data if the unique session id does not already exist. If the ActionFlags header value is set to 1, and the server already has the presented session id, the existing session data will not be updated with the new one, however the state server will still reply with an OK response (as if it stored the data). This behavior is not easily noticeable to the casual observer, but is important to implement a 100% compatible state server.

There are other inaccuracies and misleading statements in the documentation that makes it virtually impossible for anyone to develop a state server implementation using the Microsoft documentation.
I had to painstakingly piece out the protocol from scratch. I’ve published the correct version of the protocol in PDF format and HTML format for reference purposes.

What's more, if you take a look at the history of the Microsoft document, you’ll notice that it has been edited more than twenty times over the course of almost three years. You’d think that after twenty edits, it will be somewhat accurate, but after almost three years of editing the documentation for a major ASP.NET server, Microsoft still manages to get it wrong.  It’s safe to say that either Microsoft is doing this intentionally or they do not know how their own technology works.

What’s even more disturbing is that this documentation is for a protocol, not for a piece of software. Do protocols change every other month? Imagine the chaos that would ensue if every developer had to second guess each statement in RFC-2821 when writing an email client and then also make sure that the protocol hasn’t changed every other month.

It seems the only reason Microsoft publishes these specs at all is to pay lip service to the European Union because there is no point publishing specs that are innacurate and can't save developers’ time when implementing a technology.

Peer to Peer ASP.NET State Server

Introduction

ASP.NET web developers have three built in options to store session state, namely, in-process memory, SQL Server and State Server.

In-process memory offers the fastest performance but is unsuitable for use in web server farms because the session data is stored in the memory of the ASP.NET worker process.

SQL Server is an out of process session state storage option that works with web server farms. It stores session data in a SQL Server database. It is the most reliable option but the least performing one. One major issue with this option is that quite often developers want to cache data retrieved from a database in session state, to reduce database lookups. SQL Server session state defeats this purpose, because there is little performance gain in caching data retrieved from a database, in a database.

State Server is an out of process session state storage option that works with web server farms. It stores session data in memory and delivers better performance than SQL Server. This seems like a good compromise between the in-process option and the SQL server options. It has some drawbacks, however.

Firstly, several web servers typically depend on one state server for session state which introduces a critical single point of failure.

Secondly, in a load balanced environment, the load balancer may redirect a user’s request to a web server that is different from the web server that served the user’s previous request. If the new web server communicates with a different state server, the user’s original session state will not be found and the web application may not work properly.
This problem occurs even in persistence-based (aka sticky) load balancers either erroneously or due to server failure.

Thirdly, an issue that many developers are unaware about is that the web server and state server communicate in plain text. An eavesdropper can easily get hold of session state data traveling on the network. This may not be a threat if all servers are running in an internal network but it is certainly cause for concern when web servers and state servers are spread across the internet.

The peer to peer ASP.NET state server presented in this write-up addresses the aforementioned problems while transparently replacing the Microsoft provided state server.

Overview

The idea behind the peer to peer state server is simple -- let state servers on a network securely communicate and pass session state data amongst each other as needed, as shown below.


This design improves scalability because web servers can share multiple state servers, eliminating a single point of failure. Furthermore, if a load balancer erroneously or intentionally redirects a user to a different web server attached to a separate state server, the user’s session state will be requested from the state server that served the user’s previous request.

Security is also improved as peers can be configured to encrypt session data while sharing session state. Data transfers between the web server and the state server remain unencrypted but eavesdropping attacks can be eliminated by keeping web servers and linked state servers in trusted networks or on the same computer.

The peer to peer state server is fully backward compatible with the Microsoft provided state server and comes with all the benefits mentioned earlier.

Installation

To compile and install the state server:

  1. Download the source file.
    You can download the source code at https://github.com/tenor/p2pStateServer


  2. Open up the solution in visual studio. (Visual Studio 2008 will open up a Conversion Wizard. Complete the Wizard.)

    The state server comes in two flavors. One runs as a console application and the other one runs as a windows service. The StateService project compiles as a windows service and can be installed and uninstalled with the install_service.bat and uninstall_service.bat files. The ConsoleServer project runs the service as a console application, which is a lot easier to test and debug. Both projects share the same sources and function identically.


  3. Open up the properties window for the project you want to build.


  4. a. If using Visual Studio 2005, add NET20 in the conditional compilation symbols field of the Build tab.
    b. If using Visual Studio 2008, select .NET Framework 3.5 in the Target Framework field of the Application tab.


  5. Build the project.


  6. If you built the StateService project, navigate to the output folder and run install_service.bat to install the service.


  7. If you are already running the Microsoft state service on your machine, stop it.


  8. If you built and installed the windows service, you can start Peer to Peer State Service in the Services list. If you built the console server, run ConsoleServer.exe or simply start debugging from Visual Studio.


  9. You can now test and run any web applications you have with the running state server.


To add peer servers:

  1. Copy the compiled executable file and the application configuration file to another computer on your network.


  2. Open up the configuration file and add a new peer in the <Peers> section. For instance, to configure the state server to connect to another state server running on a computer named SV3 with a peer port number of 42425, you would add <add key="MyPeer" value="pc2:42425" /> to the <Peers> section.


  3. You can start the state server on the computer and it will link up with the other state server(s) on the network.


  4. It’s up to you to set up the network in any topology you like. For example, consider a network of three state servers as shown below, each state server on each machine would have the configuration shown below:


You can run multiple console server peers on the same computer but each console server must have a unique web server port and peer port setting.

How it works

The Microsoft provided state server, works as shown below.


The Peer to Peer State Server works exactly as illustrated above, except when the state server doesn't have the requested session state, in which case it requests the session state from the network before responding, as illustrated below:

If the requested session state is not transferred within a set time period, the state server assumes the session state does not exist on the network and proceeds to process the web server request without the session state. The GetTransferMessage class represents the message that is broadcast on the network when a node is requesting a session. Peers maintain connection between themselves principally to forward this message. Session state transfers occur out-of-band of the peer network.

Implementation Notes

Various programming techniques are used to implement different aspects of the state server. Some of the notable ones are highlighted below.

PLATFORM

The state server is written in C# 2.0 but targets the NET 3.5 framework so as to take advantage of the ReaderWriterLockSlim class. If the NET20 symbol is defined, the server uses the slower ReaderWriterLock class instead and is able to target the .NET 2.0 framework.

You can download the source code at https://github.com/tenor/p2pStateServer

PROTOCOL

In order to create a state server that can transparently replace the state server, I needed to obtain and understand the full specification of the communication protocol between the web server and the Microsoft provided state server. The steps taken to piece out the protocol are documented in reverse chronology at http://ahuwanya.net/blog/category/Peer-to-Peer-Session-State-Service.aspx

MESSAGING

The server is largely message driven. The messaging subsystem is illustrated below:

When the server receives data from a socket, the data is accumulated in an instance of the HTTPPartialData class currently assigned to that socket. The HTTPPartialData instance validates the data, determines if the accumulated data is a complete HTTP message and checks for errors in the accumulated data. If there is a data error (for example, if the data does not conform to HTTP), the entire accumulated data is discarded and the socket is closed. If the data is valid but not yet complete, the sockets waits for more data to arrive.
If the accumulated data is a complete HTTP message, the data is sent to a MessageFactory object. The MessageFactory object inspects the data to determine the appropriate ServiceMessage child class instance to create. The ServiceMessage child class is instantiated and its implementation of the Process method is called to process the message.

CONCURRENCY HANDLING

A pessimistic concurrency mechanism is employed while accessing session state in the session dictionary, which is defined by the SessionDictionary class. A piece of session state can only be read or modified by one thread at a time. A thread declares exclusive access to operate on a piece of session state by setting the IsInUse property to true. This is done by calling the atomic compare and swap CompareExchangeInUse method (a wrapper to the .NET Interlocked.CompareExchange method that operates on the IsInUse property). Setting this property to true lets other threads know that another thread is working with that session state.

If another thread wants to access the same session state and attempts to declare exclusive access, the attempt will fail because another thread already has exclusive access. The thread will keep trying to acquire exclusive access, and will eventually acquire it when the other thread releases access. This works pretty well because most of the time, only one thread needs to access a session state, and also because most operations on a session state take a very short time to complete. The export (transfer) operation which takes a much longer time is handled with a slightly different mechanism and is discussed in the contention management section below.

TIMERS – OR THE LACK OF THEM

The code has a lot of objects that expire or time-out and on which certain actions must take place on expiration – objects like individual session state dictionary entries that expire or asynchronous messages that timeout. Instead of assigning a timer or a wait handle to track these objects – they are stored in instances of a special collection class called the DateSortedDictionary. Objects in this dictionary are sorted in place by their assigned timestamps. Specially designated threads poll these date sorted dictionaries for expired items and perform related actions if an item is expired. This design significantly reduces the number of threads needed to keep track of expiring items.

DIAGNOSTICS

The Diags class is used to keep track of messages, log server activity and detect deadlocks. Methods on the Diags class are conditional and will not compile into release configuration code.
The VERBOSE symbol can be defined to view or log all activity taking place at the server. This is particularly useful with the console server which outputs this information to the console window. If the VERBOSE symbol is not defined, only critical information or unexpected errors are displayed.

Security

The Microsoft provided state server transmits and receives unencrypted data to and from the web server. This was most likely done for performance reasons. To be compatible with the Microsoft provided state server, the peer to peer state server transmits unencrypted data to the web server. However the peer to peer state server can be configured to transmit encrypted data between peers. This effectively thwarts network eavesdropping attacks if web server and associated state servers are installed on the same computer or on a trusted network.

For example, take the Web server – Microsoft State Server configuration shown below.

Two web servers connect across the public internet to access a state server.

Using peer to peer state servers, the network can be secured by having the web servers have their own local state servers that connects securely to the remote state server on their behalf as shown below:

   

The local state servers can be installed on the same machine as the web server for maximum security and minimum latency.

This approach can help secure geographically distributed web and state servers.
Peer state servers also mutually authenticate each other while connecting, to ensure that the other party is an authorized peer.

Network Topologies

Connections between peers form logical networks which can be designed with common network topologies in mind.

Network A shown above is a ring network of peer state servers which are individually connected to web servers whereas Network B is a ring network of computers which have both state server and web server connected and running. Existing isolated Microsoft state server networks can be upgraded to form a larger peer to peer network by replacing the Microsoft state servers with peer to peer state servers and linking them up as shown in Network A. Network B benefits from the security counter measures mentioned earlier and is somewhat more scalable since any node on the network is a web server and a peer state server.

Both networks will still function if one node fails, unlike on a bus network, however as more nodes are added to the network, the longer it takes for a message to traverse the network.


 

Network C is a star network. An advantage of having a star network is that no matter how many new nodes are added to the ring network, it takes only two hops for a message to reach any node on the network.

Network D is a network of three star networks that form a larger star network. This network too will require a lesser number of hops for a message to traverse the network. Both networks suffer from the disadvantage that if the central node fails, the entire network fails.

By connecting the leaf nodes on Network D, Network E, a partial mesh network is formed. Network E is a clever combination of a ring network and a star network. If the central node fails, the network will still function and it also takes a fewer number of hops for a message to traverse the network than on a ring network.

As demonstrated, the topology of the peer to peer state server network is limited only by the imagination of the network designer.

Interesting Scenarios

There are a lot of scenarios that occur in the state server that are handled using traditional peer to peer processes such as the time to live header which is used to prevent messages from circulating perpetually on the network, and message identifiers used by peers to recognize messages that have been seen earlier, however, there are two particular scenarios that occur in this peer network that are not so common.

SHUTDOWN TRANSFERS

To ensure that session data is not lost during a server shutdown, the state server proceeds to transfer all its session state data to connected peers in a round-robin fashion when a server shut down is initiated.

REBROADCASTS

A request for a session on a network can narrowly miss the node holding the session if it is being transferred it as illustrated below.

As shown above, node 1 is seeking session A from the network just about the same time node 4 wants to transfer the session to node 2.

When the message from node 1 reaches node 2, node 2 forwards the message to node 3 because it doesn’t have the session.

When the message reaches node 3, the session transfer between nodes 4 and 2 begins and by the time the message reaches node 4, the transfer is complete and node 4 no longer has the session anymore and forwards the message to node 5.

Thus, the message traverses the network without reaching any node with the sought session, even though the session exists on the network.

The state server addresses this issue by having nodes that recently transferred a session rebroadcast the message as shown below.

Here, node 4 rebroadcasts the message so that it also travels back the way it came and eventually reaches node 2 which has the session.

Rebroadcasted messages are duplicates of the original message except that they have a different Broadcast ID header which peers use to know it’s a different broadcast.

Contention Management

As stated earlier, the state server uses a pessimistic concurrency model when accessing session state entries in the session dictionary. This works well because most requests take a short time to process. However, one particular request can take a much longer time to process, and can lead to resource starvation and performance degradation.

A GetTransferMessage message broadcast is initiated by a peer when it needs to work with a session state it does not have. When the broadcast reaches a peer with the requested session state, the session state is transferred to the requesting peer.

Unlike other operations on a session state, a transfer can take a significant amount of time because the peer has to connect to the other peer, possibly authenticate, and transmit (a potentially large amount of) data. It’s important to note that any request from the web server can kick start a GetTransferMessage broadcast.

During a transfer, the session is marked as “in use” and other requests on that session will have to wait as usual. However, since it takes a much longer time, Threads waiting for a transfer operation to complete consume a lot of system resources. They can also timeout if the transfer takes too long or if the session is repeatedly transferred around the network due to flooded messages. A bad case is illustrated below:

In the diagram above, a user is flooding a web application with requests, which in turn is causing session requests to be transmitted to a state server.

Because all requests originate from one user, all session requests reference the same session id. A load balancer or state partitioner distributes these requests among the three state servers.

It is important to note that even though it is unlikely that a load balancer or state partitioner will distribute requests for a session among different state servers, a user can produce the scenario shown above by simply pressing and holding the browser refresh key on a web application that uses a poorly implemented state partitioner or a malfunctioning load balancer.
Also, an organized group of malicious users (or a botnet) can produce this scenario even on properly functioning state partitioners and load balancers.

Each state server has requests waiting to be processed. If the highly in-demand session is say, on state server 3, requests on that state server will be processed one by one very quickly.

State servers 1 and 2 issue broadcasts requesting a session transfer. The message eventually reaches state server 3 and the request is transferred to say state server 2. Requests on state server 3 that were not processed will wait until the transfer is complete.

After the session transfer to server 2 is complete, requests on server 2 are processed, whereas requests on server 3 issue broadcasts requesting the session.

A broadcast that originated from state server 1 reaches state server 2 and the session is transferred to state server 1. This goes on and on and the servers keep transferring the session amongst themselves while most of the requests wait, because even when a session is transferred, the state server is only able to process a few requests before it is transferred to another state server.

To make matters worse, if a state server receives a GetTransferMessage message after it has recently transferred the session, it rebroadcasts the message (as explained earlier), which leads to even more GetTransferMessage broadcasts on the network, more back-and-forth transfers and prolonged resource starvation.

The transfer process is relatively slow and since all requests have to wait to be processed one at a time by each state server, requests start to time out and the web server starts discarding requests. The state server is unaware that the web server has discarded those requests and still proceeds to process them.

These redundant requests, waiting for their turn, eat up valuable server processor cycles and degrade the quality of service.

If plenty of these requests arrive, they'll quickly use up all processor resources and the server comes to a grinding halt.

While it may be impossible to stop any group of users from flooding the state server with requests, the state server guards against contentious sessions with the following principle: any degradation of service due to a contentious session should mainly affect the user of that session, and achieves this goal with the following mechanisms:

  1. When a request is to be processed and the server notices the session is being transferred, the request stops being processed and is queued to be processed when the transfer is over. This prevents the request from eating up processor cycles while waiting, and frees up resources, so that other requests from other users can be processed. If the number of requests on a queue waiting for a session to transfer is too long, then all those messages are discarded because it means the session is contentious and the server shouldn't bother processing them.


  2. After the transfer is complete and a queued request is ready to be reprocessed and the server notices that the same session is been transferred again by another request, then the request will be discarded and not be processed, because it means the session is highly contentious.


  3. Before a request tries to query the network (by broadcasting) for a session, it checks if it is expecting a reply from a previous query for that session, and if so, the request is queued to a list of requests to be processed when the query is received. This reduces the number of GetTransferMessage messages that will be generated on the network, which in turn reduces unnecessary rebroadcasts and lookups. If the number of requests on a queue waiting for a session to arrive is too long, then all those requests are discarded because it means the session is contentious.


  4. Finally, all incoming requests are queued up in their session id-specific queue and the message processor polls the incoming request queues in a round-robin manner and processes them one after the other, as shown below:



    This means that all session requests are treated fairly, no single user can significantly disrupt the rate at which messages originating from other users are processed. Additionally, if the queue for a particular session id is too long, that queue is discarded because it means that session is contentious.

All these techniques employed by the state server can only adversely affect the web application of the offending user.

Conclusion

The peer to peer state server is fully backward compatible with the Microsoft provided state server and can transparently replace it. Peer state servers can transfer sessions to each other, improving the reliability of session state dependent web applications. Peer state servers also act as a security layer that protects session data on the network.

This project started out as a simple idea but quickly evolved into a complex task. Hopefully, this implementation and other ideas presented in this article will be valuable to developers interested in distributed systems.  Due to the level of complexity, there will be bugs and kinks to work out. Contributions and bug reports will be appreciated.

Probing the ASP.NET State Service Part II

In my previous post, I took a first look at the ASP.NET state service communication protocol. In this post I'll describe the techniques I'm using to piece out and understand the protocol.

I needed to monitor the traffic between the web server and the state service so I installed WinDump, a Windows version of tcpdump.
With WinDump, I could capture the low level tcp traffic between the state service and the web server. The only caveat was that I had to monitor a state service on a different computer because WinDump doesn’t work with the loopback device.

After a while I decided WinDump was too low level for the task at hand. What I really needed was a tcp relay server.

A tcp relay server is a more involved version of an echo server that sits between a server and a client and relays transmitted data to and fro. With a tcp relay server, not only can I capture the transmitted data, I can also modify it.



To have the greatest flexibility, I decided to write one. My relay server is a console application. Here's the code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Threading;

namespace RelayServer
{
    //State object
    public class StateObject
    {
        // Client  socket.
        public Socket WorkSocket = null;
        // Size of receive buffer.
        public const int BufferSize = 1024;
        // Receive buffers.
        public byte[] Buffer = new byte[BufferSize];
        // Socket that connects to other party
        public Socket HandoffSocket = null;
    }

    class Program
    {
        static int relayPort = 24242; //Port to listen on for client connection
        static string serviceHost = "localhost"; //State service host
        static int servicePort = 42424; //State service port
        static StateObject pollStateObj = new StateObject(); //State object polled for disconnection

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            IPEndPoint localEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, relayPort);
            Socket clientListener = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
            clientListener.Bind(localEndPoint);
            clientListener.Listen(100);
            clientListener.BeginAccept(new AsyncCallback(AcceptCallback), clientListener);

            while (!Console.KeyAvailable)
            {
                Thread.Sleep(200); //check every 200 milliseconds

                //is the state object instantiated and connected?
                if (pollStateObj.WorkSocket != null && 
                     (pollStateObj.WorkSocket.Connected || pollStateObj.HandoffSocket.Connected))
                {                    
                    //check if work (client) socket is disconnected
                    try
                    {
                        //Test for disconnection
                        bool isDisconnected = false;
                        lock (pollStateObj.WorkSocket)
                        {
                            isDisconnected = pollStateObj.WorkSocket.Available == 0 && 
                                pollStateObj.WorkSocket.Poll(1, SelectMode.SelectRead);
                        }

                        if (isDisconnected)
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                            Console.WriteLine("Client disconnected.");
                            DisconnectSockets(pollStateObj);
                            continue;
                        }
                    }
                    catch (ObjectDisposedException ex)
                    {
                        //do nothing
                        continue;
                    }
                    catch (SocketException ex)
                    {
                        //Was Socket remotely disconnected?
                        if (ex.ErrorCode == 10054)
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                            Console.WriteLine("Client disconnected.");
                        }
                        else if (ex.ErrorCode == 10053)
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                            Console.WriteLine("Client aborted connection.");
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                            Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");
                        }

                        DisconnectSockets(pollStateObj);
                        continue;
                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                        Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");
                        continue;
                    }

                    try
                    {
                        //Test for disconnection
                        lock (pollStateObj.HandoffSocket)
                        {
                            pollStateObj.HandoffSocket.Send(new byte[1], 0, SocketFlags.None);
                        }
                    }
                    catch (ObjectDisposedException ex)
                    {
                        //do nothing
                        continue;
                    }
                    catch (SocketException ex)
                    {
                        //Was Socket remotely disconnected?
                        if (ex.ErrorCode == 10054)
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                            Console.WriteLine("Server disconnected.");
                        }
                        else if (ex.ErrorCode == 10053)
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                            Console.WriteLine("Server aborted connection.");
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                            Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");
                        }

                        DisconnectSockets(pollStateObj);
                        continue;
                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                        Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");
                        continue;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        private static void AcceptCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            //Accept incoming connection
            Socket listener = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;
            Socket handler = listener.EndAccept(ar);
            
            //Display Connection Status
            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Yellow;
            Console.WriteLine("Client is connected.");

            //Accept another incoming connection
            listener.BeginAccept(new AsyncCallback(AcceptCallback), listener);

            // Create the state object.
            StateObject state = new StateObject();
            state.WorkSocket = handler;
            state.HandoffSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);

            //Connect to other socket
            state.HandoffSocket.Connect(serviceHost, servicePort);

            //Create another state object to receive information from service
            StateObject recvState = new StateObject();
            recvState.WorkSocket = state.HandoffSocket;
            recvState.HandoffSocket = state.WorkSocket;

            //Set up the Service socket to receive information from service
            state.HandoffSocket.BeginReceive(recvState.Buffer, 0, StateObject.BufferSize, SocketFlags.None,
                new AsyncCallback(ReadCallback), recvState);

            //Set up the client socket to receive information from client
            handler.BeginReceive(state.Buffer, 0, StateObject.BufferSize, SocketFlags.None,
                new AsyncCallback(ReadCallback), state);

            //Reference this State object as the object to poll for disconnections
            pollStateObj = state;
        }

        private static void ReadCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            // Retrieve the state object and the handler socket
            // from the asynchronous state object.
            StateObject state = (StateObject)ar.AsyncState;

            if (state.WorkSocket.Connected == false)
            {
                return;
            }

            try
            {
                // Read data from the client socket. 
                int bytesRead;
                lock (state.WorkSocket)
                {
                    bytesRead = state.WorkSocket.EndReceive(ar);
                }

                if (bytesRead > 0)
                {
                    //Transform received data
                    byte[] transformedData = TransformData(state.Buffer, bytesRead, state);

                    //Transmit transformed data to other Socket
                    if (transformedData.Length > 0)
                    {
                        lock (state.HandoffSocket)
                        {
                            state.HandoffSocket.BeginSend(transformedData, 0, transformedData.Length, 
                                SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(SendCallback), state);
                        }
                    }
                }

                lock (state.WorkSocket)
                {
                    state.WorkSocket.BeginReceive(state.Buffer, 0, StateObject.BufferSize, 0,
                        new AsyncCallback(ReadCallback), state);
                }
            }
            catch (ObjectDisposedException ex)
            {
                //do nothing
                return;
            }
            catch (SocketException ex)
            {
                if (ex.ErrorCode == 10054 || ex.ErrorCode == 10053)
                {
                    //do nothing
                    return;
                }
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");

                return;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");
                return;
            }

        }

        private static void SendCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            // Retrieve the socket from the state object.
            StateObject state = (StateObject)ar.AsyncState;

            if (!state.HandoffSocket.Connected)
            {
                return;
            }

            // Complete send
            try
            {
                lock (state.HandoffSocket)
                {
                    state.HandoffSocket.EndSend(ar);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                Console.WriteLine("\nError: " + ex + "\n");
                return;
            }
        }

        private static byte[] TransformData(byte[] Data, int Length, StateObject State)
        {
            //Just display Transmitted Data
            if (State.WorkSocket == pollStateObj.WorkSocket)
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Cyan;
            else
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Green;
            
            Console.Write(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Data, 0, Length));

            byte[] output = new byte[Length];
            Array.Copy(Data, output, Length);
            return output;
        }

        private static void DisconnectSockets(StateObject state)
        {
            lock (state.WorkSocket)
            {                                        
                if (state.WorkSocket.Connected)
                {
                    state.WorkSocket.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);
                }
                state.WorkSocket.Close();                    
            }

            lock (state.HandoffSocket)
            {
                if (state.HandoffSocket.Connected)
                {
                    state.HandoffSocket.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);
                }
                state.HandoffSocket.Close();
            }
        }
    }
}

It's important to note that the tcp relay server must also relay connections and disconnections from either end, in addition to transmitted data.

To test the relay server:

1. Create a new ASP.NET web application in Visual Studio.

2. Add the following line in the system.web section of the Web.config file:

<sessionState mode="StateServer" stateConnectionString="tcpip=localhost:24242" cookieless="false" timeout="20"/>
<!-- -->

3. Add the following lines of code to the Page_Load event handler.

 Session.Add("Test2", "Test");
 Session.Abandon();

4. Run the relay server.

5. Start the local ASP.NET State Service (Located at Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services) .

6. Run the ASP.NET Application

You'll see the gem below in the relay server console window.



This tool will be extremely useful as I spec out my implementation of the state service. For instance, if I want to see how the state service reacts if there is no Exclusive header, I'll simply modify the TransformData method to detect and remove the header.

I have also found Microsoft’s specification of the ASP.NET state service protocol. It doesn't look coherent but it will help me make my implementation compatible with their specifications.


Probing the ASP.NET State Service Part I

I have been thinking about developing an alternative ASP.NET State Service which can transparently replace the Microsoft-provided state service.

To be successful, the alternative state service has to convince the web server that it is the state service. That means I need to know the high-level communication protocol used between the state service and the web server.
   
How does the web server talk to the state service? Do they communicate via .NET remoting calls? Is there a proprietary protocol? Or is the state service really a fancy web service?
 
Let's investigate.

I'll create an echo server that will listen on a port. I can then set the echo server’s address as the state service address for a web application. If the state service protocol runs over TCP, I should be able to see data transmitted by the web application.

Here's the code snippet for a simple windows socket server that echoes received data:

int port = 24242; //as opposed to the default 42424 :)

IPEndPoint endPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, port);
Socket server = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream,ProtocolType.Tcp);
server.Bind(endPoint);
server.Listen(20);
Socket clientHandler = server.Accept();
byte[] transmission = new byte[1024];
clientHandler.Receive(transmission);

//print transmitted data
Console.WriteLine(Encoding.Default.GetString(transmission));
Console.ReadKey();
(To run the code snippet, you'll need to add using statements to reference System.Net and System.Net.Sockets namespaces.)

I then create a test web application and add the following line in the system.web section of the Web.config file:

<sessionState mode="StateServer" stateConnectionString="tcpip=localhost:24242" cookieless="false" timeout="20"/>
<!-- -->

This configures the ASP.NET application to use the state service, except it's actually our echo server.

I also add the following line of code to the web application's Page_Load event handler.

 Session.Add("Test Entry", "Test Data");

Now, I start the echo server (actually a console application) and fire up the web application to see if any transmitted data is captured and displayed in the console window.



Wow. Is that HTTP?
I see a PUT verb followed by some non-standard headers, followed by some binary data.
Well, that certainly makes my task easier considering that if the service was using .NET remoting calls; I'd have needed to delve into the innards of the .NET Remoting API.

I also notice that the transmitted data is not encrypted. I can clearly see "Test Data" in the transmission. Um, Microsoft -- this is not good.

How about the gibberish looking tidbit in the PUT statement? That must be some kind of identifier.

I add the following line in the system.web section of the Web.config file to see if it will cause the data to be encrypted.

<machineKey validationKey='016E9B3DAA748525DCDBAAC999BB390D63E7E1095F56B737887C10291567085B5A3A2142E6C86F06F07558D77260122C1174419212B6A117B6977B285EA8722B' />
<!-- -->

No such luck, however, the encoded data in parenthesis in the PUT verb line changed.
Hmm. Let's try to make some sense out of all these data.

The PUT Verb With Encoded Data:

After URL-decoding the data, I get  /3e50a960(iE+KOE6bwMI7BuHXun98zlcnkb8=)/miztsjiek5gvzu55km3xun55. The backslash is probably a delimiter and the text in parentheses is probably base64-encoded. (the "=" sign gave that away)

After running and observing the web application a few times, I figured the three parts of the PUT verb line are:

Part A: /3e50a960 is constant (I have no clue what it represents. Application ID? Machine ID? Some kind of magic number? I'll investigate)
Part B: (iE+KOE6bwMI7BuHXun98zlcnkb8=) is derived from MachineKey and is used by the state service to differentiate session data from different machines
Part C: /miztsjiek5gvzu55km3xun55 is the session ID

The Headers:

Host: The Hostname of the web application.
Timeout: The number of minutes a session can be idle before it is discarded.
Content-Length: The length of the binary data.
ExtraFlags: No clue. I'll investigate.
LockCookie: Looks eerily familiar. I'll investigate.

Binary Data:

This could be either information about an item to be updated, added or removed from the state service, in which case the web application retrieves and updates items as needed OR it could simply be a serialized list of all items to be stored in the session, in which case the web application reads all items at the beginning of a web request cycle and updates them at the end of the request cycle. To test my assumptions; I'll add a couple more lines of code to the Page_Load event handler.

Session.Add("test entry 2", "some test data");
Session.Add("test entry 3", "even MORE test data");

I then run the web application to see the transmitted data.



I can see the new items I added in the binary data area. I can now conclude that at the start of a web request, the web application retrieves this list, possibly modifies it and sends it back to the service at the end of the request.

Let me pause right here and think about this for a minute.

Is this model efficient? Is it better to read all items in the session at once and update them all at once, or is it better to read and update items as needed?

Well, since the items are stored by session ID and only one session ID is assigned to one user at any point in time. It means the chance that a session item is requested by multiple users/machines is negligible. Therefore there is no need to retrieve and update items as needed because there is no need for concurrency.

Another advantage with this model is that the state service does not need to know about items being stored. It simply stores whatever data is sent to it. This makes development easier.

Also, retrieving and updating items as needed increases the number of connections to the state service. This can greatly affect the scalability of a web application.

The downside to reading and updating all items at once is bandwidth-related: If an application stores a lot of information in the session but uses only a few at a time, the web application will move a lot of unnecessary data to and fro, which may clog the network. This may not be an issue if your web server and state service are physically close or run on the same computer.

A new question comes up; why is the web application NOT querying the state service for the session data when it starts? Does this mean any information already stored by the state service will be overwritten whenever the web application starts?

I ended up with more questions than I began with and so I still need to investigate further but at least I have gleaned some basic facts needed to start working on an alternative state service.

1. The ASP.NET web server and the state service communicate via HTTP.
2. The state service stores the binary data sent by the web server (probably in a large dictionary) using the Session ID + a derivative of the machine key as the key.
3. The state service does not need to itemize the data to be stored because all items are read and updated at once.
4. The transmitted data is not encrypted (at least not by default). The state service is not concerned about this since it simply stores data.

 

I Want a Native C# Compiler

Wouldn’t it be nice if C# code could be compiled directly to machine code? Having such a compiler would position C# as a serious system programming language.
Developers would be able to write system software for routers, for instance, in C#.

I don’t see any reason why such a compiler should not exist. In fact, the creation of a native C# compiler will be well justified.

C# is a well designed programming language. It would be a shame if the language is stuck forever with the .NET/Mono frameworks, especially if you consider that there is no reason why the language has to be inextricable tied to these frameworks.
There is no requirement that C# code must compile to IL and there are no language-level assumptions that the compiled code has to be machine-independent.
High-level features routinely used by developers such as threading and reflection, are .NET library calls and have no connection to the language itself. The only high-level feature that the language implies is a garbage collection system. In fact there are language-level hints that C# can be a system-level programming language -- how often do you use the volatile, stackalloc and fixed keywords?

The C# developer base is huge, so a native C# compiler will push the language even further to new platforms and projects that are currently unsuitable for development with C#. It will enable developers to write ALL their code; high-level and low-level in C#. Higher-level code will be compiled to IL, whereas lower-level code will be compiled to machine code.

A native C# compiler would be great for coding libraries, for instance, a proprietary encryption or compression algorithm. With a native C# compiler, an algorithm can be coded in C# and compiled as a native code library. This library can be linked to and used in systems without any .NET (or alternative) frameworks.
The best part is that if this library is needed for a .NET/Mono project -- all that is needed is recompilation and the algorithm will scale to managed code without having to port the library or use unmanaged calls. It will work great in both managed and unmanaged worlds.

The language is an open standard, so anyone with the time, expertise and resources can create a native C# compiler. Also, to be successful, this compiler only needs to support C# version 2.0.
Language features introduced in versions 3.0 and 4.0 are not that important and can be considered “Microsoft extensions” to the C# language. Indeed, Anders Hejlsberg admitted that features added in C# 2.0 were features they didn’t have time or didn’t know how to properly implement in C# 1.0.

If you are still not convinced about the viability of such a compiler, take a look at the compilers available for the D language. They are living proof that such a compiler is feasible and will compile a modern language directly to machine code, complete with a (small) runtime, memory management and type system.

 

Tamper proof and Obfuscate your Configuration Files

Introduction

The Signature Protected Configuration Provider is a configuration protection provider which can be used to protect configuration file sections from being tampered with. It can optionally obfuscate (scramble) those sections to improve privacy and discourage unauthorized modification.

You can download the source code at www.codeproject.com/KB/security/signedconfigprovider.aspx

Background

I always run into a tight corner whenever I need to encrypt sections of a configuration file because it seems I can’t find an easy, secure way to do it. The .NET provided RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider and DpapiProtectedConfigurationProvider providers tie configuration files to the machine and so, are unsuitable for XCopy deployment.

I started investigating how I could implement a secure, universal and portable configuration encryption/decryption scheme, and I found out it wasn’t possible – because of the nature of .NET applications.

Any kind of encryption scheme requires that the application use a decryption key to decrypt the encrypted information. .NET applications are easy to decompile, and the decompiled source can be examined to discover where the decryption key is read from. Even if it were possible to magically hide the key source, it’s not hard to read the decrypted information while the application is running, using a memory reader.

My point is, if the application can decrypt the information, so can an attacker.

The only reasonable thing that can be done is to obfuscate sections of the configuration file to make it much harder for the attacker. Additionally, it’s possible to securely prevent the attacker from modifying the configuration section. This can be quite useful in enterprise applications where you want only an administrator to be able to modify certain sections of a configuration file and end users to modify others.

Design

At its core, the Signature Protected Configuration Provider uses RSA asymmetric keys. The private key is used to sign the configuration section, which is optionally scrambled (obfuscated) by encrypting it using a symmetric key that is derived from the public key. The configuration section and the signature are enclosed in a new protected section and stored in the configuration file.

The provider has access to the public key and uses it to decrypt the configuration section (if it was encrypted) and to verify the signature with the configuration section to make sure it was not modified.

The provider can implicitly read the protected configuration section because it has access to the public key; however the private key is stored in a secure location inaccessible to the provider. Thus, the provider is implicitly read-only. Consequently, only someone who has access to the private key can modify the protected section.

The Code

The code is stored in the SignatureProtectedConfigurationProvider folder and the main class is the SignatureProtectedConfigurationProvider class.

You can download the source code at www.codeproject.com/KB/security/signedconfigprovider.aspx

The SignatureProtectedConfigurationProvider class inherits the ProtectedConfigurationProvider base class. The beauty of deriving from this class is that the .NET framework automagically decrypts information as needed from the configuration section if the section references the provider. For instance if you protected the appSettings section, you don’t need any special code to decrypt it, all you need to do is access the ConfigurationManager.AppSettings property like as usual. The Framework takes care of the decryption behind the scenes.

Normally, with other protected configuration providers, you can protect sections of your configuration file with the SectionInformation.ProtectSection method, however, the Signature Protected Configuration provider is a read-only provider and cannot implicitly protect a section. To explicitly protect a section, call the SignatureProctectedConfigurationProvider.Write method.

The Utils class contains utility methods called by the Provider class. Housing these methods in a separate class makes it easy to change the internal implementation without touching the provider code.

An important method is the Utils.GetPublicKey method. The public key (the RSA modulus and the exponent components) is also stored in this method. It is stored as either a byte array or a base-64 encoded string, depending on the setting of the StorePublicKeyAsBytes symbol.

The program.cs file is a console application that shows examples of using the provider to explicitly read a protected section, protect a section and generate new keys. You can also use the bundled Configuration File Editor to perform these tasks. (See below)

The Configuration File Editor

The editor was written to facilitate easy protection, unprotection and modification of configuration file sections. It works with existing configuration providers – so if you are tired of dropping to the command line to run aspnet_regiis.exe (with all its parameters), this is the tool you have been looking for.

The editor enables editing configuration files in a hierarchical manner. In fact, it can edit any xml file hierarchically. The editor can also generate new keys and supports other features necessary to configure the Signature Protected Configuration Provider.

The source code for the editor is in the ConfigFileEditor folder.

Using The Provider To Protect A New Configuration File

Run the Configuration File Editor, (you can perform these tasks by following the code samples in the provider program.cs file, but it’s a lot easier to use the configuration editor)

1. Open the Configuration File (you can open the bundled sample.config file)

2. Click the tools menu, then select ‘Generate configProtectedData Element’ under the ‘Signature Protected provider’ sub-menu.

The Generate configProtectedData Element window appears.

3. Click the ‘Add to Configuration’ button.

This action adds XML elements required for the .NET framework to use the provider from your application.

4. Click the tools menu, and then select ‘Generate New Key Pair’ under the ‘Signature Protected provider’ sub-menu.

The Generate New RSA Key Pair window appears.

This window contains the private/public key information. It is important that you store this information in a secure location that is not accessible from your application. Without this information, it is not possible to modify protected sections.

5. Click ‘Copy To Clipboard’ to copy the information to the Windows Clipboard.

6. Click the Close button.

7. Save the key information (in the clipboard) to your secure location.

8. As an example, right click the appSettings node on the side-bar on the left side of the editor to open a context menu.

9. Select ‘Protect’

The Select Provider window appears.

10. You can choose which protection provider you want to use (you will see the RsaProtectedConfigurationProvider and the DataProtectionConfigurationProvider options)

11. Select the SignatureProtectedConfigurationProvider option.

12. You can uncheck the ‘Obfuscate section’ checkbox if you want your users to be able to read the protected information -- don't worry, they still won't be able to modify it.

13. Click the OK button.

14. You will be prompted for the key – you can just paste the entire XML you saved in step 7 and click OK.

The section will be protected. You can protect other sections as you wish by repeating steps 8 to 13.

15. Save the file by selecting ‘Save’ under the File menu.

Now you need to set up the provider to work from your application.

16. Copy SignedConfigProvider.cs and SignedConfigUtils.cs files from the SignatureProtectedConfigurationProvider folder to your application’s project folder.

17. Add the files to your project so that they appear in Visual Studio’s solution explorer.

18. Open up SignedConfigUtils.cs from within your project and navigate to the GetPublicKey method

19. Open the key information file you stored securely earlier (at step 7), look at the section titled PUBLIC KEY INFORMATION. You have to replace the public key in the GetPublicKey method with the one in that section.

You can do this either by replacing the byte arrays in the method with the ones in the file or by replacing the modulus and exponent strings in the method. You have to change the StorePublicKeyAsBytes symbol to use the latter method. I prefer to use byte arrays because they are easier to manipulate.

Now, your application will transparently read the protected sections.

Using The Provider To Modify A Protected Configuration File

1. Open the configuration file with the Configuration Editor.

2. Click to select the protected node on the left side-bar of the editor.

3. You will be prompted for the private key.

4. Paste the private key (you can paste the entire xml) you previously securely stored.

5. Make the changes you want to make.

6. Click 'Apply Changes'.

7. Save the Configuration File.

Security Notes

To check if a section was protected with the provider from your application, include code that examines the SectionInformation.ProtectionProvider property to make sure it’s the same type as the SignatureProtectedConfigurationProvider class.

The public key is embedded in the provider code and not stored in an external file because if it is read from a file or read from a library; an attacker can generate his own private/public key pair, modify the configuration section and protect it using his keys and replace the public key in the file or library with his.
As a consequence, make sure you compile the provider (with the embedded public key) into your application. Do not compile the provider as a dynamically linked library.

It is important to note that the obfuscation aspect of this provider is performed using the public key which is accessible to anyone who has access to your application. Do not depend on this provider to secure sensitive information like database connection strings. This provider is more suited for protecting important information like web service urls from unauthorized modification.
You can make it harder for an attacker to figure out what the public key is by making the ReadPublicKey method harder to understand and by obfuscating the application after compilation, but it’s safer to treat the public key for what it is – public.

Always use the same key to protect all sections in a configuration file. It is possible to accidentally protect different sections with different keys while using the configuration file editor. Protecting different sections using different keys will render some sections of the configuration file undecipherable by the provider because it has access to only one public key.
You can enter comments in your configuration file and in the public/private key XML to help you remember which key protects which configuration file.

Points of Interest

The proper way to package signed XML is to use the XML Signature standard format . The System.Security.Cryptography.Xml.SignedXml class implements this standard, however for the sake of brevity; the provider simply encloses the plain (or obfuscated) configuration section in the SignedInfo element, and the base-64 encoded signature is enclosed in the SignatureValue element.
Both elements are enclosed inside an EncryptedData element which replaces the contents of the original unprotected element.

The proper way to encrypt data with asymmetric keys is to encrypt the data using a symmetric encryption algorithm and then encrypt the symmetric key using the asymmetric keys. In this case, I needed to encrypt the symmetric key using the private key and decrypt it using the public key.
I couldn’t do this because the .NET implementation of the RSA algorithm only lets you encrypt with the public key and decrypt with the private key; which makes sense, because, data that can be decrypted with the public key is in reality, plain-text; since everybody has access to the public key.
However, I’m more interested in obfuscation than secure encryption so I simply used portions of the public key to create the symmetric key used to perform the encryption and decryption. The Utils.GetAESFromRSAParameters method instantiates a RijnDaelManaged object using the public key parameters.
This approach doesn’t improve or reduce security because either way, you only need access to the public key to read the encrypted information.

Conclusion

This is a truly portable configuration protection provider. It works on both desktop and web applications.

It can obfuscate the configuration section – this feature, when combined with obfuscation of the compiled application can make it very difficult for an attacker to read sections of the configuration file.

It also securely prevents modification to critical sections of your configuration file. Furthermore, it can be extended to facilitate secure messaging in a client/server environment because the application can use the embedded public key to verify that the transmission is from the right source.

References

How To: Encrypt Configuration Sections in ASP.NET 2.0 using RSA
Implementing a Protected Configuration Provider
XML Signature Syntax and Processing