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Our company would like to give a pre-compiled version of our web application to a 3rd party so they can add their own pages and modules to it. In trying to accomplish this, I've so far done the following:

  1. Compiled our main web app as a Web Deployment Project
  2. Created a POC web app which references the DLL resulting from step 1 above.

I then added the following static method to our main web app, which should hopefully process requests to its pre-compiled aspx pages:

public static bool TryProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
{
    string rawUrl = context.Request.RawUrl;
    int aspxIdx = rawUrl.IndexOf(".aspx");
    if (aspxIdx > 0)
    {
        string aspxPagePath = rawUrl.Substring(0, aspxIdx + 5);

        string aspxPageClassName = aspxPagePath.Substring(1).Replace('/','_').Replace(".aspx","");
        Assembly website = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(MCLLogin));
        Type pageClass = website.GetType(aspxPageClassName);
        ConstructorInfo ctor = pageClass.GetConstructor(new Type[] { });
        IHttpHandler pageObj = (IHttpHandler)ctor.Invoke(new object[] { });

        context.Server.Execute(pageObj, context.Response.Output, false);

        //alternative: invoking the page's ProcessRequest method - same results
        //System.Reflection.MethodInfo method = pageClass.GetMethod("ProcessRequest");
        //method.Invoke(pageObj, new object[] { context });

        return true;
    }
    return false; //not handled
}

I am then calling this method in the ProcessRequest() method of a HttpHandler of the POC web app whenever I want our main web app to handle the request. This code indeed successfully instantiates a page of the correct class and starts to process the request.

The problem: Code in my Page_PreLoad handler throws an exception because Page.Form is null. I've also found out the Page.Controls collection is empty.

What am I doing wrong? Should I go down a different path to achieve this?

AviJ
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  • Can you clarify on simple example, what for do 3rd party need your sources? Why don't they just add virtual directory to your website? – Johnny_D May 11 '12 at 10:17
  • We would like to eventually merge their source into ours. The concept was to let them "inherit" our web app, add their own code, and then submit it back to us. They'll need access to all the application level static data initialized in our web app, use the same authentication mechanism, etc. Is it feasible? – AviJ May 13 '12 at 05:58
  • But at the same time you don't want them to access your sorces? – Johnny_D May 14 '12 at 08:09
  • Yes. We would very much like to avoid handing out our website's complete source code. I think I found out what the problem is, I'll hopefully be posting the solution soon... Thanks. – AviJ May 14 '12 at 13:39
  • Just to clarify, .net compiled files are very easy to decompile, even if you try to use some obfuscators it will still be easy to find out code. – Johnny_D May 14 '12 at 21:02
  • Yeah, I am aware of that... We'll be giving the compiled version to a few long time business partners of ours, so there's a certain level of confidence involved. Precompiling in order to avoid revealing our source code was a managerial decision which I had no part in... Thanks for the heads up anyway :) – AviJ May 15 '12 at 11:54

0 Answers0