I've been working on a project which makes use of an RTC API and forms authentication. I've hit a bit of bizarre behaviour and I just can't figure this one out.
The scenario that has played out to date is that I can successfully run this project locally end to end. That is, this specific piece of code can:
- Contact the remote server and successfully authenticate
- After authentication I'm able to pass XML to update a ticket in RTC
The problem starts when I publish to our IIS (7.5) server. All works fine right up until the last .GetResponse call which uses a PUT method to pass my XML to update the ticket in RTC. I keep getting 'The operation has timed out'.
I've spent literally days trying to figure this one out doing all manner of things but nothing has proved useful.
As a test I changed the PUT method on the second call to a GET. And it works! If I used a PUT with the .AllowAutoRedirect = false it works in that I get a response back, but then nothing happens on the RTC side so the request is clearly being ignored. I also noticed that the status being returned is marked as 'Found' instead of 'OK'.
Some people thought at this stage perhaps it was a lack of connectivity between the remote server and the web server. This wouldn't be the case as authentication works and this happens against the same server. I have also manually passed the XML / PUT call using the RESTClient on the web server which was accepted fine.
I just can't understand why it works end to end when running locally, but plays up once deployed to IIS?
I tried using log tracing and I'm not entirely sure if I'm getting anything useful from it. It might be totally unrelated but I can see this in the log that is generated on the IIS server:
<EventData>
<Data Name="ContextId">{00000000-0000-0000-12AF-0080000000F8}</Data>
<Data Name="ModuleName">ManagedPipelineHandler</Data>
<Data Name="Notification">128</Data>
<Data Name="HttpStatus">500</Data>
<Data Name="HttpReason">Internal Server Error</Data>
<Data Name="HttpSubStatus">0</Data>
<Data Name="ErrorCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="ConfigExceptionInfo"></Data>
</EventData>
As I say, I'm not sure if this is even related to the problem I'm having, but rather than ignore it I thought I'd share.
Code that forms the call (excuse the standard of coding, it's work in progress and got messy trying out different things to fix this problem)
//Setup webrequest
CookieContainer _cookies = new CookieContainer();
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(getPath);
var test44 = test4.ToString();
request.CookieContainer = _cookies;
request.ContentType = "application/rdf+xml";
request.Accept = "application/rdf+xml";
request.Method = "PUT";
request.AllowAutoRedirect = true;
request.AllowWriteStreamBuffering = true;
request.Timeout = 40000;
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(test44);
request.ContentLength = bytes.Length;
Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream();
dataStream.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
dataStream.Close();
//Pass request
logger.Info("Made it up to start of RTC request for secure document.");
using (HttpWebResponse getrespn = requestSecureDocument(request, "https://myserver:9100/jazz", "username", "pass", test44))
{
//Stream ReceiveStream = getrespn.GetResponseStream();
// Encoding encode = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8");
//StreamReader readStream = new StreamReader(ReceiveStream);
//response = readStream.ReadToEnd();
getrespn.Close();
}
The segment of code which interacts with the RTC server (based on the example from: https://nkumar83.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/consuming-rtc-rational-team-concert-oslc-apis-using-c-post-1-authentication/ with my own tweaks):
public static HttpWebResponse requestSecureDocument(HttpWebRequest _requestItem, string _rtcServerURL, string _userName, string _password, string passXml)
{
try
{
//FormBasedAuth Step 1: Request the resource
HttpWebRequest _request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(_requestItem.RequestUri);
_request.CookieContainer = _requestItem.CookieContainer;
//store the response in _docResponse variable
HttpWebResponse _docResponse = (HttpWebResponse)_request.GetResponse();
//HttpStatusCode.OK indicates that the request succeeded
if (_docResponse.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK)
{
//X-com-ibm-team... header signifies form based authentication is being used
string _rtcAuthHeader = _docResponse.Headers["X-com-ibm-team-repository-web-auth-msg"];
if ((_rtcAuthHeader != null) && _rtcAuthHeader.Equals("authrequired"))
{
_docResponse.GetResponseStream().Flush();
_docResponse.Close();
//Prepare form for authentication
HttpWebRequest _formPost = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(_rtcServerURL + "/j_security_check");
_formPost.Method = "POST";
_formPost.Timeout = 30000;
_formPost.CookieContainer = _request.CookieContainer;
_formPost.Accept = "text/xml";
_formPost.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
string _authString = "j_username=" + _userName + "&j_password=" + _password;
Byte[] _outBuffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(_authString);
_formPost.ContentLength = _outBuffer.Length;
Stream _str = _formPost.GetRequestStream();
_str.Write(_outBuffer, 0, _outBuffer.Length);
_str.Close();
//FormBasedAuth Step 2: Submit the login form and get response
HttpWebResponse _formResponse = (HttpWebResponse)_formPost.GetResponse();
_rtcAuthHeader = _formResponse.Headers["X-com.ibm-team.repository-web-auth-msg"];
//Check if auth failed
if ((_rtcAuthHeader != null) && _rtcAuthHeader.Equals("authfailed"))
{
//auth fialed
var fail = "";
}
else
{
//login successful
//FormBasedAuth Step 3: Resend the request for the protected resource
_formResponse.GetResponseStream().Flush();
_formResponse.Close();
using (HttpWebResponse getresp = (HttpWebResponse)_requestItem.GetResponse()) *** THIS IS TH LINE WHICH THROWS THE EXCEPTION ***
{
return getresp;
}
}
}
}
return _docResponse;
}
catch (WebException e)
{
var filePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetData("DataDirectory") + @"/trapA.xml";
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filePath, true))
{
writer.WriteLine("Message: Failed to trigger getresponse successfully: " + e);
}
}
return null;
}
Hope someone out there can help :o)
