Azure SignalR Messaging With .Net Core Console App Server And Client

Jeeva Subburaj

Azure .NET Core SignalRAzure SignalR MessagingAzure SignalR Messaging with .Net CoreConsole App Server and ClientSignalR Messaging

12 Comments

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Saeed Namdar6y ago
Hello , Thanks for sharing your experience. I would connect my .net framework console application directly to azure signalr. So how can I config the hubconnection and url?
Roshan Singh6y ago
PS C:\Users\roshan\Desktop\AzureSignalRConsoleApp-master\AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client> dotnet run Unhandled Exception: System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond at System.Net.Http.ConnectHelper.ConnectAsync(String host, Int32 port, CancellationToken cancellationToken) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Net.Http.ConnectHelper.ConnectAsync(String host, Int32 port, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at System.Threading.Tasks.ValueTask`1.get_Result() at System.Net.Http.HttpConnectionPool.CreateConnectionAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at System.Threading.Tasks.ValueTask`1.get_Result() at System.Net.Http.HttpConnectionPool.WaitForCreatedConnectionAsync(ValueTask`1 creationTask) at System.Threading.Tasks.ValueTask`1.get_Result() at System.Net.Http.HttpConnectionPool.SendWithRetryAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, Boolean doRequestAuth, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at System.Net.Http.RedirectHandler.SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.Internal.AccessTokenHttpMessageHandler.SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.Internal.LoggingHttpMessageHandler.SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at System.Net.Http.HttpClient.FinishSendAsyncUnbuffered(Task`1 sendTask, HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationTokenSource cts, Boolean disposeCts) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.HttpConnection.NegotiateAsync(Uri url, HttpClient httpClient, ILogger logger) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.HttpConnection.GetNegotiationResponseAsync(Uri uri) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.HttpConnection.SelectAndStartTransport(TransferFormat transferFormat) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.HttpConnection.StartAsyncCore(TransferFormat transferFormat) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Connections.Client.HttpConnection.StartAsync(TransferFormat transferFormat, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client.HttpConnectionFactory.ConnectAsync(TransferFormat transferFormat, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client.HttpConnectionFactory.ConnectAsync(TransferFormat transferFormat, CancellationToken cancellationToken) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client.HubConnection.StartAsyncCore(CancellationToken cancellationToken) at Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client.HubConnection.StartAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken) at AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\roshan\Desktop\AzureSignalRConsoleApp-master\AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client\Program.cs:line 43 at AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client.Program.<Main>(String[] args)
- Ajay Kumar5y ago
  Hi, I am facing this same issue, did you get the solution?
sfx wall6y ago
Where Should i add this code in which in which page or which project var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder() .SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()) .AddUserSecrets<program>() .Build();
sfx wall6y ago
Var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder() .SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()) .AddUserSecrets<program>() .Build();
Art Barrios8y ago
Hi and thank you very much for the article. I am trying to connect from a server created in a web app via Microsoft.Azure.SignalR.AspNet using the existing ChatHub.cs example and sending one way messages to a client connected via Azure REST API like in your example using HubConnectionBuilder and have not been successful. I can get the REST client to receive messages from the REST server but not via the Hub.Clients.All.broadcastMessage method of ChatHub.cs. Have you tried this and been successful?
- Art Barrios8y ago
  Here are my two projects: https://github.com/artbarrios/AzureSignalRChatRoom and https://github.com/artbarrios/AzureSignalRConsoleApp . I have successfully connected the AzureSignalRChatRoom application to an Azure SignalR host and can send messages to and from each instance of the web application. I also have successfully connected the AzureSignalRConsoleApp to the same Azure SignalR host and can send messages from the console server to the console client. What I would like to be able to do and have not been able to accomplish is have messages sent by AzureSignalRChatRoom appear on the AzureSignalRConsolApp client via an Azure SignalR host that is common to both applications.
- Jeeva Subburaj8y ago
  You can share your code in github and i can take a look at it ..
Dave Thompson8y ago
Hi Jeevanatham, great sample, do you have reference documentation or where you figured out the client connection url - $"{serviceUtils.Endpoint}:5001/client/?hub={hubName}"? as I'm trying to do something similar with joining a .net client to a group, and cannot find anything online without instantiating a hub.
- Jeeva Subburaj8y ago
  You can find the latest information on github. https://github.com/Azure/azure-signalr/ https://github.com/aspnet/AzureSignalR-samples/
erich brunner8y ago
Hello , Thanks for sharing that top! article. Please proceed on that Azure SignalR Service topic. Microsoft documention is still very far behind.
- Jeeva Subburaj8y ago
  Thank you for your comment

Real-time technologies are now part of every modern application and SignalR is the most popular .net library to create real-time scenarios. Recently, Microsoft announced the public preview of Azure SignalR, a cloud-based fully managed service to build real-time applications without worrying about capacity provisioning, scaling, or persistent connections. In this article, we are going to discuss how to create a .NET Core SignalR Server console app to broadcast the messages to all the connected clients in real-time without using Asp.net Core SignalR Web App.

Deeper dive into Azure SignalR Service

In the enterprise world, SignalR applications often come with high volume data flows and a large number of concurrent connections between the app and client. To handle that scenario, we have to set up the web farms with sticky sessions and a backplane like Redis to make sure messages are distributed to the right client. If we use Azure SignalR service, it will handle all those issues and we can focus only on business logic.

In addition to that, Azure SignalR Service works well with existing Asp.net Core SignalR Hub with fewer changes. We have to add a reference to Azure SignalR SDK and configure the Azure connection string in the application and then adding few lines of code services.AddSignalR().AddAzureSignalR() and app.UseAzureSignalR in Startup.cs.

Existing Asp.net Core SignalR client app works with Azure SignalR Service without any modification in the code. You can refer to my early article about “How to build real time communication with cross platform devices using Azure SignalR Service” for more details.

As of today, if you want to implement duplex communication between the SignalR client and server using Azure SignalR Service, you must need ASP.net Core SignalR Server Hub(Web App). However, if you just want to push the messages from the server to clients (oneway), you can use Azure SignalR Service without having Asp.net Core SignalR Hub (Web App).

Azure SignalR Messaging with .Net Core Console App Server and Client

In the diagram above, we have two endpoints called Server Endpoint and Client End Point. With those End Points, SignalR Server and Client can connect to Azure SignalR Service without the need of Asp.net Core Web App.

Azure SignalR Service exposes a set of REST APIs to send messages to all clients from anywhere using any programming language or any REST client such as Postman. The Server REST API swagger documentation is in the following link.

https://github.com/Azure/azure-signalr/blob/dev/docs/swagger.json

Server Endpoint

REST APIs are only exposed on port 5002. In each HTTP request, an authorization header with a JSON Web Token (JWT) is required to authenticate with Azure SignalR Service. You should use the AccessKey in Azure SignalR Service instance's connection string to sign the generated JWT token.

Rest API URL

POST https://<service_endpoint>:5002/api/v1-preview/hub/<hub_name>

The body of the request is a JSON object with two properties:

Target - The target method you want to call in clients.

Arguments - an array of arguments you want to send to clients.

The API service authenticates REST call using JWT token, when you are generating the JWT token, use the access key in SignalR service connection string as a Secret Key and put it in the authentication header.

Client Endpoint

https://<service_endpoint>:5001/client/?hub=<hubName>

Clients also connect to Azure SignalR service using JWT token the same way as described above and each client will use some unique user id and the Client Endpoint URL to generate the token.

With all the details above, let us build a simple .Net Core Console app to broadcast messages using Azure SignalR Service Architecture. In this demo, we will see how the SignalR Console App server connects to Azure SignalR Service with REST API call to broadcast the messages to all connected console app clients in real time.

Steps
Creating Projects

We will be creating the following three projects.

AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Server - .Net Core Console App
AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client - .Net Core Console App
AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Utils - .Net Core Class Library

AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Utils

This class library holds the logic to generate the JWT token based on the access key from the Azure Connection string. It also holds the method to parse the Azure SignalR Connection String to get the endpoint and access key.

Nuget Packages Required

System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt

namespace AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Utils
{
public class ServiceUtils
{
private static readonly JwtSecurityTokenHandler JwtTokenHandler = new JwtSecurityTokenHandler();
public string Endpoint { get; }
public string AccessKey { get; }
public ServiceUtils(string connectionString)
{
(Endpoint, AccessKey) = ParseConnectionString(connectionString);
}
public string GenerateAccessToken(string audience, string userId, TimeSpan? lifetime = null)
{
IEnumerable<Claim> claims = null;
if (userId != null)
{
claims = new[]
{
new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, userId)
};
}
return GenerateAccessTokenInternal(audience, claims, lifetime ?? TimeSpan.FromHours(1));
}
public string GenerateAccessTokenInternal(string audience, IEnumerable<Claim> claims, TimeSpan lifetime)
{
var expire = DateTime.UtcNow.Add(lifetime);
var securityKey = new SymmetricSecurityKey(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(AccessKey));
var credentials = new SigningCredentials(securityKey, SecurityAlgorithms.HmacSha256);
var token = JwtTokenHandler.CreateJwtSecurityToken(
issuer: null,
audience: audience,
subject: claims == null ? null : new ClaimsIdentity(claims),
expires: expire,
signingCredentials: credentials);
return JwtTokenHandler.WriteToken(token);
}
private static readonly char[] PropertySeparator = { ';' };
private static readonly char[] KeyValueSeparator = { '=' };
private const string EndpointProperty = "endpoint";
private const string AccessKeyProperty = "accesskey";
internal static (string, string) ParseConnectionString(string connectionString)
{
var properties = connectionString.Split(PropertySeparator, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
if (properties.Length > 1)
{
var dict = new Dictionary<string, string>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
foreach (var property in properties)
{
var kvp = property.Split(KeyValueSeparator, 2);
if (kvp.Length != 2) continue;
var key = kvp[0].Trim();
if (dict.ContainsKey(key))
{
throw new ArgumentException($"Duplicate properties found in connection string: {key}.");
}
dict.Add(key, kvp[1].Trim());
}
if (dict.ContainsKey(EndpointProperty) && dict.ContainsKey(AccessKeyProperty))
{
return (dict[EndpointProperty].TrimEnd('/'), dict[AccessKeyProperty]);
}
}
throw new ArgumentException($"Connection string missing required properties {EndpointProperty} and {AccessKeyProperty}.");
}
}
}

AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Server

This is the .net core SignalR Server console app to broadcast the messages via REST API call.

Nuget Packages Required

Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.UserSecrets

Steps

Login to Azure Portal and get the Azure SignalR Service Connection String and store it in the UserSecrets.json.

Visual Studio does not provide the built-in support to manage User Secrets for .Net Core Console App. We have to manually create UserSecretsID element under PropertyGroup in the .csproj file and put the randomly generated GUID as below.

Open the command window from the root project location and run the following command to create the secrets.json file with the configuration data,

dotnet user-secrets set key value

Goto %APPDATA%\Microsoft\UserSecrets Folder to verify the new folder exists in the same GUID and the secrets.json file is created with configuration data.

After the above setup configured successfully, we can load the configuration object with the following code.

var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
.SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
.AddUserSecrets<program>()
.Build();

Broadcast method will take the input message from console window, build the httprequest along with generated JWT token in authorization header and make the REST API call to push the messages.

namespace AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Server
{
class Program
{
private static readonly HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient();
private static readonly string hubName = "ConsoleAppBroadcaster";
private static readonly string serverName = "Azure_SignalR_Server_1";
private static ServiceUtils serviceUtils;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Loading the Configuration Objects from UserSecrets
var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
.SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
.AddUserSecrets<program>()
.Build();
serviceUtils = new ServiceUtils(configuration["Azure:SignalR:ConnectionString"]);
Console.WriteLine(" Azure SignalR Server Started.\n " +
"Start typing and press enter to broadcast messages to all the connected clients.\n " +
"Type quit to shut down the server!");
while (true)
{
var data = Console.ReadLine();
if (data.ToLower() == "quit") break;
Broadcast(data);
}
Console.WriteLine("SignalR Server is shutting down");
}
private static async void Broadcast(string message)
{
var url = $"{serviceUtils.Endpoint}:5002/api/v1-preview/hub/{hubName.ToLower()}";
var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Post, new UriBuilder(url).Uri);
request.Headers.Authorization =
new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", serviceUtils.GenerateAccessToken(url, serverName));
request.Headers.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
var messageContent = new MessageContent() { Target = "SendMessage", Arguments = new[] { serverName, message } };
request.Content = new StringContent(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(messageContent), Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
var response = await httpClient.SendAsync(request);
if (response.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.Accepted)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Sent error: {response.StatusCode}");
}
}
}
public class MessageContent
{
public string Target { get; set; }
public object[] Arguments { get; set; }
}
}

AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client

This is the .net core SignalR Client console app to receive the messages from Azure SignalR Service.

Nuget Packages Required

Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.UserSecrets
Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client

Steps

In order to load the configuration object from User Secrets to load the Azure Connection String, we must follow the same steps as above.

var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
.SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
.AddUserSecrets<program>()
.Build();

Generate the JWT access token using client endpoint URL and create hub connection with the client hub URL and the access token to establish the connection with Azure SignalR Service. In the Hub connection ON event, wire up with the same Target method to receive the message.

namespace AzureSignalRConsoleApp.Client
{
class Program
{
private static readonly string userId = $"User {new Random().Next(1, 99)}";
private static ServiceUtils serviceUtils;
private static readonly string hubName = "ConsoleAppBroadcaster";
private static HubConnection hubConnection;
async static Task Main(string[] args)
{
var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
.SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
.AddUserSecrets<program>()
.Build();
serviceUtils = new ServiceUtils(configuration["Azure:SignalR:ConnectionString"]);
var url = $"{serviceUtils.Endpoint}:5001/client/?hub={hubName}";
hubConnection = new HubConnectionBuilder()
.WithUrl(url, option =>
{
option.AccessTokenProvider = () =>
{
return Task.FromResult(serviceUtils.GenerateAccessToken(url, userId));
};
}).Build();
hubConnection.On<string string="">("SendMessage",
(string server, string message) =>
{
Console.WriteLine($"Message from server {server}: {message}");
});
await hubConnection.StartAsync();
Console.WriteLine("Client started... Press any key to close the connection");
Console.ReadLine();
await hubConnection.DisposeAsync();
Console.WriteLine("Client is shutting down...");
}
}
}

How it works

Now that we have completed the code, let us run the application to see the demo. First, launch the server and then launch more than one client app in multiple command windows. After that, start typing in server command window to send messages to all the clients in real-time.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to use Azure SignalR Service in .net core console app without using Asp.net Core Web App. In the real world, Azure SignalR Service can be integrated with other Azure services like serverless computing (Azure Functions) to push notification messages to all the connected clients in real time based on some trigger without hosting Asp.net Core Web App and managing the connection with clients. I have uploaded the entire source code in my GitHub repository.