Todo application with ASP.NET Core

This is a Todo application that features:

• Todo.Web - An ASP.NET Core hosted Blazor WASM front end application
• TodoApi - An ASP.NET Core REST API backend using minimal APIs

It showcases:

• Blazor WebAssembly
• Minimal APIs
• Using EntityFramework and SQLite for data access
• OpenAPI
• User management with ASP.NET Core Identity
• Cookie authentication
• JWT authentication
• Proxying requests from the front end application server using YARP's IHttpForwarder
• Rate Limiting
• Writing integration tests for your REST API

Prerequisites

.NET

1. Install .NET 7

Database

1. Install the dotnet-ef tool: dotnet tool install dotnet-ef -g
2. Navigate to the TodoApi folder.
   1. Run mkdir .db to create the local database folder.
   2. Run dotnet ef database update to create the database.
3. Learn more about dotnet-ef

JWT

1. To initialize the keys for JWT generation, run dotnet user-jwts in to TodoApi folder:

   dotnet user-jwts create
   

Running the application

To run the application, run both the Todo.Web/Server and TodoApi. Below are different ways to run both applications:

• Visual Studio - Setup multiple startup projects by right clicking on the solution and selecting Properties. Select TodoApi and Todo.Web.Server as startup projects.

  

• Visual Studio Code - Open up 2 terminal windows, one in Todo.Web.Server and the other in TodoApi run:

  dotnet watch run -lp https
  

  This will run both applications with the https profile.

• Tye - Install the global tool using the following command:

  dotnet tool install --global Microsoft.Tye --version 0.11.0-alpha.22111.1
  

  Run tye run in the repository root and navigate to the tye dashboard (usually http://localhost:8000) to see both applications running.

• Docker Compose - Open your terminal, navigate to the root folder of this project and run the following commands:

  1. Build a docker image for the TodoApi directly from dotnet publish.

     dotnet publish ./TodoApi/TodoApi.csproj --os linux --arch x64 /t:PublishContainer -c Release
     

  2. Build a docker image for the Todo.Web.Server directly from dotnet publish.

     dotnet publish ./Todo.Web/Server/Todo.Web.Server.csproj --os linux --arch x64 /t:PublishContainer -c Release --self-contained true
     

  3. Generate certificate and configure local machine so we can start our apps with https support using docker compose.

     Windows using Linux containers

     set PASSWORD YourPasswordHere
     dotnet dev-certs https -ep ${HOME}/.aspnet/https/todoapps.pfx -p $PASSWORD --trust
     

     macOS or Linux

     export PASSWORD=YourPasswordHere
     dotnet dev-certs https -ep ~/.aspnet/https/todoapps.pfx -p $PASSWORD --trust
     

  4. Change these variables below in the docker-compose.yml file to match your https certificate and password.

     • ASPNETCORE_Kestrel__Certificates__Default__Password
     • ASPNETCORE_Kestrel__Certificates__Default__Path

  5. Run docker-compose up -d to spin up both apps todo-api and todo-web-server plus jaeger and prometheus.

  6. Navigate to the Todo Web app https://localhost:5003.

Optional

Using the API standalone

The Todo REST API can run standalone as well. You can run the TodoApi project and make requests to various endpoints using the Swagger UI (or a client of your choice):

Before executing any requests, you need to create a user and get an auth token.

1. To create a new user, run the application and POST a JSON payload to /users endpoint:

   {
     "username": "myuser",
     "password": "<put a password here>"
   }

2. To get a token for the above user run dotnet user-jwts to create a JWT token with the same user name specified above e.g:

   dotnet user-jwts create -n myuser
   

3. You should be able to use this token to make authenticated requests to the todo endpoints.

4. Learn more about user-jwts

Social authentication

In addition to username and password, social authentication providers can be configured to work with this todo application. By default it supports Github, Google, and Microsoft accounts.

Instructions for setting up each of these providers can be found at:

• Github
• Microsoft
• Google

Once you obtain the client id and client secret, the configuration for these providers must be added with the following schema:

{
    "Authentication": {
        "Schemes": {
            "<scheme>": {
                "ClientId": "xxx",
                "ClientSecret": "xxxx"
            }
        }
    }
}

Or using environment variables:

Authentication__Schemes__<scheme>__ClientId=xxx
Authentication__Schemes__<scheme>__ClientSecret=xxx

Other providers can be found here. These must be added to AuthenticationExtensions as well.

NOTE: Don't store client secrets in configuration!

OpenTelemetry

TodoApi uses OpenTelemetry to collect logs, metrics and spans.

If you wish to view the collected telemetry, follow the steps below.

Metrics

1. Run Prometheus with Docker:

docker run -d -p 9090:9090 --name prometheus -v $PWD/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml prom/prometheus

1. Open Prometheus in your browser
2. Query the collected metrics

Spans

1. Configure environment variable OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT with the right endpoint URL to enable .AddOtlpExporter below builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetryTracing, in the TodoApi/OpenTelemetryExtensions.cs file
2. Run Jaeger with Docker:

docker run -d --name jaeger -e COLLECTOR_ZIPKIN_HOST_PORT=:9411 -e COLLECTOR_OTLP_ENABLED=true -p 6831:6831/udp -p 6832:6832/udp -p 5778:5778 -p 16686:16686 -p 4317:4317 -p 4318:4318 -p 14250:14250 -p 14268:14268 -p 14269:14269 -p 9411:9411 jaegertracing/all-in-one:latest

1. Open Jaeger in your browser
2. View the collected spans

Logs

This app using structured logging and for this purpose we use Serilog

For setting up Serilog you should call AddSerilog on SerilogExtensions class and Add Serilog section with appropriate Options

  "Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Override": {
        "Microsoft": "Warning",
        "Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Information"
      }
    }
  }

For collecting and searching logs there are 2 optional way, based on your needs in the production environment:

• Seq (Not Free in commercial use)
• Elasticsearch and Kibana (Free)

Seq

For using seq, we should enable it with setting SeqUrl value in the Serilog section of appsettings.json:

  "Serilog": {
     ...
    "SeqUrl": "http://localhost:5341",
     ...
  },

Also we should run seq server on docker-compose file, now seq is available on http://localhost:8081 and we can see logs out there.

Elasticsearch and Kibana

For using elasticsearch and kibana, we should enable it with setting ElasticSearchUrl value in the Serilog section of appsettings.json:

  "Serilog": {
     ...
    "ElasticSearchUrl": "http://localhost:9200",
     ...
  }

Also we should run Elasticsearch and Kibana on docker-compose file, now we can see our logs on kibana url http://localhost:5601 and index name todoapi.