Thursday, March 27, 2003

Update: WS-Forums A few people spotted up my post regarding WS-Forums earlier today. I should stress that WS-Forums is nothing special; rather, it simply extends the ASP.NET Forums object model to make it accessible via SOAP. The screenshot of the WinForm I posted earlier today merely serves as a proof-of-concept. IMO, the really interesting stuff are the endpoints themselves - especially when you start to think about all of the possible use cases (i.e. distributed query). I'm implementing support for X.509 v3 certificates into the WS-Forums registration process to support asymmetric encryption at both ends of the pipe. This change will require modifying the registration page slightly; the e-mail address confirmation process will attach a client authentication certificate via SMTP to the registering user with my local machine designated as the root authority. (I've installed Certificate Services on my laptop to serve as a stand-alone CA for this exact purpose.) Playing around with WSE is too much fun. Pleasure overload. 10:05:48 PM    comment []

Windows Server 2003 Goes Gold (news.com) http://news.com.com/2100-1012-994437.html Hooray! 6:04:07 PM    comment []

Essential ASP.NET with Examples in C# One ASP.NET book to rule them all. In the last 2 years I have seen a lot of ASP.NET books and they all pretty much suck, whoops, are a bit lacking in real information-) (The notable exception, of course, is Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Server... ) I mean, who really wants to read 500 pages of dragging DataGrids and the like around and setting properties? Do you really need a 1000 page book to figure out how to drag and drop and set properties? So, I have been waiting with great anticpation DM'er Fritz Onion's book as he is one of the crown princes of ASP.NET and I must say that Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# just absolutely rocks! Right down into the architecture in Chapter 1, Bing! HTTP Pipeline in Chapter 4, Valifation, Data Binding, Custom Controls, etc. In other words, the real stuff. This is the one ASP.NET book to rule them all! Excuse my enthusiasm, I am fueled by Red Bull at the moment-) [Sam Gentile's Blog] Too... many... books... Must... keep... reading... Zzz... 12:37:31 AM    comment []

WS-Forums I'm having way too much fun with WSE... WSE + the ASP.NET Forums == WS-Forums. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at what's getting passed across the wire... <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">  <soap:Header>   <wsrp:path soap:actor="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/actor/next" soap:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:wsrp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/rp">    <wsrp:action>http://webservices.asp.net/forums/GetAllForums</wsrp:action>    <wsrp:to>http://localhost:8080/ws-forums/ForumService.asmx</wsrp:to>    <wsrp:id>uuid:aafbe654-eee0-4d02-aff8-3be41f24f374</wsrp:id>   </wsrp:path>   <wsu:Timestamp xmlns:wsu="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/07/utility">    <wsu:Created>2003-03-27T05:44:15Z</wsu:Created>    <wsu:Expires>2003-03-27T05:49:15Z</wsu:Expires>   </wsu:Timestamp>   <wsse:Security soap:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:wsse="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/07/secext">    <wsse:UsernameToken xmlns:wsu="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/07/utility" wsu:Id="SecurityToken-90b2820e-5fd6-4e10-b20c-c736e1ea6639">    <wsse:Username>Admin</wsse:Username>    <wsse:Password Type="wsse:PasswordDigest">99F7CPxvYZwCeamQDvY6PVu7QQc=</wsse:Password>    <wsse:Nonce>8zgNIp8bHtbpXB+zNWYRzg==</wsse:Nonce>    <wsu:Created>2003-03-27T05:44:15Z</wsu:Created>   </wsse:UsernameToken>  </wsse:Security>  </soap:Header>  <soap:Body>   <GetAllForums xmlns="http://webservices.asp.net/forums">    <showAllForums>true</showAllForums>    <username>Admin</username>   </GetAllForums>  </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope> The endpoint's response: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">  <soap:Header>   <wsu:Timestamp xmlns:wsu="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/07/utility">    <wsu:Created>2003-03-27T05:44:16Z</wsu:Created>    <wsu:Expires>2003-03-27T05:49:16Z</wsu:Expires>   </wsu:Timestamp>  </soap:Header>  <soap:Body>   <GetAllForumsResponse xmlns="http://webservices.asp.net/forums">    <GetAllForumsResult>     <Forum>      <IsPrivate>false</IsPrivate>      <ForumID>2</ForumID>      <ParentId>0</ParentId>      <DisplayMask>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA==</DisplayMask>      <ForumGroupId>1</ForumGroupId>      <SortOrder>20</SortOrder>      <LastUserActivity>2003-03-26T23:38:39.1130000-06:00</LastUserActivity>      <TotalPosts>0</TotalPosts>      <MostRecentPostDate>0001-02-01T00:00:00.0000000-06:00</MostRecentPostDate>      <MostRecentPostId>0</MostRecentPostId>      <MostRecentThreadId>0</MostRecentThreadId>      <MostRecentPostAuthor />      <TotalThreads>0</TotalThreads>      <DaysToView>0</DaysToView>      <Name>Sample Moderated Forum</Name>      <Description>A sample moderated forum created when the AspNetForums were installed.</Description>      <Moderated>true</Moderated>      <Active>true</Active>      <DateCreated>2003-02-25T19:21:12.6570000-06:00</DateCreated>     </Forum>     <Forum>      ...     </Forum>    </GetAllForumsResult>   </GetAllForumsResponse>  </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope> A nice, little demonstration of WS-Security (via WSE). Now, to extend this even further; message-level signing and encryption, establishing a secure context, forming a trust model, support for alternative bindings, etc. 12:00:44 AM    comment []