embedio: A C# repository from linuxyun

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This README is for EmbedIO v2.x. Click here if you are using EmbedIO v1.x.

Overview
- EmbedIO 2.0 - What's new
- Some usage scenarios
Installation
Usage
Support for SSL
Examples
Related Projects and Nugets
Special Thanks

Overview

A tiny, cross-platform, module based, MIT-licensed web server for .NET Framework and .NET Core.

Written entirely in C#, using our helpful library SWAN
Network operations use the async/await pattern: Responses are handled asynchronously
Multiple implementations support: EmbedIO can use Microsoft HttpListener or internal Http Listener based on Mono/websocket-sharp projects
Cross-platform: tested on multiple OS and runtimes. From Windows .NET Framework to Linux MONO.
Extensible: Write your own modules -- For example, video streaming, UPnP, etc. Check out EmbedIO Extras for additional modules
Small memory footprint
Create REST APIs quickly with the out-of-the-box Web API module
Serve static or embedded files with 1 line of code (also out-of-the-box)
Handle sessions with the built-in LocalSessionWebModule
WebSockets support
CORS support. Origin, Header and Method validation with OPTIONS preflight
Supports HTTP 206 Partial Content
Support Xamarin Forms
And many more options in the same package

Some notes regarding WebSocket and runtimes support:

Runtime	HTTP implementation	WebSocket support	Notes
NET452	Unosquare and Microsoft	Yes	Support Win7+ OS, Linux and macOS.
NET472	Unosquare and Microsoft	Yes	Support Win8+ OS.
NETSTANDARD13	Unosquare	Yes	Support Windows, Linux and macOS using native System.Net library
NETSTANDARD20	Unosquare and Microsoft	Yes	Support Windows, Linux and macOS using native System.Net library
UAP	Unosquare	No	Support Windows Universal Platform until EmbedIO version 2.1.1.

EmbedIO 2.0 - What's new

Breaking changes

WebApiController is renewed. Reduce the methods overhead removing the WebServer and Context arguments. See examples below.
RoutingStrategy.Regex is the default routing scheme.

Additional changes

IHttpListener is runtime/platform independent, you can choose Unosquare HttpListener implementation with NET472 or NETSTANDARD20. This separation of implementations brings new access to interfaces from common Http objects like IHttpRequest, IHttpContext and more.
IWebServer is a new interface to create custom web server implementation, like a Test Web Server where all the operations are in-memory to speed up unit testing. Similar to TestServer from OWIN
General improvements in how the Unosquare HttpListner is working and code clean-up.

Note - We encourage to upgrade to the newest EmbedIO version. Branch version 1.X will no longer be maintained, and issues will be tested against 2.X and resolved just there.

Some usage scenarios:

Write a cross-platform GUI entirely using React/AngularJS/Vue.js or any Javascript framework
Write a game using Babylon.js and make EmbedIO your serve your code and assets
Create GUIs for Windows services or Linux daemons
Works well with LiteLib - add SQLite support in minutes!
Write client applications with real-time communication between them using WebSockets
Write internal web server for Xamarin Forms applications

Installation:

You can start using EmbedIO by just downloading the nuget.

Package Manager

PM> Install-Package EmbedIO

.NET CLI

> dotnet add package EmbedIO

Usage

WebServer Setup

IHttpContext Extension Methods

By adding the namespace Unosquare.Labs.EmbedIO to your class, you can use some helpful extension methods for IHttpContext, IHttpResponse and IHttpRequest. These methods can be used in any Web module (like Fallback Module) or inside a WebAPI Controller method.

Below, some common scenarios using a WebAPI Controller method as body function:

Reading from a POST body as a dictionary (application/x-www-form-urlencoded)

For reading a dictionary from a HTTP Request body you can use RequestFormDataDictionary. This method works directly from IHttpContext and returns the key-value pairs sent by using the Contet-Type 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'.

    [WebApiHandler(HttpVerbs.Post, "/api/data")]
    public async Task<bool> PostData() 
    {
        var data = this.RequestFormDataDictionary();
	
	// Perform an operation with the data
	await SaveData(data);
	
	return true;
    }

Reading from a POST body as a JSON payload (application/json)

For reading a JSON payload and deserialize it to an object from a HTTP Request body you can use ParseJson. This method works directly from IHttpContext and returns an object of the type specified in the generic type.

    [WebApiHandler(HttpVerbs.Post, "/api/data")]
    public async Task<bool> PostJsonData() 
    {
        var data = this.ParseJson<MyData>();
	
	// Perform an operation with the data
	await SaveData(data);
	
	return true;
    }

Reading from a POST body as a FormData (multipart/form-data)

EmbedIO doesn't provide the functionality to read from a Multipart FormData stream. But you can check the HttpMultipartParser Nuget and connect the Request input directly to the HttpMultipartParser, very helpful and small library.

There is another solution but it requires this Microsoft Nuget.

Writing a binary stream

For writing a binary stream directly to the Response Output Stream you can use BinaryResponseAsync. This method has an overload to use IHttpContext and you need to set the Content-Type beforehand.

    [WebApiHandler(HttpVerbs.Get, "/api/binary")]
    public async Task<bool> GetBinary() 
    {
        var stream = new MemoryStream();
	
	// Call a fictional external source
	await GetExternalStream(stream);
	
	return await this.BinaryResponseAsync(stream);
    }

Easy Routes

Support for SSL

Both HTTP listeners (Microsoft and Unosquare) can open a web server using SSL. This support is for Windows only (for now) and you need to manually register your certificate or use the WebServerOptions class to initialize a new WebServer instance. This section will provide some examples of how to use SSL but first a brief explanation of how SSL works on Windows.

For Windows Vista or better, Microsoft provides Network Shell (netsh). This command line tool allows to map an IP-port to a certificate, so incoming HTTP request can upgrade the connection to a secure stream using the provided certificate. EmbedIO can read or register certificates to a default store (My/LocalMachine) and use them against a netsh sslcert for binding the first https prefix registered.

For Windows XP and Mono, you can use manually the httpcfg for registering the binding.

Using a PFX file and AutoRegister option

The more practical case to use EmbedIO with SSL is the AutoRegister option. You need to create a WebServerOptions instance with the path to a PFX file and the AutoRegister flag on. This options will try to get or register the certificate to the default certificate store. Then it will use the certificate thumbprint to register with netsh the FIRST https prefix registered on the options.

Using AutoLoad option

If you already have a certificate on the default certificate store and the binding is also registered in netsh, you can use Autoload flag and optionally provide a certificate thumbprint. If the certificate thumbprint is not provided, EmbedIO will read the data from netsh. After getting successfully the certificate from the store, the raw data is passed to the WebServer.

Examples

Basic Example

Please note the comments are the important part here. More info is available in the samples.

namespace Unosquare
{
    using System;
    using Unosquare.Labs.EmbedIO;
    using Unosquare.Labs.EmbedIO.Modules;

    class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Defines the entry point of the application.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="args">The arguments.</param>
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var url = "http://localhost:9696/";
            if (args.Length > 0)
                url = args[0];

            // Our web server is disposable.
            using (var server = new WebServer(url))
            {
                // First, we will configure our web server by adding Modules.
                // Please note that order DOES matter.
                // ================================================================================================
                // If we want to enable sessions, we simply register the LocalSessionModule
                // Beware that this is an in-memory session storage mechanism so, avoid storing very large objects.
                // You can use the server.GetSession() method to get the SessionInfo object and manupulate it.
                // You could potentially implement a distributed session module using something like Redis
                server.WithLocalSession();

                // Here we setup serving of static files
                server.RegisterModule(new StaticFilesModule("c:/web"));
                // The static files module will cache small files in ram until it detects they have been modified.
                server.Module<StaticFilesModule>().UseRamCache = true;

                // Once we've registered our modules and configured them, we call the RunAsync() method.
                server.RunAsync();

                // Fire up the browser to show the content if we are debugging!
#if DEBUG
                var browser = new System.Diagnostics.Process()
                {
                    StartInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(url) { UseShellExecute = true }
                };
                browser.Start();
#endif
                // Wait for any key to be pressed before disposing of our web server.
                // In a service, we'd manage the lifecycle of our web server using
                // something like a BackgroundWorker or a ManualResetEvent.
                Console.ReadKey(true);
            }
        }
    }
}

Fluent Example

Many extension methods are available. This allows you to create a web server instance in a fluent style by dotting in configuration options.

namespace Unosquare
{
    using System;
    using Unosquare.Labs.EmbedIO;

    internal class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Defines the entry point of the application.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="args">The arguments.</param>
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var url = "http://localhost:9696/";
            if (args.Length > 0)
                url = args[0];

            // Create Webserver and attach LocalSession and Static
            // files module and CORS enabled
            var server = WebServer
                .Create(url)
                .EnableCors()
                .WithLocalSession()
                .WithStaticFolderAt("c:/web");

            var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
            var task = server.RunAsync(cts.Token);

            Console.ReadKey(true);
            cts.Cancel();

			// Wait before dispose server
            task.Wait();
            server.Dispose();
        }
    }
}

REST API Example

The WebApi module supports two routing strategies: Wildcard and Regex. By default, the WebApi module will use the Regex Routing Strategy trying to match and resolve the values from a route template, in a similar fashion to Microsoft's Web API.

A method with the following route /api/people/{id} is going to match any request URL with three segments: the first two api and people and the last one is going to be parsed or converted to the type in the id argument of the handling method signature. Please read on if this was confusing as it is much simpler than it sounds. Additionally, you can put multiple values to match, for example /api/people/{mainSkill}/{age}, and receive the parsed values from the URL straight into the arguments of your handler method.

During server setup:

var server =  new WebServer("http://localhost:9696/", RoutingStrategy.Regex);

server.RegisterModule(new WebApiModule());
server.Module<WebApiModule>().RegisterController<PeopleController>();

And our controller class (using default Regex Strategy) looks like:

public class PeopleController : WebApiController
{
    public PeopleController(IHttpContext context)
    : base(context)
    {
    }

    [WebApiHandler(HttpVerbs.Get, "/api/people/{id}")]
    public bool GetPeople(int id)
    {
        try
        {
            if (People.Any(p => p.Key == id))
            {
                return this.JsonResponse(People.FirstOrDefault(p => p.Key == id));
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            return this.JsonExceptionResponse(ex);
        }
    }
    
    // You can override the default headers and add custom headers to each API Response.
    public override void SetDefaultHeaders() => this.NoCache();
}

The previous default strategy (Wildcard) matches routes using the asterisk * character in the route. For example:

The route /api/people/* will match any request with a URL starting with the two first URL segments api and people and ending with anything. The route /api/people/hello will be matched.
You can also use wildcards in the middle of the route. The route /api/people/*/details will match requests starting with the two first URL segments api and people, and end with a details segment. The route /api/people/hello/details will be matched.