Single connection string for Multiple developers

By -
Our development team has been growing as new capabilities and features are being added. Having to deal with web.config changes and TFS can become frustrating so here's what we found to be the easiest solution without having to manage several *.config files (and additional accompanying sub-config files) and having to deal with what to check-in to TFS and what not to.

Database Alias to the rescue...ask each developer on your team to do the following:

STEP 1 - Run SQL Server Configuration Manager 

STEP 2 - Check that SQL Server Browsing is running
- click on SQL Server Services
- check that  SQL Server Browsing  is set to   Automatic 
   - double click > go to Service > change Start to Automatic > Click OK 

STEP 3 - Get the TCP/IP Port Number
- Under SQL Server Network Configuration, click on Protocols for ...
-  TCP/IP  should be  Enabled 
-  IPAll  should be  Yes 
- double click > go to IP Addresses > scroll to the very bottom > under IPAll > copy the  TCP Dynamic Ports number 

Note: Depending on your SQL Server installation, the port just might be the default SQL Server port 1433

STEP 4 - Add a local db Alias 
Note: repeat for 32 and 64 bit
- go to SQL Native 11.0 Configuration
- right-click Aliases and create a new Alias
-  Alias Name  =  LOCALDEV  (this will be the common Data Source for all developers)
-  Port No  = paste the  TCP Dynamic Ports number  from STEP 3
-  Protocol  =  TCP/IP 
-  Server  = your local  SQL Server instance name  (this is your existing connection string Data Source or SQL Server Management Studio Server Name)

Replace your connection string Data Source name with  LOCALDEV , check it in to TFS and you're good to go.

Thanks for visiting!

 [original publish date: 07/11/16]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ASP.NET Identity Remember Me

By -
ASP.NET Identity comes with a built-in Remember Me feature on the Login form, it's supposed to keep a user logged in (via an authentication cookie) for a predetermined period of time set via your code settings. However it sometimes might not work as expected and users will have to frequently log in which will cause quite a bit of frustration. Your first reaction is to modify your code then test / rinse / repeat and possibly still see the same unsuccessful results ... did you also check your website's IIS settings? Code Settings Let's first take a look at the Code configuration settings. If you create a new default MVC 5.x application in Visual Studio (with Authentication set to  Individual User Accounts ) the following code is generated (in  /App_Start/Startup.Auth.cs ): app.UseCookieAuthentication(new CookieAuthenticationOptions { AuthenticationType = DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ApplicationCookie, LoginPath = new PathString("/Account/Login"), Provi
Read more

IIS Express Client Certificates

By -
We recently had to investigate how to  CAC -enable a web application, one of the challenges was setting up a proper development environment to prototype & test code changes before deploying to other environments. STEP 1  - You need to have a client certificate installed on your development machine. Assuming you don't have a readily available CAC or Smart Card, you can either  create a self-signed certificate  OR for this example we just used a  corporate outlook email client certificate (used to sign & encrypt emails).   Note : The certificate should be available in your web browser. For IE go to  Internet Options > Content > Certificates  to view all your certificates. In Chrome, go to  Settings > Show advanced settings > HTTPS/SSL > Manage certificates . STEP 2  - Using Visual Studio, create a default ASP.NET MVC 5 web application. STEP 3  - Enable SSL for your project. In Visual Studio, hit  F4  to open Project Properties and set   SSL Enabled   to   T
Read more

ASP.NET MVC - How to enable/disable CaC/Client Certificate authentication per area or route.

By -
Image
Use Case Typically, when you enable CaC/Client Certificates on a web app you enable it for the entire app. But what if you wanted to disable it for certain sections of the site. For example, an API controller, or a specific Area that hosts pages that can be publicly viewed. Luckily, it's very easy to make this happen. I'll walk through an example that requires CaC authentication for the base app but does not require it to make requests on an API controller, which will use leverage the HTTP Authentication header for auth.  1. Modify the web.config To require client certs for the base app, add this snippet inside the <system.webServer> tag. <!-- Access for the Base App --> <security> <access sslFlags="Ssl, SslNegotiateCert, SslRequireCert" /> </security> Now we can selectively disable client certs for specific sections of the app. In this case, I am disabling it for all routes starting with /api/v1 .
Read more