Aaron Hoffman's Blog

AWS DynamoDB SDK support for .NET DateTimeOffset

2024-01-05T14:46:00.003-06:00

The AWS DynamoDB SDK does not support the .NET DateTimeOffset datatype by default.

You may have received an exception similar to:

System.InvalidOperationException: Type System.Nullable System.DateTimeOffset is unsupported, it cannot be instantiated. at Amazon.DynamoDBv2.DataModel

But you can add a custom IPropertyConverter so that you can persist DateTimeOffset.

public class DateTimeOffsetPropertyConverter : IPropertyConverter

{

public static readonly string DateTimeOffsetPersistenceFormatString = "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.ffffzzz";

public object FromEntry(DynamoDBEntry entry)

{

if (entry == null)

{

throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(entry));

}

var primitive = entry as Primitive;

if (primitive == null)

{

throw new ArgumentException($"{nameof(entry)} [{entry?.GetType()?.Name}] is not an instance of {nameof(Primitive)}.");

}

var dateString = primitive.Value as string;

if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(dateString))

{

throw new ArgumentException($"{nameof(entry)} does not contain a string primitive value.");

}

if (DateTimeOffset.TryParse(dateString, out var dateTimeOffset))

{

return dateTimeOffset;

}

throw new ArgumentException($"{nameof(entry)} primitive string value could not be parsed.");

}

public DynamoDBEntry ToEntry(object value)

{

if (value == null)

{

throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(value));

}

if (value is not DateTimeOffset)

{

throw new ArgumentException($"{nameof(value)} [{value.GetType().Name}] is not an instance of {nameof(DateTimeOffset)}.");

}

var dateTimeOffset = (DateTimeOffset)value;

var entry = new Primitive(dateTimeOffset.ToString(DateTimeOffsetPersistenceFormatString));

return entry;

}

Hope this helps,
Aaron

ASP.NET .NET 6 OIDC Retrieve JWT AccessToken after SaveTokens

2021-12-02T16:04:00.003-06:00

I was not able to find the docs for retrieving the JWT AccessToken in ASP.NET .NET 6 after they are saved so I decided to document it here.

You may be familiar with the HttpContext.GetTokenAsync() method. This appears to have worked in previous version of .NET, but I could not get it to work in .NET 6.

First, make sure you are saving the access tokens in the AddOpenIdConnect configuration.

builder

.Services

.AddAuthentication(options =>

{

options.DefaultScheme = CookieAuthenticationDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;

options.DefaultChallengeScheme = OpenIdConnectDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;

})

.AddCookie()

.AddOpenIdConnect(options =>

{

options.SaveTokens = true;

});

Then, instead of HttpContext.GetTokenAsync(), call HttpContext.AuthenticateAsync(), and get the token out of the AuthenticateResult.

var accessToken = authenticateResult?.Properties?.GetString(".Token.access_token");

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Auth0: Restrict SPA Application Access to API Audience/Permissions/Scopes

2021-03-19T11:53:00.000-05:00

In Auth0 you can restrict the APIs/Permissions a Machine-to-Machine type Application has access to using the "APIs" section in the Application Configuration:

However, SPA type Applications do not have an equivalent configuration option:

There is no way to restrict the APIs a SPA type Application has access to directly. Instead, you must restrict the APIs/Permissions/Scopes a User has access to. (Most likely you'll want to do this using Roles.)

You must also ensure the "Enable RBAC" setting is turned on for all of your APIs (this setting is off by default).

If the "Enable RBAC" setting is NOT turned on, a SPA Application will be able to request a token for any API/Permission/Scope combination and Auth0 will return a valid token!

And even with this setting turned on, a SPA Application will be able to request and receive a token for an API the user does NOT have access to! The Audience value in the access token will be valid for the API, however the "scopes" and "permissions" will be empty.

The API validating a token from Auth0 must validate the Audience AND all relevant/necessary scopes.

In summary, turn on "Enable RBAC" for all APIs and validate the Audience AND Permissions on all access tokens.

Hope this helps!

Aaron

Find Azure Application Insights Resource by InstrumentationKey

2020-12-17T15:30:00.001-06:00

I had a need to query some Application Insights logs, but all I had was the InstrumentationKey.

I didn't want to open each of the Application Insights instances and check the key (there were a lot), but as long as you have the Azure "Az" Powershell Module installed, you can run this script to print out all App Insights instances and their associated Instrumentation Key:

https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/cf5bd0c59216b3e6a57c0c6ea134cafb

	# for each subscription in context
	foreach ($subId in (Get-AzSubscription).Id \| Get-Unique) {
	write-host "Subscription $subId"

	# set context to the given subId
	Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId $subId

	# List the name and InstrumentationKey of all Application Insights resources in this sub
	Get-AzResource -ResourceType Microsoft.Insights/components -ExpandProperties \| select -ExpandProperty Properties \| select Name, InstrumentationKey \| ft
	}

Hope this helps!

Aaron

Simple Rules Engine in C#

2020-12-17T15:23:00.003-06:00

There are some C# "Rules Engines" floating around however they rely on a no-longer-supported nuget package (dynamic linq) https://github.com/microsoft/RulesEngine

I created this "SimpleRulesEngine" that does not rely on lambdas or expression trees. The expressions can be serialized to JSON. https://github.com/aaronhoffman/SimpleRulesEngine

I hope to get a simple example web application added to this repo as well, but I'm not sure when I will have time. Please check out the unit tests for now to see how this can be used.

Hope this helps,

Aaron

Configure SonarAnalyzer.CSharp with .editorconfig, no need for SonarCloud or SonarQube

2020-09-15T12:18:00.003-05:00

Our goal was to use SonarSource/SonarQube static code analysis with the most "minimal" install/configuration footprint.

We wanted the static code analysis to break/fail the build on the local developer machines as well as our CI/CD Azure DevOps environment if a rule was violated.

SonarSource products usually rely on some external source, SonarCloud/SonarQube to determine which rules to apply on the local dev machine, and to store the results. We wanted to eliminate these dependencies.

SonarSource also provides a Visual Studio extension called SonarLint to help check the static code analysis rules within the Visual Studio IDE without needing an external source for the rules.

The static code analysis rules SonarLint enforces are also defined in the SonarAnalyzer.CSharp nuget package. This nuget package is a set of Roslyn Code Analyzers.

In .NET Core, Roslyn Code Analyzers are triggered during a build if the nuget package is referenced by the project. Also in .NET Core, these analyzers can be configured in .editorconfig instead of ruleset files.

Given all that, to get SonarQube static code analysis to execute on local machine and Azure DevOps builds with the most minimal setup, just reference the SonarAnalyzer.CSharp nuget package in each of your projects and add an editorconfig file to the root of your project. You can configure rule severity in the editorconfig file by adding lines like this:

# S1075: URIs should not be hardcoded
dotnet_diagnostic.S1075.severity = error

Hope this helps,

Aaron

Thanks to this github issue for getting me to the finish line with the editorconfig file.

AspNet Core JWT Authentication ValidateLifetime "The token has no expiration"

2019-07-01T15:53:00.001-05:00

Found a "bug" within aspnet core JWT Authentication and thought I'd write something up since I could not find much info online.

Found the answer here, but it's not easy to find: https://github.com/SevenSpikes/api-plugin-for-nopcommerce/issues/99

Essentially, if you create a valid JWT with an expiration time after the year 2038, the default aspnet core JWT Auth will determine that it is invalid saying, "The token has no expiration".

The solution is to create a JWT with an expiration time after "now" but before the year 2038.

Hope this helps,
Aaron

United States Postal Code to State Map

2018-11-20T16:43:00.001-06:00

I had a need to determine the State code given a zip code/postal code and could not find a concise list I could use as the base of the map. There is a PDF available on irs.gov, but that doesn't lend itself well to automation.

Using that PDF, I generated this CSV file: https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/d7a598efb593e3acf5e0a39c0dd8b52a

There are two different formats depending on your use case. I hope you find it useful!
-Aaron

Newtonsoft Json BaseJsonConverter

2018-09-13T16:50:00.002-05:00

I've recently had a need for a custom JsonConverter to read and write data to CosmosDb in a way that utilizes a CosmosDb document's `id` property. (more on that in a later post)

My first step was to investigate a custom Newtonsoft.Json JsonConverter. I thought that there might be a BaseJsonConverter implementation somewhere in the docs, but I was wrong.

After digging through many different custom converters, I think I've discovered what the most trivial custom converter might look like.

You can find the example here, and customize it further to fit your needs:

https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/de40ac508de95101fa41859195728e39

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Complete Project Gutenberg Catalog in JSON

2018-06-23T16:06:00.001-05:00

Project Gutenberg is an amazing site containing over 57,000 free ebooks at the time of this writing.

Recently I've been working on a project to create a database of book bibliographies. A database of book references from within other books. You'd be able to answer the query: Show me all the books that reference "Thinking Fast and Slow". I plan to use Project Gutenberg as the repository that I use to create the first version of this database.

Project Gutenberg currently makes their complete project catalog available as a collection of RDF files found here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds

RDF is not something I've worked with in the past, so I converted them to JSON files. You can download that set of files from here:

https://sfp.blob.core.windows.net/public/gutenberg_catalog.zip

Hope this helps,
Aaron

ASP.NET Core 2.1 Identity

2018-06-16T11:52:00.001-05:00

I thought I'd compile some resources on ASP.NET Core 2.1 Identity. Hope you find these useful:

Database schema of tables that are generated after the first EF Migration:

https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/74f4c072afaa0459dcd6595b6380f67d

You can override password rules in the Startup.cs class:

services.AddDefaultIdentity()
.AddEntityFrameworkStores();

services.Configure(options =>
{
options.Password.RequireDigit = false;
options.Password.RequireLowercase = false;
options.Password.RequireUppercase = false;
options.Password.RequireNonAlphanumeric = false;
});

If you are wondering where the AccountController or login pages are (because they do not appear in the solution explorer by default) more info can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/security/authentication/scaffold-identity?view=aspnetcore-2.1&tabs=visual-studio

That's it for now, hopefully more to come...
Aaron

Programmatically add Other Search Engines to Google Chrome for VSTS Shortcuts

2018-04-26T15:07:00.002-05:00

When I'm working with a new repo/project in VSTS, I like to set up shortcuts in Google Chrome to be able to quickly jump to a specific Work Item, PR, Build, or Release based on the ID.

To do this, I take advantage of Chrome's "other search engines" settings.

You can manually add these by specifying a Short Name, a Keyword, and the URL to navigate to when that keyword is typed into the browser's address bar.

Until now, I would manually add these URLs one at a time, but being a lazy developer, I wanted a way to automate this process. I discovered that Chrome uses a SQLite database to store these values, and you can side-load new entries by simply performing a SQL Insert into the `keywords` table of that SQLite database!

You can use the following SQL Script to insert the default set of shortcuts I usually add for each new VSTS project/repo:

https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/60660365310b7ff462b547fea9eb605b

Steps to Add:

1. Ensure all instances of Google Chrome are closed (the SQLite DB will be locked if Chrome is open.)

2. Install/Open a SQLite browser (e.g. http://sqlitebrowser.org/)

3. Open the SQLite DB for the Chrome Profile you're using (if you're not using Google Chrome Profiles... you should be.) The SQLite DB can be found here: "C:\Users\{your-user}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Profile {XX}\Web Data" Note that the SQLite DB File is called "Web Data" with no extension.

4. Copy this script, and perform a find replace on the 4 "variables" defined in the comment at the top of the file.

5. Execute that script to insert the 8 new shortcut records into the `keywords` table.

How to Use:

For this demo, lets say you used "mr" as the shortcut prefix.

1. In Chrome, make the address bar active (ctrl + L) (it should highlight whatever contents may already be in the address bar)

2. With the address bar active, type: "mrwis" then a space, then enter. You will navigate to the "Work Items" page for that VSTS Project.

3. Highlight the address bar again, and type: "mrwi", then a space, then type the work item number you want to navigate to. Let's try "1". Then press enter. You will navigate to Work Item with the ID of 1.

4. Here are the other shortcuts (again, for the prefix of "mr" for this example)

mrwis ---- all recent work items
mrwi ---- single work item
mrprs ---- all active pull requests
mrpr ---- single pull request
mrbs ---- all recent builds
mrb ---- single build
mrrs ---- all recent releases
mrr ---- single release

Hope this helps!
Aaron

Location of SqlPackage.exe on VSTS and Azure

2018-04-25T09:34:00.001-05:00

If you're looking to deploy a Visual Studio Database Project via VSTS to Azure, you can use the Azure SQL Database Deployment Release Task to include the deployment in your CI/CD process.

When a .dbproj builds, it creates a .dacpac file that contains the database definition/schema. The DB Deployment Release Task uses the SqlPackage.exe executable to deploy/sync the target database with the definitions in the dacpac file.

SqlPackage.exe can do more than just `publish`. However, at this time, the publish action is the only action supported by that release task.

If you'd like to perform other actions (e.g. `DeployReport` or `Script`), you can call the SqlPackage.exe directly using a PowerShell Script Release Task. However, to do that, you'll need to know the location of the SqlPackage.exe on the VSTS host, because it is not available in the PATH by default.

To find the location of SqlPackage.exe, the Azure SQL DB Deploy task uses this utility script: https://github.com/Microsoft/vsts-tasks/blob/master/Tasks/SqlAzureDacpacDeployment/FindSqlPackagePath.ps1

If you're using the `inline script` option of the PowerShell Script Release Task, you are limited to 500 characters (... yeah, I know) so you won't be able to use that method.

The method below is fragile, but to find SqlPackage.exe you can first create a temporary inline script that searches for SqlPackage.exe, then just hard code that path into your script.

Create an PowerShell script task with the following inline script:

dir -Path "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft*" -Filter "SqlPackage.exe" -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | %{$_.FullName}

For me, that found the following instances of SqlPackage.exe (note: for some reason, the above `dir` command will take ~15 minutes to complete on VSTS. This was on the "Hosted VS2017" VSTS agent):

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\SQLDB\DAC\130\sqlpackage.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\SQLDB\DAC\140\sqlpackage.exe

The SqlPackage.exe will usually be found under:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server

In Azure, via the portal, if you open a console for a Web App, and execute the following commands, you may find SqlPackage.exe here:

cd d:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\

dir /s /b *SqlPackage.exe

D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\DAC\bin\SqlPackage.exe

Hope this helps!
Aaron

Sync Github Gists with Git Repo

2018-04-04T09:54:00.001-05:00

I needed an easy way to sync github gists to my local machines and I couldn't find anything provided by gist, or any other open source projects out there so I put this little node app together quick.

Simply clone this repo and update the `users.json` file to sync all the associated public gists to your local machine.

https://github.com/aaronhoffman/gists

The node app uses the gists api and `git clone`s each gist into a folder with the same name as it's id:

Hope this helps!
Aaron

Use Azure Functions to Execute a SQL Azure Stored Procedure on a Timer

2018-02-14T11:13:00.000-06:00

It was hard to find this information all in one place, so I thought I'd throw a post together quick.

If you have the need to execute a stored procedure on a timer, that can be fairly easily accomplished with Azure Functions.

Create a new Timer Trigger Azure Function, set the cron timer as desired, and add code similar to the code below:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Configuration;
using Dapper;

public static void Run(TimerInfo myTimer, TraceWriter log)
{
var conString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ConString"]?.ConnectionString;

using(var con = new SqlConnection(conString))
{
con.Execute("dbo.MyProc", commandType: CommandType.StoredProcedure);
}
}

This code will not compile at this time. Note the name of the connection string, we'll need that in the app settings page.

Go to the Connection Strings section of the Application Settings for the function app (this will look very similar to the Connection Strings section of a Web App). Find the Application Settings by clicking on the name of the Function App and looking in the "Configured features" to the right.

Add a connection string with the same name that was used in your function app, "ConString" in the code above.

Now, click on the name of your function in the left pane (to see the .csx code), and on the far right side, next to "Test" click on the "View Files" tab. Add a new file called project.json, and place the following dependencies in the file. more info.

{
"frameworks": {
"net46": {
"dependencies": {
"Dapper": "1.50.2",
"System.Data.SqlClient": "4.3.0",
"Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ConfigurationManager": "3.2.3"
}
}
}
}

You can add additional nuget package dependencies here as well.

And that should be it. Test your function by clicking the "Run" button and make sure everything was wired up correctly.

Hope this helps!
Aaron

Create Google Contact via API and Add To My Contacts System Group

2018-01-12T14:15:00.001-06:00

When you create a new Contact via the Google Contacts API, by default it will not appear in the list of contacts on the Google Contacts webpage, however, if you search for the contact there, it will appear. If you then click the "Add to contacts" button, it will appear in that contacts list, and increase your contact count in the top left of the page.

There is a way to add new contacts via the API and have them show up in this list, it is just not well documented within the API documentation. The code below demonstrates how to do this is C#.

What appears to be a list of all contacts on the Google Contacts page is actually just a subset of all your contacts, it is actually the "My Contacts" System Group. When you create a new contact via the API, you must specify that this new contact is part of that system group for it to appear on the contacts page without searching.

Steps:
1. Create a ContactsRequest
2. Get a list of all groups and search for the "My Contacts" System Group.
3. Create a new `Contact`
4. Add a `GroupMembership` with an HRef equal to the "My Contacts" System Group Id.
5. Insert the new contact via the ContactsRequest.

Create Contact Gist

Hope this helps,
Aaron

p.s. I created a tool to sync contacts between gmail accounts. Check it out here: https://www.gmailcontactsync.com/

Visual Studio 2017 Code Snippet INotifyPropertyChanged

2017-12-06T14:11:00.000-06:00

This is an update to the vs2010 code snippet: https://aaron-hoffman.blogspot.com/2010/09/visual-studio-code-snippet-for-notify.html

Code can now be found here: https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/c821acf4bb3b3beb0759e93bbe3a2402

Hope this helps,
Aaron

NYSE Historical Stock Price Data From Quandl

2017-11-07T13:06:00.000-06:00

Quandl is a great resource for historical stock price data. I thought I'd pull some meta-data out of the "Wiki EOD Stock Prices" data set in order to help future developers.

First, here is the table structure I used to insert the CSV flat file into SQL Server:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[SymbolHistory](
[ticker] [varchar](5) NULL,
[date] [date] NULL,
[open] [decimal](16, 6) NULL,
[high] [decimal](16, 6) NULL,
[low] [decimal](16, 6) NULL,
[close] [decimal](16, 6) NULL,
[volume] [decimal](26, 15) NULL,
[ex-dividend] [decimal](22, 18) NULL,
[split_ratio] [decimal](21, 19) NULL,
[adj_open] [decimal](25, 18) NULL,
[adj_high] [decimal](25, 18) NULL,
[adj_low] [decimal](25, 18) NULL,
[adj_close] [decimal](25, 18) NULL,
[adj_volume] [decimal](25, 18) NULL
)

Second, here is a list of all 3,194 NYSE symbols in the Quandl flat file as of 2017-11-06, and the min and max dates that they appeared.

https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/9ef359cbf39f2eefdf50fbd82f5d368a

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Generate Random AES Encryption Key

2017-08-30T17:09:00.002-05:00

I was looking for a way to quickly generate a random AES key online, but couldn't find anything. I looked into a couple methods using JavaScript, but determined that a C# solution would be better.

I needed to base64 encode the key array to store that value in a config file.

Here's the code I ended up with:
https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/09b56f77a95205fe10365bde2f4a02e5

UPDATE

Using Visual Studio's "C# Interactive" screen you can generate a key in a single line:

var keyArray = new byte[32]; (new System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider()).GetBytes(keyArray); Convert.ToBase64String(keyArray)

Hope this helps!
-Aaron

Sync Gmail Contacts Between Accounts

2017-07-02T11:33:00.001-05:00

For the last few years I've needed a way to easily sync contacts between gmail accounts. The only method previously supported by Google is to export to csv then re-import the contact list.

This may work for some, but clearly there is a desire for something else.

I finally found some time to dig into the Google Contact APIs and created a site to perform this sync operation easily, without needing to install any software:

https://www.mycontactsync.com/

Steps to sync:

1. Authorize your gmail account
2. Link an second gmail account (up to 5 currently)
3. Compare two accounts to see which email addresses and phone numbers will be created.
4. Click the Sync Accounts button to initiate the sync! It's that easy!

Hope this helps,
Aaron

links:
product hunt

note: this website was previously named "gmail contacts sync". The name was changed to verify the google api use.

Hide Main Menu for Visual Studio 2017

2017-05-28T11:30:00.000-05:00

To improve my development experience, I disable as many windows and toolbars in Visual Studio as possible. The one toolbar that you can not disable via the IDE itself is the "main menu" toolbar (File, Edit, View, etc.).

There is an extension that I've used in previous versions of Visual Studio that hides this menu until the user presses the `alt` key. Here is a link to that extension in the gallery:

old -- https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MatthewJohnsonMSFT.HideMainMenu -- old

For whatever reason, that extension does not appear available in 2017, so I've published my own extension to complete the same task: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AaronHoffman.HideMainMenu2017

I will gladly take mine down if Matthew Johnson ever updates his extension.

Hope this helps!
Aaron

git - protect local master branch, prevent commit and push

2017-04-15T08:40:00.000-05:00

If you've worked with a remote git hosting service like github, you're likely familiar with the concept of protecting a branch. Other remote git hosting services (vsts, bitbucket, gitlab, etc) also support the concept. It's a good idea to protect your remote in this way, but why stop there? You can also protect your local dev environment from human error by using git hooks.

A new git repo (`git init`) comes with various hook examples in the `.git/hooks/` directory. We can tie into two of those hooks, `pre-commit` and `pre-push`, to prevent commits to your local master branch, and to prevent attempting to push to the remote master branch (even from a local feature branch).

Place the two files found in the gist linked below in your repo's .git/hooks directory to prevent the two actions described above:

https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/ffbfd36928f9336be2436cffe39feaec

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Search iPhone Text Messages with SQLite SQL Query

2017-02-22T12:07:00.000-06:00

While you're here, check out some of our interactive visualizations:

Would you like to visualize your text messages?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my experience, the iPhone text message search functionality is usually pretty awful. Especially if you're trying to find a text from a few years ago. Luckily, if you backup your iPhone using iTunes, your text messages are exported/stored in a SQLite database, and it is fairly easy to query.

Here are the steps to SQL Query your Text Messages.

1. Backup your iPhone using iTunes.

2. Find the SQLite file that contains your text messages.
- in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/* with a filename of 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28

3. Ensure you have a SQLite Query tool (SQLiteBrowser is pretty good).

4. Open your SQLite Text Message DB File using your favorite SQLite query tool.

5. Execute this query to see all your messages.

Disclaimer, I had to guess at the table structure, therefore I can not confirm that the joins in this query are 100% correct. My quick spot checks seemed to check out, and I was able to query the message.text field to find old messages that the iPhone app was not able to.

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Azure Kudu Deployment with Version Number

2017-01-30T17:27:00.000-06:00

I recently blogged about generating a version.txt file on every build via Visual Studio. This solution is fine if you are building from you local machine and using Web Deploy to deploy to Azure, but if you have a github webhook and are using kudu, the VS Post Build Events are not executed.

The easiest way I found to generate a version.txt file for every deployment is to add a post deployment action to your Web App/App Service.

Create a file within the /site/deployments/tools/PostDeploymentActions/ folder of your App Service (you may need to create that folder). You can name the file whatever you'd like, I chose `generategitversionfile.cmd`. The file should contain at least the following line:

git rev-parse HEAD > "..\wwwroot\version.txt"

This command will be executed within the context of the `/site/repository` directory, that's why we need a more fully qualified path for where to write the file.

Now, after every kudu deploy, a new version.txt file will be created that contains the current git comment hash.

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Stop Azure WebJob from Azure WebSite

2017-01-26T18:10:00.002-06:00

I recently had the need to toggle the status of an Azure WebJob from the WebSite in the same Azure App Service. I found a couple half-complete answers online, but I thought I'd put together this simple guide to have a complete example all in one place.

To accomplish this, we'll be using the kudu REST API for WebJobs.

(note: I also looked into toggling the WEBJOBS_STOPPED environment variable from the WebSite, however I was not able to verify that solution was going to work. I confirmed I was able to set the environment variable from the website, however the value did not update in the "Application Settings" section of the Azure Portal and I was concerned the WebJobs may read a separate environment variable than the WebSite [process scoped vs machine envar for example])

The first thing you'll need to do is download the PublishSettings file (aka "Publish Profile") associated with the App Service (you need the username/password from this file to satisfy the basic auth requirement to the kudu API)

In the "Web Deploy" publish profile section of this file, find the "userName" and "userPWD" values, we'll need these in the code linked below.

The full documentation describing all the various REST endpoints is available here. I have created a simple gist of how to authenticate using basic auth and call a few WebJob methods to start and stop services here: https://gist.github.com/aaronhoffman/212dd858ff5d4275369f5fde01d9fd5d

Hope this helps!
Aaron