EProgrammer Blog

Kerberos Negotiate authentication on IIS sucks

EProgrammer — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 21:23:00 GMT

I just had to say it! Yes, I was frustrated.

Negotiate (through kerberos) on IIS sucks!
I love free speech, especially if something said is simply true (Joe Kaplan agreed with me)! Of course, this is not an excuse to be rude to MS employees :), but they never would improve things, if we don't ask for it right?

Why is Kerberos on IIS such a pain?
I need an Intranet site, running ASPX to utilize integrated security. That's nice. So, I don't have to maintain another user database (bleeh, not again). Secondly, for my AD solutions, I just needed full security based on AD, and (again) not my own security mechanism.
I hear you say: "What this fuzz about? It just works? Yes, it just works -as long as the credential on the current browser-IIS session- does not need to go any further than a page. For SQL Server, most developers, still would use standard security (and not pass-through authentication, which needs kerberos).
But for Exchange-, ADSI-, or Active Directory enabled pages, pages that -really do something- with Active Directory, IIS and Kerberos really need a professor (Joe Kaplan, but his fee is too high for me :) ) in Windows-kerberos-science.

Well, euh, it's easy, just 3 things to check!

there is

AD (Active Directory) support (does AD trust IIS+host for delegation?)
IIS - support (does IIS support Negotiate?)
Browser support (do IE support Negotiate and integrated logon?)

And between the lines, you need to make sure (such as using setspn.exe) that it all is going to work. To get this done and configured, you'd better not be a third party intranet supplier!

Microsoft, please, fix this. I mean, make it more easy for us.

Let me just enumerate some knowledgebase articles that give some checklists. (See knowledge base articles below, note there are much more articles about this subject!)

For a script, yummy for you, you might not have found this script before, because I'm just good :). What it does, is checking (enabling) the IIS server delegation. Note, using it is for your own risk!
(ps: My setup scripts are preferable VBS because that just works without any version messup).

What it does is actually shown in the picture. It checks the middle option.

update at 14 sep 2006: Some companies, have disabled netbios features and computer browsing. So they solely have DNS and AD, but this makes IIS fail to use negotiate as well. It just seems that IIS has a lot of legacy network component dependencies.

' this checks this IIS server, to be trusted

' otherwise, Negotiate (Wdigest) through kerberos will -not- work!

' if you don't like all protocols to be trusted, you should manually correct this property

' for this IIS server.

Sub SetThisIISServerTrusted()

Dim nt, ds, ldapHost, info, accInfo, dnMe

Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_SERVER = 2, ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3, _

ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1, ADS_UF_TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION = &H80000

Set nt = CreateObject("NameTranslate")

Set info = CreateObject("WinNTSystemInfo")

Set ds = GetObject("LDAP://rootDSE")

' the AD server that is serving us must be authorative enough

ldapHost = ds.Get("dnsHostName")

nt.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_SERVER, ldapHost

' computer name is by definition the netbiosname plus a $

nt.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, info.DomainName + "\" + info.ComputerName + "$"

dnMe = nt.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779)

Set ds = GetObject("LDAP://" + dnMe)

accInfo = ds.Get("userAccountControl")

accInfo = accInfo Or ADS_UF_TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION

ds.Put "userAccountControl", accInfo

On Error Resume Next

ds.SetInfo

If Err.Number > 0 Then

WScript.Echo " Error at SetThisIISServerTrusted:" + Err.Description + ":" + Err.Source + ":" + Hex(Err.Number)

End If

On Error Goto 0

Set ds = Nothing

End Sub

PRB: "Access Denied" Error Message When Using ServerXMLHTTP to Access an Authenticated Site
ms-help://MS.MSDNQTR.v80.en/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.KB.v10.en/enu_kbmsxmlkb/msxmlkb/291008.htm

Enable negotiate on IE6
ms-help://MS.MSDNQTR.v80.en/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.KB.v10.en/enu_kbie/ie/299838.htm

Troubleshoot IIS negiotiate 326985
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/security/tkerbdel.mspx

Enable negotiate on IIS
ms-help://MS.MSDNQTR.v80.en/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.KB.v10.en/enu_kbiis/iis/215383.htm

Enable negotiate using XMLHttp
ms-help://MS.MSDNQTR.v80.en/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.KB.v10.en/enu_kbmsxmlkb/msxmlkb/314404.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326985/

Boost BSTR performance for free, by 3000%

EProgrammer — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:20:00 GMT

Sometimes, I am willing to disclose :) some secrets of real performance. Even in the .NET world, we can't avoid BSTR allocation, and in the unmanaged coding world, automation and COM will be at our path once more.

In my honest opinion, many, many programmers make or made the mistake, in the unmanaged world, of not reallocating resources, instead, they just destroy the resource, and allocate it again. MS tried to fix this 'bug' by caching allocations, as much as possible. I find this decision, to start caching allocations, I mean for BSTR allocation, not a good decision. This must be one of the reasons, that COM in a multitasked, MPS environment sometimes, simply cannot scale!

I'll explain why. In a single user environment, caching data for a thread is a good idea, since say MS Word, and scripts like in VBA and VBS, might reuse data/allocations. But as soon as our ASP/COM server environment starts to do this, and the code is reentrant, caching is useless, since threads that allocated data, might not be allowed to reuse zombie-data (if a caching-pattern is used) from another thread.

It could have been solved so easily! (Now, I might sound presumptuous to say that, I agree) How? Just don't cache but reallocate!

VB6 and automation clients for instance, uses the BSTR datatype all over the place, and ATL when used in a COM environement, does as well. If you look at the compiled code that programmers deliver, they never reallocate (only the runtime does sometimes). So for instance myString = "Hello" and myString = "bye" could have been compiled internally by:
myString = SysAllocString(L"Hello");
SysReAllocString(myString, L"bye");

And that's really all!
SysReAllocString(Len) internally uses CoTaskMemRealloc and that function tries to enlarge the memory allocation in-place, and this at its turn minimizes RAM-synchronization in MPS systems on the CPU.

So far, my theory. Am I just filling up your internet-html disk-cache and chit-chatting because I'm just idle for an hour? No.

Let's just try this out!

I've rewritten CComBSTR (from the ATL namespace) and you can find this in the platform SDK at \PlatSDK\Include\atl\atlbase.h (in case you have Visual Studio 2005, don't use this location, but use the most recent header files).

This silly little program does nothing but appending random (sort of) wide strings to a BSTR allocation. Let's rewrite CComBSTR and measure it!

I assume that you can get the headers right to get the program below compile and run.

int _tmain()
{
HRESULT hr = S_OK;
CoInitialize(NULL);
{

CComBSTR appendPlay;
DWORD timer = GetTickCount();
// Ethan Winer, an Assembly coding specialist, once thought me that loops counting down to zero are faster, this still is the case!, just a silly fact.

for(int xy = 10000; xy > 0; xy--)
{
PWSTR zy = xy % 2 == 0 ? L"hiya" : L"bye";

appendPlay.Append(zy);
}
wprintf(L"speed %d\n", GetTickCount() - timer);
}
CoUninitialize();
}

Now run the code and on my AMD 3200+ system, this takes 578 time ticks. This is even with the OLE BSTR cache enabled! (When caching is disabled, this takes 520 time ticks).

Let's improve the Append part of CComBSTR (make sure you keep the original atlbase.h intact). In my case, I just redefined CComBSTR to CComBSTR2 and copy-pasted all of it and rewrote the slow parts.

The slow original code is using the 'delete' 'allocate' sequence.
// very slow original
HRESULT __stdcall Append(LPCOLESTR lpsz, int nLen) throw()

{

if(lpsz == NULL)

{

if(nLen != 0)

return E_INVALIDARG;

else

return S_OK;

}

int n1 = Length();

if (n1+nLen < n1)

return E_OUTOFMEMORY;

BSTR b;

b = ::SysAllocStringLen(NULL, n1+nLen);

if (b == NULL)

return E_OUTOFMEMORY;

if(m_str != NULL)

memcpy(b, m_str, n1*sizeof(OLECHAR));

memcpy(b+n1, lpsz, nLen*sizeof(OLECHAR));

b[n1+nLen] = NULL;

SysFreeString(m_str);

m_str = b;

return S_OK;

}

And here goes the improved code. It has the Automation runtime resize the BSTR while the string in most cases remains at the same memory address. This is how the original BSTR programmers have designed for performance, while nobody is utilizing it! But we instead, do use it, as you understand.

HRESULT __stdcall Append(LPCOLESTR lpsz, int nLen) throw()

{

if (lpsz == NULL || (m_str != NULL && nLen == 0))

return S_OK;

int n1 = Length();

HRESULT hr = SetLength(n1 + nLen);

if ( SUCCEEDED(hr) )

memcpy(m_str+n1, lpsz, nLen*sizeof(OLECHAR));

return hr;

}

We need to append the SetLength function, which is a static wrapper for SysReAllocStringLen(..)

// Cuts the length to specified but does not clear contents

HRESULT __stdcall SetLength(unsigned int length) throw()

{

return _SetLength(&m_str, length);

}

static HRESULT __stdcall _SetLength(BSTR * str, unsigned int length) throw()

{

return ::SysReAllocStringLen(str, NULL, length) == FALSE ? E_OUTOFMEMORY : S_OK;

}

I've included the full 99% compatible CComBSTR2 replacement for you, as a handy dowload so bother about that later. :)

Now, get me to the results please, how much faster would this code run now?

Yes, it takes a whopping 15 milliseconds! And figure that, against 578 milliseconds, which makes the improvement 3800%

Now you might understand why .NET had to be invented by MS :) they figured that the maximum scalability limit was hit on real MPS systems, and that COM never could perform the task of being scalable just because the BSTR sucks in performance! And now, you know that, I'm just now on the conspiracy path, and I'm lying :-).

Anyway, the conclusion is, that current COM clients, and applications and servers, could, if they would like to, improve a lot for free, by just removing the BSTR reallocation barrier and take advantage of the maximum 'unmanaged code' speed possible on a Windows (r) System.

The non-conspiracy theory is that caching was made in times, when Microsoft did not play a big role in server environments, and that computers were relativily slow. A conclusion would be that if MS would like to improve an old car (COM) for free, they'd just remove the caching and implement the idea that I've proven to be very good. This would be good for classic ASP pages as well that are still very popular on the internet.

Just a final question. Why bother? If you are an Automation developer, creating services that depend heavily on BSTRs?
The answer is, I bothered once a while ago, just because of some artistic feeling (good programmers are artists, not scientists :) ) that I could improve the enormous BSTR stress on my product here Isp Session Manager. Of course, the biggest part of such managed COM server (as COM+ was called in the past!) is doing talking to a DBMS. But after implementing the CComBSTR replacement, the performance on a MPS server, suddenly got very easy and the pages per second throughput went up and showed a flat line (that's the wet dream of each webmaster). Before, without using the CComBSTR replacement the throughtput was erratic, so this again proved my point, that not-reallocating BSTRs causes a huge demand on RAM synchronization and makes scalability limited because of wrong usage of the COM runtime.

Here, you got the CComBSTR whopper for your own downloads. Please do not forget to deploy it after download...

Howto: Dynamically Create Gradient Buttons using ASPX and .NET

EProgrammer — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:08:00 GMT

If you ever might want cute buttons, independently of your clients browser and theme, you might create buttons by using some dynamic GDI based code.

I found this solution, which costed just 2 hours programming not bad at all, and you might profit from it as well.

This code, automatically wraps text, all using .NET power. It even can be improved, to support hover as well. B.t.w. on Windows Vista XAML supports this but we’re still on the internet man!

So why not make our own buttons.

Paste code below, onto an empty ASPX page (for instance button.aspx), and call use it through the following arguments (other tag arguments omitted for simplicity).

<asp:ImageButton id=”myButton” ImageUrl=Button.aspx?t=Hello%20World&w=150&h=35” runat=”server”/>

Syntax below is based on C# 2.0

The output might look like this(appConfig must contain the buttoncolors)

public partial class button : System.Web.UI.Page

{

private static Color parsRgb(string rgbColor)

{

int red, green, blue;

red = int.Parse(rgbColor.Substring(0, 2), System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber);

green = int.Parse(rgbColor.Substring(2, 2), System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber);

blue = int.Parse(rgbColor.Substring(4, 2), System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber);

return Color.FromArgb(red, green, blue);

}

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection req= Request.QueryString;

//get height

string h=req["h"];

//get width

string w = req["w"];

// get text

string t = req["t"];

if (t == null || t.Length == 0)

throw new HttpException("QueryString t not supplied");

int hashCode = t.GetHashCode();

string checkEtag = Request.Headers["ETag"];

if (checkEtag != null && checkEtag.Length != 0)

{

if (checkEtag == hashCode.ToString())

{

Response.StatusCode = (int)System.Net.HttpStatusCode.NotModified;

Response.StatusDescription = "Not modified";

Response.SuppressContent = true;

return;

}

req= System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings;

string colrRadiantStart = req["btnBgRadiantStart"];

string fontSize = req["btnFontSize"];

string FontName = req["btnFontName"];

string colrRadiantEnd = req["btnBgRadiantEnd"];

string FontColor = req["btnFontColor"];

System.Drawing.Color ocolorEnd, colorStart, colorFont ;

if (colrRadiantStart != null && colrRadiantStart.Length == 6)

colorStart = parsRgb(colrRadiantStart);

else

throw new HttpException("You must provide a valid btnBgColor hex rgb-code in appConfig");

if (colrRadiantEnd == null || colrRadiantEnd.Length != 6)

throw new HttpException("You must provide a valid btnBgColor hex rgb-code in appConfig");

else

ocolorEnd = parsRgb(colrRadiantEnd);

if (FontColor == null || FontColor.Length != 6)

colorFont = Color.Black; //default

else

colorFont = parsRgb(FontColor);

int iH = int.Parse(h);

int iW = int.Parse(w);

Bitmap oBmp1 = new Bitmap(iW, iH);

Graphics oGrp1 = Graphics.FromImage(oBmp1);

// seems not to have effect

oGrp1.CompositingQuality = CompositingQuality.HighQuality;

oGrp1.InterpolationMode = InterpolationMode.HighQualityBilinear;

LinearGradientBrush lgb = new LinearGradientBrush(new Rectangle(0, 0, iW, iH), colorStart, ocolorEnd, LinearGradientMode.Vertical);

oGrp1.FillRectangle(lgb, 0, 0, iW, iH);

System.Drawing.FontFamily fntFam = new FontFamily(FontName);

Font fnt = new Font(fntFam, float.Parse(fontSize));

StringFormat stringFormat = StringFormat.GenericDefault;

//we must set this value, other wise text will default to left.

stringFormat.Alignment = StringAlignment.Center;

SizeF szf = oGrp1.MeasureString(t, fnt, new SizeF(iW, iH), stringFormat);

//center

PointF FPoint = new PointF((iW - szf.Width) / 2, (iH - szf.Height) / 2);

oGrp1.DrawString(t, fnt, new SolidBrush(colorFont), new RectangleF(FPoint.X, FPoint.Y, szf.Width, szf.Height), stringFormat);

Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg";

Response.Cache.SetETag(hashCode.ToString());

//Response.Cache.SetLastModified(DateTime.Now);

Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Public);

oBmp1.Save(Response.OutputStream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);

Response.End();

}

Howto: detect whether or not IIS (any version) is installed?

EProgrammer — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 09:17:00 GMT

There are several tricks but I've not seen this one so I would like to mention this trick as well.

The idea is that IIS can be managed through ADSI interfaces right? You would use (in vbscript)

Sest myIIS = GetObject("IIS:") and now you have the namespace. But if IIS is not installed, it would return 'invalid syntax'. Not really a good error.
A cleaner method would be
Set myIIS = CreateObject("IIS")

This way, you use the progid that the IIS namespace, normally is fetched by a url moniker and GetObject().

so complete code:
Dim myIIS, isIISInstalled
On Error Resume Next
Set myIIS = CreateObject("IIS")
'ActiveX component cannot create object: 'IIS'
isIISInstalled = Err.Number <> &H800A01AD
On Error GoTo 0

You can apply the concept above to -any- language, including javascript, VB6, C# and VB.NET.

Howto: [asp.net] Use Request.LogonUserIdentity to fetch the current user's Active Directory DirectoryEntry?

EProgrammer — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:19:00 GMT

If you have a website using ASP pages or asp.net pages, and you want to integrate user management with active directory, you’ll have a lot of extra technology that you need to make yourself known with.

What you mostly would do, is disable anonymous web access, and have users login, using credentials stored at Active Directory.

But unfortunately, IIS, Internet Information Server, on Windows 2003 and 2000, does map only the current logged on user through an NT4 domain format, which looks like ‘DOMAIN\johnd’ retrieved from Request.ServerVariables(“LOGON_USER”) or Request.LogonUserIdentity.Name, will equal exactly that name in NT 4 format. You can also logon to an IIS website using a user principal (in AD, this the attribute userPrincipalName like 'johnd@domain') but we need to be sure that the identity -always- can be handled, no matter what syntax is given by the user at logon.

So from there you need to translate the NT4 name to a distinguished Name (dn is like “cn=itsme,cn=users,dc=nwtraders,dc=msft”) that is suitable for Active Directory.

Now comes an often made ‘trick’ which is obviously slow (see for a listing, completely below)!

One could do a Directory Search on sAMAccountName=’johnd’ and get the active, logged on user and its active directory record. <- don't do this!

A very fast method would be as follows.
note: this is assuming that you are using the DotNet framework version 2.0 and c#. The very same effective code could be written for Vb.Net.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// identical to Request.LogonUserIdentity but using a static method instead of a Page property
//WindowsIdentity wi = System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent();

WindowsIdentity wi = Request.LogonUserIdentity;

DirectoryEntry dir = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://<SID=" + SidToHex(wi.User) + ">");

dir = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" + (string)dir.Properties["distinguishedName"][0], null, null,

AuthenticationTypes.Secure |

AuthenticationTypes.ReadonlyServer);

//Now you got ‘dir’ at your disposal and you can read the current users profile information (for instance)!

}

To get Request.LogonUserIdentity initialized after a browser logon to your aspx pages, with the correct user-logon-info,

configure web.Config as follows so that it contains at least the configuration seen below.

web.Config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<system.web>

</assemblies>

</system.web>

</configuration>

/// <summary>

/// needed for Windows 2000 compatibility

/// Windows 2003 can bind using a S-1-xx-x-xx-xxx- format

/// </summary>

/// <param name="sid"></param>

/// <returns></returns>

private static string SidToHex(SecurityIdentifier sid)

{

int binLength = sid.BinaryLength;

byte[] bt = new byte[binLength];

sid.GetBinaryForm(bt, 0);

System.Text.StringBuilder retval = new System.Text.StringBuilder(binLength * 2, binLength * 2);

for (int cx = 0; cx < binLength; cx++)

retval.Append(bt[cx].ToString("X2"));

return retval.ToString();

}

Bad performing often used code, not to be used!

string ldapPath = "LDAP://" + userDomain;
DirectoryEntry rootEntry = new DirectoryEntry(ldapPath);
using (DirectorySearcher ds = new DirectorySearcher(rootEntry, "(samAccountName=" + userName + ")"))
{
            SearchResult result = ds.FindOne();
            if (result != null)
            {
                        ResultPropertyValueCollection resultValues = result.Properties["displayName"];
                        if (resultValues.Count > 0)
                        {
                                    Label1.Text = (string) resultValues[0];
                        }
                        else
                        {
                                    Label1.Text = "No display name";
                        }
            }
}

Howto use Paypal Instant Payment Notification (IPN) with character encoding

EProgrammer — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:50:00 GMT

The C# sample at the IPN website, is a little bit outdated, since paypal currently supports international character sets (great!) so if a chinese customer would enter his name in Chinese for instance :), it still would be kept ok. So to not corrupt the characters, we have to stick the same format as paypal sends us. This would be simple if the page would be a web service form, it is not, so we have to wrap the POST request and do the encoding all yourselves.

using System;

using System.Collections;

using System.Collections.Specialized;

using System.IO;

using System.Text;

using System.Net;

using System.ComponentModel;

using System.Data;

using System.Web;

using CSession;

namespace pp

{

/// <summary>

/// Summary description for ipn.

/// </summary>

public partial class ipn : System.Web.UI.Page

{

private bool isTesting;

// this page runs as LCID 1033 english

// and is tested on codepage 65001. you must –enable- the codepage

// on your paypal preferences!

// note that the shopping basket, is based on ISP Session from

// http://www.nieropwebconsult.nl/asp_session_manager.htm

// it integrates with classic asp as well as .NET

protected void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)

{

NameValueCollection rq = Request.Form;

//Response.BufferOutput = false;

string test_ipn = rq["test_ipn"];

isTesting = test_ipn != null && test_ipn == "1"? true: false;

// Create the request back

// instead of pp_url you could read https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr

HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest) WebRequest.Create(

System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["pp_url"]);

string version = rq["notify_version"]; // ' 2.1 currently

// Set values for the request back

req.Method = "POST";

string notifyCmd = "cmd=_notify-validate";

req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

// the charset will be utf-8 if set as preference on paypal!

Encoding enc = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(rq["charset"]);

StreamWriter tw = new StreamWriter(new MemoryStream());

int keyCount = rq.Count;

// here goes our first command

tw.Write(notifyCmd);

//tricky part. If you do Request.Form.ToString() the & and the = is encoded as well!

for (int xx = 0; xx < keyCount; xx++)

{

tw.Write('&');

tw.Write(HttpUtility.UrlEncodeToBytes(rq.GetKey(xx), enc));

tw.Write('=');

tw.Write(HttpUtility.UrlEncodeToBytes(rq.Get(xx), enc));

}

int contLen = (int)tw.BaseStream.Position;

req.ContentLength = contLen;

// Write the request back IPN strings in binary form

// do not use a TextWriter since that would cause

// encoding on encoding which obviously will fail

byte[] temp = new byte[contLen];

tw.BaseStream.Position = 0;

tw.BaseStream.Read(temp, 0, contLen);

Stream stOut = req.GetRequestStream();

stOut.Write(temp, 0, contLen);

stOut.Flush();

// Do the request to PayPal and get the response

StreamReader stIn = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream(), enc);

string strResponse = stIn.ReadToEnd();

stIn.Close();

string Item_number, Payment_status, Txn_id, sessionId;

Item_number = rq["item_number"];

sessionId = rq["invoice"];

Txn_id = rq["txn_id"];

db dbl = new db();

dbl.sqlConn.Open();

DataSet1.tLicenseRow lic = dbl.dataSet11.tLicense.NewtLicenseRow();

lic.CtryISO2Code = rq["address_country_code"];

lic.email = rq["payer_email"];

//TODO: lic should be fullfilled

lic.sessionID = new Guid(sessionId).ToByteArray();

lic.transactionID = Guid.NewGuid();

lic.salesBlob = rq.ToString().Replace("&", "\r\n");

lic.saleDate = DateTime.Now;

lic.total_value = decimal.Parse(rq["mc_gross"]);

lic.tax_value = decimal.Parse(rq["tax"]);

lic.salesBlobType = 1;

lic.total_fee = decimal.Parse(rq["mc_fee"]);

Payment_status = rq["payment_status"];

lic.Payment_status = Payment_status;

lic.downloadComplete = 0;

// Create the IpnTransaction

basket bsk = null;

bool validSession = false;

if (sessionId != null && sessionId.Length == 32)

{

bsk = new basket(sessionId);

validSession = true;

}

// Confirm whether the IPN was VERIFIED or INVALID. If INVALID, just ignore the IPN

if (strResponse == "VERIFIED")

{

if (validSession)

{

bsk.Session["Payment_status"] = 1;

bsk.setPurchaseAuthorized(lic.transactionID);

msg.Text = "valid";

Response.AppendToLog("valid session");

}

else

{

Response.AppendToLog("invalid session");

msg.Text = "invalid";

}

else

{

if (validSession)

{

Response.AppendToLog("invalid transaction, valid session");

msg.Text = "invalid";

bsk.Session["payment_status"] = 0;

}

dbl.dataSet11.tLicense.AddtLicenseRow(lic);

dbl.tLicense.Update(dbl.dataSet11.tLicense);

dbl.sqlConn.Close();

dbl.Dispose();

if (bsk != null) bsk.Dispose();

}

HOWTO: [DotNet] Convert a DateTime structure to a Rfc822 mime conform string?

EProgrammer — Sun, 14 May 2006 10:41:00 GMT

If you have to deal with MIME you'll have to interpret date information.

Some programmers argue, that the DotNet framework, should support the RFc822 date format out of the box.
Others say, 'no, you need not, because RFC1123 has already been implemented which goes as "Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:57:57 GMT" for instance'.

I do not agree with this completely. First because sometimes, you might want to be able to detect the timezone difference between clients. If you have a GMT notation, you have the correct worldtime in sync, but you won't see a difference.

Second, if the RFC or API recommends a RFC822 it is a error to assume that the runtime or their runtime, automatically will deal with rfc1123 as well (it is in many situations).

So here is a way to format your string into rfc822. I did not pack it into a handy class or something. Just use the idea. You could make it detect and accept rfc822 and rfc1123 as well!

// the (UTC) suffix is optional. You can leave it out.

DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;

string Rfc822DateTime = dt.ToString(@"ddd, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzzz (\U\T\C)", System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo);

// remove the time separator in the timezone because zzzz will produce +01:00 for instance

Rfc822DateTime = Rfc822DateTime.Remove(Rfc822DateTime.LastIndexOf(':'), 1);

// for the sake of completeness I want to state that formatting as an RFc1123 string is as simple as formatting using a predefined mask that is .ToString("r").

// and do not forget the ToUniversalTime() method or otherwise, the time string is still a local time!

string rfc1123DateTime = dt.ToUniversalTime().ToString("r");

// and convert the rfc822 formatted date back

if (Rfc822DateTime.EndsWith("(UTC)"))

Rfc822DateTime = Rfc822DateTime.Substring(0, Rfc822DateTime.Length - 6);

DateTime rfc822Parse = DateTime.ParseExact(Rfc822DateTime, @"ddd, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzzz", System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo);

// rfc822Parse equals e.g.: "Mon, 15 May 2006 08:31:40 GMT"

// rfc1123DateTime equals eg.: "Mon, 15 May 2006 10:31:40 +0200"

// converting from string to datetime also requires us to convert from UTC to Local manually

DateTime rfc1123Parse = DateTime.ParseExact(rfc1123DateTime, "r", System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo).ToLocalTime();

if (rfc822Parse != rfc1123Parse)

throw new FormatException("rfc822Parse and rfc1123Parse should be equal!");

HOWTO: [ADSI] Pinvoke the Wizard for a new Active Directory object

EProgrammer — Wed, 10 May 2006 23:26:00 GMT

Wouldn't it be fun to create new active directory objects, while you even don't startup the MMC for active directory? No, don't be afraid that everybody including ‘nobody’ on your network -now- can do this

If the code below does not run on a domain controller, you first should install the adminpak.msi (or register dsadmin.dll and dsa.mcs) for on Windows 2003 that also can be installed on Windows XP.

And of course, Active Directory is -really- secure. If the calling code is not executed by someone with sufficient rights, it will fail.

So here we go and make yourself really -see- active directory!

(ps: I like writing unique code, as far as I can see, nobody did it yet, hey, don't forget to visit www.adccure.nl !)

static void Main()

{

IDsAdminCreateObject co = new DsAdminCreateObject() as IDsAdminCreateObject;
object nativedsObject = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://cn=users,dc=yourdomain,dc=local").NativeObject;
co.Initialize(nativedsObject, null, "user");
object newObject = co.CreateModal(DsAdminCreateObject.GetDeskTopWindow());

}

[ComImport, Guid("53554A38-F902-11d2-82B9-00C04F68928B"),

InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]

public interface IDsAdminCreateObject

{

/// <summary>
/// Need to initialize before popping up the new object wizard
/// </summary>
/// <param name="ADsContainerObj">initialized dir object Container object eg: cn=users,DC=domain,dc=local</param>
/// <param name="ADsCopySource">can be null, specifies original object if you want a copy!</param>

/// <param name="ClassName">contains "User", "group", "contact", "inetOrgPerson" etc</param>
void Initialize( [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.IDispatch)] object ADsContainerObj,
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.IDispatch), Optional(), DefaultParameterValue(null)] object ADsCopySource,
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string ClassName);

/// <summary>
/// Returns native ActiveDirectory object
/// </summary>
/// <param name="hwndParent">handle to parent window, specify 0 (mostly)</param>
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.IDispatch)]
object CreateModal(IntPtr hwndParent);

}

/// <summary>

/// Have our CLSID_DsAdminCreateObject be imported by .NET
/// </summary>
[ComImport, Guid("E301A009-F901-11d2-82B9-00C04F68928B")]
public class DsAdminCreateObject

{

/// we just needed a pointer to a window, if you run this code within a Windows Form, you can fetch a handle to it and hand it over to CreateModal!
[DllImport("user32", EntryPoint = "GetDesktopWindow", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = false)]
public static extern IntPtr GetDeskTopWindow();
}

Howto: Detect an AMD64 CPU within WOW64 mode?

EProgrammer — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 09:14:00 GMT

WOW64 stands for Windows on Windows64. It emulates Win32 mode for programs that were compiled for Windows 32-bit mode. It _even_ will emulate SystemInfo API calls! So if you ask GetSystemInfo to supply info about the processor architecture, or if you query through API GetEnvironmentVariable(L"PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE"...) Wow64 will make your 32-bit feel comfortable by saying: "Yes, I am an Intel compatible x86 CPU!".

So I was puzzled, my SETUP needed to do some tasks and it had to simply detect wether or not we are on a x64 windows edition.
The solution seemed simple. Try it for yourselves.

Boot to Windows x64 (if not done so yet) and run file://C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\cmd.exe this is the good old 32-bit command prompt from the Windows XP time.

Let's examine the environment variables you might need. The output in my case would be...

ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
APPDATA=C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data
ClusterLog=C:\WINDOWS\Cluster\cluster.log
CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
CommonProgramFiles(x86)=C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
CommonProgramW6432=C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=BGRULEZ
ComSpec=C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe
FP_NO_HOST_CHECK=NO
HOMEDRIVE=C:
HOMEPATH=\Documents and Settings\Administrator
LOGONSERVER=\\BGRULEZ
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS=1
OS=Windows_NT
Path=C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=x86
PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432=AMD64
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER=AMD64 Family 15 Model 47 Stepping 0, AuthenticAMD
PROCESSOR_LEVEL=15
PROCESSOR_REVISION=2f00
ProgramFiles=C:\Program Files (x86)
ProgramFiles(x86)=C:\Program Files (x86)
ProgramW6432=C:\Program Files
PROMPT=$P$G
SESSIONNAME=Console
SystemDrive=C:
SystemRoot=C:\WINDOWS
TEMP=C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp
TMP=C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp
USERDOMAIN=BGRULEZ
USERNAME=Administrator
USERPROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator
VS80COMNTOOLS=C:\Develop\VS2005\Common7\Tools\
windir=C:\WINDOWS

Evidentially you must solve the 'detect my AMD64' challenge through reading a new variable, named 'PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432' and not PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE.
If the variable does not exist, you are obviously running in a native win32 environment.

Update july 26 2006: Somebody made me awake, and pointed to the Kernel32 function: IsWow64Process(..) (see msdn).

[C++] a Full Featured CAtlServiceModuleT implementation...

EProgrammer — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:52:00 GMT

I had to do some maintenance on a Windows ® service and found that you can use an ATL service as a windows service very well without all the overhead.

There are some samples on the internet, but they stop where I wanted to continue. That is, run UI-less services for instance, a job that could be done through a task scheduled-job but better be done through a service?

b.t.w. for the ones interested in a minimal windows service and who feel a sick inclination J writing the smallest EXE possible, they should use a plain C implementation provided by Microsoft’s ® Platform SDK located at [Platform SDK folder]\Samples\WinBase\Service and they should not use MS VC 8 but 4 or so...

Note that the grey highlighted code, is my code, the normal colored code is left over of what the MS Visual Studio created for you through the wizard. In addition, I’ve snipped all trace & debugging code.

The Visual Studio 2005 wizard creates an EXE that is suitable both as COM service (DCOM) and as windows service. You can guess a lot of overhead and unneeded lines.

This service does not perform anything, keep in mind it is a template for a 'scheduled' task-service, a batch for instance. Your code comes within DoDBMSJob...

// Service_Template.h

void CALLBACK TimerProc(PVOID pdata);

DWORD WINAPI mainJob(LPVOID lpThreadParameter) ;

// Service_Template.cpp : Implementation of WinMain

#include "stdafx.h"

#include "resource.h"

#include "Service_Template.h" //

#pragma warning(disable: 4482) // nonstandard extension used: 'enum CServiceStatus' used in qualified name

[v1_enum] //32 bit rulez

enum CServiceStatus

{

run = 0,

pauze=1,

stop = 2,

shutmedown=3

};

class CService_Module : public CAtlServiceModuleT< CService_Module, IDS_SERVICENAME >

{

private:

// this flag in milliseconds, tells us how often

// is checked for tasks

DWORD m_iPollTime;

HANDLE m_ThreadHandle; // eventually use CHandle

HANDLE m_hServerStopEvent;

bool connDone;

CServiceStatus m_ServiceStatus ;

bool stopNow;

public :

~CService_Module() throw()

{

if (m_ThreadHandle != NULL)

CloseHandle(m_ThreadHandle);

if (m_hServerStopEvent != NULL)

CloseHandle(m_hServerStopEvent);

}

CService_Module() throw(): m_iPollTime(10), m_ThreadHandle(NULL), m_hServerStopEvent(NULL),

stopNow(false)

{

m_ServiceStatus =CServiceStatus::run;

//m_dwTimeOut = 60000; // one minute

}

// we can’t skip this! Leave as is created by wizard

DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(IDR_GARBAGE_COLLECT, "{44DE094D-9AE1-5A56-A1A7-A20F9EAE0F21}")

HRESULT InitializeSecurity() throw()

{

// we don’t need this here

return S_OK;

}

void OnPauze() throw()

{

m_ServiceStatus = CServiceStatus::pauze;

__super::OnPause();

if ( m_hServerStopEvent != NULL)

SetEvent(m_hServerStopEvent);

}

void OnStop() throw()

{

__super::OnStop();

m_ServiceStatus =CServiceStatus::stop;

if ( m_hServerStopEvent != NULL)

{

stopNow= true;

// be sure not to kill the thread & process

// before it nicely ends

// otherwise, our pointers will ‘Release()’ while

// the instance has been killed already, a common bug!

SetEvent(m_hServerStopEvent);

DWORD tc = GetTickCount();

while(m_hServerStopEvent != NULL || GetTickCount() - tc > 20000) // max 20 seconds wait

Sleep(10);

}

void OnContinue( ) throw( )

{

__super::OnContinue();

m_ServiceStatus =CServiceStatus::run;

if ( m_hServerStopEvent != NULL)

SetEvent(m_hServerStopEvent);

}

void OnShutDown() throw()

{

//__super::OnShutDown();

m_ServiceStatus =CServiceStatus::pauze;

if ( m_hServerStopEvent != NULL)

SetEvent(m_hServerStopEvent);

}

HRESULT RegisterAppId(bool bService = false) throw()

{

HRESULT hr = S_OK;

// we extend our service description!

// on W2k and higher, this is user friendly!

// do not forget to add a string ot the string table

// here ‘IDS_Description’

BOOL res = __super::RegisterAppId(bService);

if (bService)

{

//DebugBreak();

if (IsInstalled())

{

SC_HANDLE hSCM = ::OpenSCManagerW(NULL, NULL, SERVICE_CHANGE_CONFIG);

SC_HANDLE hService = NULL;

if (hSCM == NULL)

hr = AtlHresultFromLastError();

else

{

hService = ::OpenServiceW(hSCM, m_szServiceName, SERVICE_CHANGE_CONFIG);

if (hService != NULL)

{

const int m_szServiceNameLen = 4096;

WCHAR m_szServiceDescription[m_szServiceDescriptionLen]={0};

LoadStringW(_AtlBaseModule.GetModuleInstance(),

IDS_Description, m_szServiceDescription, m_szServiceDescriptionLen);

SERVICE_DESCRIPTION sdBuf = {m_szServiceDescription};

res = ChangeServiceConfig2W(hService, SERVICE_CONFIG_DESCRIPTION, &sdBuf);

::CloseServiceHandle(hService);

}

else

hr = AtlHresultFromLastError();

::CloseServiceHandle(hSCM);
}

}

return hr;

}

HRESULT PreMessageLoop(int nShowCmd) throw()

{

//problem how to set a timer, we must provide the proc

// a pointer to this

// we could hack it and use HWND instead?

#ifdef _DEBUG

DebugBreak();

#endif

HRESULT hr = __super::PreMessageLoop(nShowCmd);

// if we don't have any COM classes, RegisterClassObjects

// retunrs S_FALSE

// This Causes the process to terminate

// We don't want this, so we return S_OK in this case

if (hr == S_FALSE) hr = S_OK;

if (m_bService == TRUE && hr == S_OK)

m_ThreadHandle = CreateThread(NULL, 0, mainJob, this, 0, 0);

return hr;

}

void __stdcall set_CollectTime(INT iCollectTime) throw()

{

m_iPollTime = iCollectTime;

}

INT get_CollectTime() throw()

{

return m_iPollTime;

}

void __stdcall SetEventHandleForStop(HANDLE eventHandle) throw()

{

m_hServerStopEvent = eventHandle;

}

CServiceStatus GetServiceStatus() throw()

{

return this->m_ServiceStatus;

}

void CALLBACK TimerProc(PVOID pdata) throw()

{

#ifdef _DEBUG

DebugBreak();

#endif

HRESULT hr;

//your registry and initialization comes here

hr = DoDBMSJob(iKeepConnection, bstrConnBuff, dwVersion);

return;

}

// here could be your task

STDMETHODIMP DoDBMSJob(int iAction, PCWSTR bstrConnBuff, DWORD dwVersion) throw()

{

/* iAction 0 do work and exit

* iAction 1 do work, cache connection and exit

* iAction 2 release cached connection and exit

// Your task and cleanup code comes here...

// cleanup code _COULD_ be done in the main class

// but do not forget, if you cleanup there, you might

// fall into the Thread Apartment trap!

// Some COM objects, are not free-threaded

// so if you clean them up when windows

// tells you to stop execution with the thread windows

// ‘gives’ to you, the instance might fail and crash

return hr;

}

};

CService_Module _AtlModule;

DWORD WINAPI mainJob(LPVOID lpThreadParameter) throw()

{

LARGE_INTEGER liDueTime;

//fetch the pointer to our main class

CService_Module* p = static_cast<CService_Module*>(lpThreadParameter);

DWORD dwError = ERROR_SUCCESS;

//optimize memory usage

// should automatically increase if needed

//::SetProcessWorkingSetSize(GetCurrentProcess(), 1280000, 2560000);

DWORD dwWait =0;

HANDLE hServerStopEvent = CreateEventW(

NULL, // no security attributes

TRUE, // manual reset event

FALSE, // not-signalled

NULL); // no name

p->SetEventHandleForStop(hServerStopEvent);

// array with 2 events we want to monitors

HANDLE hEvents[2] = {hServerStopEvent,

::CreateWaitableTimer(NULL, TRUE, L"ASP_Session_Collect") };

HRESULT hr =::CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_DISABLE_OLE1DDE | COINIT_MULTITHREADED);

for (;;) //endless loop

{

INT iPollTime = p->get_CollectTime();

liDueTime.QuadPart=-iPollTime * 10000;

//this timer is not periodic and is recreated each at loop so a negatieve value means a 'relative time'.

if (::SetWaitableTimer(hEvents[1], &liDueTime,0, NULL, NULL, FALSE) == FALSE)

{

dwError = ::GetLastError();

//MessageBox(NULL, _T("CreateTimerFailed"), _T("Error"), MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR);

goto cleanup;

}

// if your Service is Apartment threaded

// use MsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx!

dwWait = ::WaitForMultipleObjects( 2, hEvents, FALSE, INFINITE);

if (dwWait == WAIT_OBJECT_0+1)

p->TimerProc(NULL);// no need to suspend timer sinced this is recreated each time

else // it was not the timer but a service event

{

CServiceStatus status = p->GetServiceStatus();

if (status==CServiceStatus::stop || status == CServiceStatus::shutmedown )

{

break;

}

while (status == CServiceStatus::pauze)

{

status = p->GetServiceStatus();

Sleep(1000); //wait 1 second

}

if (status==CServiceStatus::stop || status == CServiceStatus::shutmedown )

{

break;

}

// not timer event - error occurred,

}

cleanup:

p->DoDBMSJob(2, NULL, 0);

CoUninitialize();

if (hEvents[1])

::CloseHandle(hEvents[1]);

if (hServerStopEvent != NULL)

{

CloseHandle(hServerStopEvent);

hServerStopEvent=NULL;

p->SetEventHandleForStop(hServerStopEvent);

}

return 0;

}

extern "C" int WINAPI _tWinMain(HINSTANCE, HINSTANCE, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nShowCmd) throw()

{

return _AtlModule.WinMain(nShowCmd);

}

// we would not be complete without listing stdafx.h this time, I’ve set compatibility with W2k, that would be sufficient for most services

// stdafx.h : include file for standard system include files,

// or project specific include files that are used frequently,

// but are changed infrequently

#pragma once

#define STRICT

// Modify the following defines if you have to target a platform prior to the ones specified below.

// Refer to MSDN for the latest info on corresponding values for different platforms.

#define WINVER 0x0500 // Change this to the appropriate value to target other versions of Windows.

#define _ATL_ATTRIBUTES //allow db_command etc...

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0500 // Change this to the appropriate value to target other versions of Windows.

#define _WIN32_WINDOWS 0x0500 // Change this to the appropriate value to target Windows Me or later.

#ifndef _WIN32_IE // Allow use of features specific to IE 6.0 or later.

#define _WIN32_IE 0x0550 // Change this to the appropriate value to target other versions of IE.

#endif

//explicit disable since our main service ONLY will serve as a link between windows/registration and our mainJob function

#define _ATL_NO_COM_SUPPORT

// IMPORTANT CHANGE THIS instead of _ATL_APARTMENT_THREADED

#define _ATL_FREE_THREADED

#include "resource.h"

#include <atlbase.h>

#include <atlcom.h>

#include <atldbcli.h>

using namespace ATL;

here comes a great ATL feature, support eventlog writing! Put these lines in the RGS file, that Visual Studio created for you. If you don’t do so, the event log will report this: “The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( CTemplateService) cannot be found. etc)

Add this text in CTemplateService.rgs

HKLM

{

NoRemove SYSTEM

{

NoRemove CurrentControlSet

{

NoRemove Services

{

NoRemove EventLog

{

NoRemove Application

{

'CTemplate Service' ß this name must match IDS_SERVICENAME!

{

val 'EventMessageFile' = s '%MODULE_RAW%'

val 'TypesSupported' = d 7

}

Step 2

Add one resource file (Visual Studio does not support this!) and give it the extension .mc

For instance message.mc

The contents will be:

LanguageNames=(Neutral=0x409:MSG00409)

MessageId=0x1

SymbolicName=MSG_ERROR

Language=English

Your Company: Template Service, returned the following error: %1

ß-- one empty line!

In visual studio, you click on the properties of this file and enter at the command line

mc message.mc

outputs:

Enter: message.h message.rc

In your stdafx.h you need to include “message.h” now.

Now you have included message.rc as a resource. A message file is a superior way to include all languages in one executable or dll while the active thread defines the actual languageid being displayed on UI. This trick existed already on NT 3.x but not many developers / translators use it for internationalization. As you see, NT –requires- you to have a message resource file just to support logging to the Event Log store. FYI! Windows ® (Vista) will soon support w3c-‘like’ logging as well! Soon we can say goodbye to the rather unpleasant and difficult to implement eventlog.

Installation

According to the ATL documentation, you can deploy your compiled service as follows:

Install it with: CTemplateService.exe –service

Deinstall it with: CTemplateService.exe -UnRegServer

[Win64] My story: Porting a product to x64

EProgrammer — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 01:15:00 GMT

How easy can one port a product from Win32 to x64? It depends on whether or not you ignore what your mom told you: "don't listen to strangers..." <- ps: ignoring this, only applies to developing!

You can learn from other ones faults, right? So in the past, years ago, when the MSDN magazine and others told us to use INT_PTR instead of INT etc at certain code you know the drill, I was not to lazy, to modify my code. So I listened to strangers...

So, today, I took an old project, still running and shining, ISP Session, and wanted to offer x64 support. I can tell you this; If I had been only had been listing a little better to the wise guys!

Just kidding. In short, Everything works on x64 systems, Visual Studio 2005, it is a 32 bit process, but it debugs fluently a 64-bit process. (I attached to W3WP.exe for instance). It stopped at my breakpoints and shows source code, I stepped through etc. It was a good experience!

So, here for the MVP part, the good words for Microsoft!

Of course, you bet, my code did not 'just compile' and run. Not because of ignoring my 64-bit warnings that the Visual Studio compiler might have produced, but because of 'optimizing' some parts of my code in the past, that I should have done better.

Here they are...

1) If the MSDN tells you to allocate a CreateStreamOnHGlobal through a GlobalAlloc that must be using 'movable memory' please do so! Well, I found that the code ran faster when using fixed memory (it was at a case, where the memory stream did not have to grow)! But Win x64, does not like this, and punished me by presenting a GP.

2) If you think that BSTR work exactly the same as before and you don't have to modify code at that, you're right, but this was not applying to me! I was managing my own BSTR allocation replacements (again because of improved efficiency on IIS on this) and I found that a BSTR allocation is somewhat different. It is as follows on 64-bit systems:

BSTR memory layout: [4 bytes (not used)] [4 bytes (length prefix)], wchar_t[length], [\0], total length of allocation is aligned on 16 bytes.
The 4 unused bytes are rather mysterious since SysStringLen() still returns a UINT length (not a UINT_PTR). Maybe this is because of future plans, far, far away?
On 32-bit systems, the prefix is really 4 bytes, and not 8.

For those who are interested in the details:
download it: http://technolog.nl/eprogrammer/bstrnocache.zip
(In combination with my CComBSTR replacement, BSTR heap management performance is outstanding, without using any cache)

3) Some third party code, ZLIB had to be recompiled into a valid 64-bit lib. If you forget to do this, your DLL will link to the wrong 'guy'. B.t.w. zlib version 1.2.3 just recompiled perfectly (kudo's to Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler!). To tell the C++ compiler to link to the correct lib, I had to add some conditional code in stdafx.h. Maybe, there is a smarter way to do this. Report me if so...

#ifdef WIN64
#pragma comment(lib, "zlib64.lib")
#else
#pragma comment(lib, "zlib.lib")
#endif

After making my product strict again, it works flawless on x64 systems (and faster!).

I love real performance numbers, and you? Is going 64 bit just a hype?

EProgrammer — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:43:00 GMT

I have an AMD Athlon 64 system, and of course, my main preferred platform today is still Win32 on XP when I develop for server environments.

In the past, I always choose an Intel platform, because of driver madness and just the affinity that you feel with the OS that Intel has. But now, on my system, I never have problems. Great. But that's not my story; I just wanted a system that could do x64 as x32 as well. Unfortunately, I still cannot test IA64 systems.

Question: Is going 64-bit just hype? mmm, when I was the CEO of my CPU baking company, I'd told you, 'of course not!'.

When I was eprogrammer, I'd told you I agree with him :). Why? Because of hard numbers!
And if you don't love hard numbers, you're certainly not like me...
Most tests involve graphics. Well, that's important as well, but what if we skip graphics? Does a 64-bits environment really beat 32-bits even when we don't do 64bit math?
So here we go.

I have a testing system. An AMD Athlon64 3200+, 1 gigabyte RAM and the fastest memory that exists for it. Don't be jealous, you soon will get a better system from your mom!

Our test does the following. It opens a big file; it will encode it to a base64 string. This is a good test, since both integer math and memory allocations play a role.
The encoding is done through a tiny COM component that I quickly wrote for this purpose. It just uses the ATL framework, <atlenc.h> which has full support for base64 coding and decoding.

Then I have a vbscript tester. It has the following lines...
(it opens oembios.bin, I just choose this because, it had to be big, so take your pick to redo the test)

Dim obj, v, t
Set obj = Createobject("NWC.Decode")
t = Timer
obj.readfile "c:\windows\system32\oembios.bin" ’12.5 MB
WScript.Echo “FileRead: “ & Timer - t
t = Timer
obj.ToBase64 v
WScript.Echo “Encode: “ & timer -t

On XP, the 32bit OS, this takes a whopping 0.21 seconds.
FYI, on Windows 2000, it also takes a 0.21 seconds. You see, the OS is at -this- particular test, is not showing improvements over oleautomation & COM performance.

When I compile the CPP COM object, with all optimizations disabled, it would take 0.65 seconds. So you get an idea of the difference when a compiler gets smart.

On Windows Server x64 edition, the same script (it opens the same file), and the COM object compiled to x64 code, takes just 0.11 seconds!

Of course, a good performance test, would involve pure tests, so measuring a mix of operations, would garble our output.
So I improved the COM object, and it would use two memory buffers (one for decoding, the other for binary contents) and only resize them, if a bigger allocation was needed.
In addition, the function ToString() which returns a variant, became ‘byref’ method. If you do so, you can reuse and reallocate string space (not many oleautomation programmers are aware of this efficiency step).
This makes a difference, since our file was 12.5 MB in size. An encoded Base64 unicode string, would need 35MB RAM string storage, and 12.5 MB binary space plus a conversion buffer of 17 MB (because ATL assumes you use a non wide-string). It makes sense, not to destroy that memory heap space and not recreate it at each call.
So, the first time, we decode, we measure memory allocations and math, the second time, all strings and allocations would be -used-, not (re)allocated!

'Hard' numbers! (finally)
Here is a typical output of our script doing 3 times a base64 encoding big files of 12.5 MB in size. The first time (yellow), the heap cache is not effective, the second time (blue), I open a different file (not 10.5 MB) and the third time (yellow again), I reopen the first file again.

x64 environment		win32 environment
readfile1 (test1) (12.5MB)	0.011	0.044
encode	0.097	0.203 (! See remarks *)
Final base64 string length	35MB	identical
Readfile 2 (test2) (10.5MB)	0,015	0.015
Encode	0.063	0.125
Final base64 string length	28MB	identical
Readfile 1 (test3) (12.5MB)	0.015	0.016
Encode	0.109	0.125
Final string length	35 MB

Update: Added WOW64 test. ie, a vbs in 32-bit mode and a 32-bit Com server in emulation mode.

Readfile 1: 0.016
Encode: 0.09

ReadFile 2: 0.015
Encode: 0.047

Readfile 1: 0.016
Encode: 0.09

On a intel 4 with HT and 2.7 GH speed, the numbers hardly differ with the results on Windows x64.

Differences measured
File I/O read performance: hardly any difference
Memory allocation: +/- 100% faster on x64
(non 64 bit) 32 bit Integer Math: +/- 25% faster on x64.

Conclusion:
The biggest difference in our silly simple test was how memory is dealt with. After al, the conclusion is fairly explainable. On the X64 system, disk I/O read performance is not measurable faster, since the real bottleneck, must be hardware here, not integer math.

Memory heap allocation speed: Here we see a 100% performance boost. Or is our test on the AMD 64 running with a 32-bit just 100% slower because of the 'AMD 32-bit CPU emulation mode'? I think that the test that also ran on an Intel P4 system, answers that question.

What about the simple integer math? It has slightly better performance on a x64 system, better because our MS C++ compiler uses us much as possible available 'spare-registers' while the x32 (w)Intel CPU design, only has 4 spare-registers (like EAX,EBX, ECX and EDX) J.

And to those guys, who blamed Wow64 mode to cause a 'very slow performance' in emulation mode, this test has debunked that accusation.

If you have 32-bit software that will be running on a x64 environment, it won't run slower (but on a IA64 it will!). That is an argument not to port the software is it? Of course, if you build good old COM servers, you might think about migrating, if you've not yet decided for migrating it to .NET (msil) since COM components cannot be emulated (ie a 64-bit process, cannot load a 32- bit COM-server inProc). I also guess, that Microsoft won't port Office so soon to x64 for these reasons.
* It seems that when you run a 32-bit OS on a AMD 64-bit processor, the execution and heap management (100% difference) is a lot slower as the tests show, than when you boot a 64-bit OS (windows x64 here).
On an Intel PIV with a comparable performance CPU-index the same performance was measured as on the 64-bit environment.

Our final conclusion comes to the following.

Let's first rephrase our question. Does a standard 32-bit software-package profit of being ported to 64-bit software?
It depends. If your software needs 64-bit calculations, as is the case with graphical software, yes!
If the software is just as the test doing some 32-bit math and some harddisk activity, it really makes no sense spending money on porting. Just make use of the perfect Wow64 design done by Microsoft!

An other performance chart shows that software execution is not especially faster because of a new smart set of CPU instructions available, but because of the 4GB addressable memory limit! See Active Directory benchmark here
For instance, an Active Directory benchmark, showed a whopping 10,473 percent performance improvement over searching a non-indexed attribute when there are 3,000,000 users! Why that much? Because Active Directory on 64-bit architecture, allows the database to be fully cached in memory. And there you see, when your bucks spent on porting 64-bit, earn back quickly!

Source code for the COM component (MS Visual C++ 8.0) is here...

http://technolog.nl/eprogrammer/base64dec.zip

[ADSI] Why developing extensions for the Active Directory snapin is hard (but fun)...

EProgrammer — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 23:45:00 GMT

I've been doing MMC AD extensions, for a while. Learning, and using trial and error.

Before you ask, why I do this? I like to do things that not often is done! So, at my 10th implementation of a varation on 'some address book' or 'shopping basket' through ASPX or whatever technology for some customer (no offense, thanks to those customers for hiring me) I get bored.

So I choose a new product, that I soon will release.

There are some reaons why this is hard. MS, are you listening? :)

1) How to deal with testing and active directory?

Just a few years ago, it was nearly impossible for developers, to develop extensions for the Active Directory snapin where modifying the domain schema was involved.

You first had to opt for a OID for your company. That's not to hard. But then, you start testing your code. And you find you can't undo schema changes, so easily your changes so you start enumerating IDs and names for each test-run, your test environment becomes messed with unrelated stuff and objects that are 'no longer valid'.

Through virtual server 2003, SP1, I find myself a lot happier, because you just can undo a virtual disk modification, and your active directory schema is back to before your test. But still, a reboot is involved. Maybe some admin-guru, could tell me that restoring the active directory is not so difficult at all. Anyway, a reboot is involved there as well!

Microsoft, here speaks one of your customers (echo... :) )! Please have us edit/delete our own attributeSchema and Classschema objects. I'm sure this request has been done a lot of times, but no, for some reasons, this seems too difficult to implement?

So why do I spent so much lines about testing your snapins and schema changes on AD? Because, I lost many hours, and even a full day, because the schema got once out of sync. And to get all DC's in sync again, you'd go back to an old copy of the virtual windows image but I had to rebuild a lot of things before this image was up and running.
If Windows would allow us to do something like in SQL server, 'ad hoc' updates (including deletes) on system tables for advanced and skilled users, it would be a good thing.

2) The second problem, is how to develop good code while the docs lack. The MSDN sdk folks, wrote us a lot of samples, sure they work, but they all are MFC and some samples, even were prepared and never updated for us, during the time Windows 2000 was designed. So the samples, use pure C++, they mess with messages and hooks(sorry, no offense to anyone) and if each template would need it's own static hooking code, I would find myself helpless because my C++ power is not that great.

Personally, I choose not to develop using MFC code. I like ATL and WTL and ..., a lot on this subject has been written by others.

And where is a good example of the implementation of the CSnapInPropertyPageImpl class (atlsnapin.h) or IDsAdminNewObjExt?
And why does geticon return no icon when I validly reference an iconresource in my dll? There are more issues, but I won't bother you about them.

So I decided, to refine sample code integrate it in my dialogs, and clean up the samples to get a minimized working sample. The final result is really cute, and understandable. I will publish such a sample soon.

3) When you read the MSDN docs, you soon realize, that the docs contain lots of bugs and unclear statements. You have to find it all yourselves. Don't get confused by the MMC 1.2 and 2.0 docs, because you'll discover, that the snapin for Active Directory, really uses some other interfaces and not the fancy new stuff that the MMC 1.2 and higher use.

Microsoft soon will release the SDK for MMC 3.0. I've said this before, but this is just a managed implementation of the unmanaged one. A lot of Pinvoke plumbing would not be needed that you -would- need, if you would do the same using C# and the well known MMC managed open source API on sourceforge.net.
Still, I choose not to go for this solution which is beta 2 for now. Because that beta, assumes your are doing MMC 1.2 and higher, while the Active Directory snapin does depend on some other interfaces and ADSI apis. There you are busy writing and testing your own P-invokes and you also should tell your clients, to install the NET framework version 2. I wonder, I have no hard numbers, how much clients would be willing to do this.

4) The fourth challence, and this is a very subjective one, that is, how good are your C++ and windows UI skills? You need to know about internationalization, ADSI, Win32, NT Security, a lot of C++ dialog stuff, debugging technics and keep your code generic so it would run on all domains.

5) The fifth challence, is really a huge lack in the AD Snapin design as follows: As you can see, when you open the Active Directory snapin, all property sheets, are having a standard UI and tabs. If you develop your own extension, only a -few dialogs- are to your exposal, such as the DirectoryObject picker. But what about the security tab? 'Member of' and 'members' tabs? What about the 'Security' and 'Object' tab? Yes, by some non-published snapin IDs you can have some of them. But MS did not document this, so MS could break this feature in future releases. Be prepared, to build those tab all -again- yourselves!

Which language? C++ or C#?

If you look at the skill requirements a developer needs to cover, you'll conclude that you could use both languages for snapins for Active Directory, but that C++ still has more power to windows. And that C# is not really the -rad- tool you would expect to implement all fancy features.

Personally, I'm not a windows UI guy at all, so all the API's related to DCs and HWNDs were historically based on some Microsoft Visual Basic 6 API hacking :), so you'll understand, that's not too hot for a real C++ freak :)

At a conclusion, I can say that, after all, developing extensions for the AD is really not that difficult. It is only that wide spread on technologies, and software and documentation borders refrain you from quickly getting some result (before you give up).

If the Active Directory and AD Snapin team would follow the IIS path, (b.t.w I am an IIS MVP :) ), they will find a lot more 3rd party extensions making tools. And more businesses will go for Microsoft Active Directory instead of Sun, Novell etc. because of those nifty features and lots of snap ins they have at 'their fingertips'.

Why IIS? Because personally, I find IIS the most open server platform and best documented and supported on Windows there is.

[C++, ATL] Retrieving mime type based on content?

EProgrammer — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:35:00 GMT

Windows is a powerful platform, at least, if you know which APIs are at your service :)

For instance, function FindMimeFromData (exported from UrlMon.dll) was very helpfull in telling me that the user is opening the right type of file based on the content-type. I did not test if this is full proof for all conten types, but I just needed it for determing the type of image (jpeg/png/gif/wmf/emf/tif/ etc) and that works! You can't fool this function, by modifying the extension of the file, from .jpg to .gif for instance!

I got this TIP from a hardcore ATL programmer Alex Fedotov. The Russians are the best programmers :). And in fact, you could easily use this function in C# as well.

Spasiba! (it seems that .Text developers did not utilize nvarchar (unicode-16) for text its database storage so I can't use russian characters)

ps: If you wonder if I copied this from pinvoke.net, no, it's the other way around :)

[DllImport("urlmon.dll", EntryPoint="FindMimeFromData", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = false)]

static extern int FindMimeFromData(IntPtr pBC,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string pwzUrl,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType = UnmanagedType.I1, SizeParamIndex = 3)] byte[] pBuffer,

int cbSize,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string pwzMimeProposed,

int dwMimeFlags,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

out string ppwzMimeOut,

int dwReserved);

/// <summary>

/// Ensures that file exists and retrieves the content type

/// </summary>

/// <param name="file"></param>

/// <returns>Returns for instance "images/jpeg" </returns>

public static string getMimeFromFile(string file)

{

if (!System.IO.File.Exists(file))

throw new FileNotFoundException(file + " not found");

int MaxContent = (int)new FileInfo(file).Length;

if (MaxContent > 4096) MaxContent = 4096;

FileStream fs = File.OpenRead(file);

byte[] buf = new byte[MaxContent];

fs.Read(buf, 0, MaxContent);

fs.Close();

string mime;

//note: the CLR frees the data automatically returned in ppwzMimeOut

int result = FindMimeFromData(IntPtr.Zero, file, buf, MaxContent, null, 0, out mime, 0);

if (result != 0)

throw Marshal.GetExceptionForHR(result);

return mime;

}

Note that the MSDN does not tell us, how to free the returned data pointed by ppwzMimeOut. I simply assume it to be a CoTaskAlloc-ed string and if it were not true, we have no problem unless you try to run this on a winblows 9.x environment. If someone knows facts about this please let me know.

Here it comes in C++.

///<summary>
/// accepts an existing path to a file and reads some bytes (max 4096) to determine the content type
///</summary>
///<returns>"images/jpeg" for instance</returns>

STDMETHODIMP GetContentType(PCWSTR file, BSTR* contentType) throw()

{

AtlTrace(L"GetContentType %s\n", file);

CAtlFile fl;

ULONGLONG maxContent ;

HRESULT hr = fl.Create(file, FILE_READ_DATA, FILE_SHARE_READ, OPEN_EXISTING);

if (hr != S_OK) return hr;

hr = fl.GetSize(maxContent);

DWORD maxData = maxContent > 4096 ? 4096 : (DWORD)maxContent;

CTempBuffer<BYTE, 4096, CComAllocator> data(maxData);

PWSTR mime;

if (data != NULL)

{

hr = fl.Read(data, maxData, maxData);

fl.Close();

// have urlmon do the task

hr = FindMimeFromData(NULL, file, data, maxData, NULL, 0, &mime, 0);

}

else

return E_OUTOFMEMORY;

if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

{
*contentType = CComBSTR(mime).Detach();

CoTaskMemFree(mime);

}

return hr;

}

HOWTO: [DotNet] marshale a managed string array for Interop

EProgrammer — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:39:00 GMT

Normally if you have defined a struct in C# which is for a Win32 call, you might tend to copy-paste it from C++, and then modify LPWSTR to string and add attributes (etc),
like this:

struct myStruct
{
   [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWstr)}
   public string blah; //ok
   [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, ArraySubType=UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]
    public string[] stringarray;
}

Let's concentrate on the array definition. The original array was defined like LPWSTR* stringarray; this is an array of pointers to zero-terminated strings.

Now you thought, that a few attributes, would be sufficient to support your interop?

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType=UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]
public string[] stringarray;
but the .NET framework, won't support you here. It is not able to create an unmanaged array of 'some type' on structs (this however, is working for parameter definitions) and to pass it to your unmanaged API.

And if you wonder what UnmanagedType.ByValArray, UnmanagedType.LPWStr really does; it creates a pointer to a contigous block of zero terminated strings. It would not create an array of stringpointers. So now you know, why interop is an art, not a science :)

At last, I wrote an easy wrapper. It returns an IntPtr which is a just pointer to our first element to an array of string pointers :)

You should assign this class as a member variable on your own class. If you use this class inside a member function, your unmanaged memory might be cleaned when the function goes out of scope.
PS: Please send back the improved code, if you decide to use it (at your own risk of course). It might be improved, to pack managed structures as well, using C# generics.

Sample:

class myClass()

{ private packLPArray packit;

      void myMemberfunction()
      {   // ... do your dangerous, endeavourish :) interop thing here
            packit = new packLPArray(new string[] {"element1", "element2", "blah"});
            mystruct.stringarray = packit.arrayPtr;
      }

}

///<summary> packs an array of strings (type = string[]) to unmanaged memory
/// also works for 64-bit environments
///</summary>
public sealed class packLPArray
{
private IntPtr taskAlloc;

private readonly int _length;

private IntPtr[] _strings;

public packLPArray(string[] theArray)

{ int sizeIntPtr = IntPtr.Size;

int neededSize = 0;

if (theArray != null)

{

this._length = theArray.Length;

this._strings = new IntPtr[this._length];

// System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();

neededSize = this._length * sizeIntPtr;

this.taskAlloc = Marshal.AllocCoTaskMem(neededSize);

            for (int cx = this._length - 1; cx >= 0; cx--)
            {   this._strings[cx] = Marshal.StringToCoTaskMemUni(theArray[cx]);
                Marshal.WriteIntPtr(this.taskAlloc, cx * sizeIntPtr, this._strings[cx]);

}

/// <summary>

/// retrieves array length

/// </summary>

public int Length

{

get { return _length; }

}

public IntPtr arrayPtr

{

get { return this.taskAlloc; }

}

~packLPArray() // clean up the rub

{

if (taskAlloc != IntPtr.Zero)

{

Marshal.FreeCoTaskMem(this.taskAlloc);

int cx = this._length;

while(cx-- != 0)

Marshal.FreeCoTaskMem(this._strings[cx]);

}

yummi! A new namespace! Let's have a look at ComTypes (NET 2.0)

EProgrammer — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:49:00 GMT

I just had some COM interop work, and decided to use STGMEDIUM and
FORMATETC.
These structs, are necessary for many CLIPboard operations. But what draws my attention?
the MSDN says this:

typedef struct tagSTGMEDIUM

{

    DWORD tymed;

    [switch_type(DWORD), switch_is((DWORD) tymed)]

    union {

        [case(TYMED_GDI)]      HBITMAP        hBitmap;

        [case(TYMED_MFPICT)]   HMETAFILEPICT hMetaFilePict;

        [case(TYMED_ENHMF)]    HENHMETAFILE   hEnhMetaFile;

        [case(TYMED_HGLOBAL)] HGLOBAL        hGlobal;

        [case(TYMED_FILE)]     LPWSTR         lpszFileName;

        [case(TYMED_ISTREAM)] IStream        *pstm;

        [case(TYMED_ISTORAGE)] IStorage       *pstg;

        [default] ;

    };

    [unique] IUnknown *pUnkForRelease;

}STGMEDIUM;

typedef STGMEDIUM *LPSTGMEDIUM;

As we all know, a union, in C++ is just a keyword which makes it's member variables start all at the same memory location. In a .NET struct, we can have the same result by using the following atribute: [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]

For each structure member,. you now can specify an offset.

Our dear developers, decided for us, that we should not have that luxury of difficult choices having a struct with explicit layout, but let's not complain about this for now...

There is something -more- seriously wrong.

Have a look at the built in interop defintion (in the .NET 2.0 framework!)

(namespace System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComTypes)

public struct STGMEDIUM
{
public object pUnkForRelease;
public TYMED tymed;

public IntPtr unionmember;
}

After some crashes, I found that the definition, contains the correct members at the wrong location!

As you can see, this defintion, is wrong and should be

public struct STGMEDIUM
{

public TYMED tymed;

public IntPtr unionmember;

public object pUnkForRelease;
}

A similar problem exists with FORMATETC. I'll not bother you with the details, but let's just post the correct defition. Next time, if you need these structs, don't use the one from the .NET 2.0 interop layer...

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct FORMATETC
{
   public short cfFormat;
   public IntPtr ptd;
   [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)]
   public DVASPECT dwAspect;
   public int lindex;
   [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)]
   public TYMED tymed;
};

A C# implementation of DsCrackNames for a NameTranslate class, what about unsafe code? (update)

EProgrammer — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:48:00 GMT

Have you ever tried to pinvoke a function, that returns a pointer to an array of structs? There's you can easily marshale them using safe C# code but if the code was not written already and you can't simply copy-paste that :), I promise to you, that you'll have to do a lot more work to get it done. unsafe code might be a quicker solution.

You could use unsafe code in the following situations:

a) You are not writing code or utilities, that might or will run in restricted environments, such as with an ISP environment. And ISPs (eg.) should not allow .NET to run third-party code that needs full-trust policies.
b) You have knowledge about pointers using C++
c) Your program will not be completely 'type safe', this is what some evangelists say, however, I don't see a flawless windows or webfarm if only everything were typesafe :).

Therefore, I propagate, that the biggest part, if not all, of your code, is type-safe. If some tiny utilities, are tested well and in favor of speed and power and possibilities, need to be type-unsafe, just go on.

If conditions have been considered, make your decision. Eventually stop reading now and wait for other postings :).

Such a candidate to be marked as unsafe, would be DsCrackNames, for the COM/automation world, it would be clever to instantiate the NameTranslate class which has an IDispatch interface (good for scripting as well).
Since ít's my hobby, to avoid easy solutions :) I wrote a unique (for the moment, I did not find another on the internet) wrapper for DsCrackNames which run nearly identical its earlier automation friend.

Let's have a look at the MSDN definition of this function.:
DWORD DsCrackNames(
HANDLE hDS,
DS_NAME_FLAGS flags,
DS_NAME_FORMAT formatOffered,
DS_NAME_FORMAT formatDesired,
DWORD cNames,
LPCTSTR* rpNames,
PDS_NAME_RESULT* ppResult
);

Wow! this promises a lot of troubles, since PDS_NAME_RESULT is a pointer to a structure which contains an array of pointers to another sequential struct.

MSDN definition:
typedef struct
{
DWORD cItems;
PDS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM rItems;
} DS_NAME_RESULT,
*PDS_NAME_RESULT;

And here's the struct rItems refers to...

typedef struct {
  DWORD status;
  LPTSTR pDomain;
  LPTSTR pName;

} DS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM,
*PDS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM;

I do challence you, to write a 'safe' equivalent to it, I tried it, and believe me, the .NET framework does its stinking best to tell you that your attributes are not valid.

Of course, we understand that it simply is not possible unless you jump to a MC++ solution or you use the definition from www.pinvoke.net which is requires a lot tricky code (no offense to anybody)... .

You cannot use attributes on the structure, and pass the stuff in one single call to the platform invoke and have the net framework do the actual marshaling for you. You should create some looping work using Marshal.ReadInt32 (..) if you go for the 'safe' code solution .

I want to stress the point that safe platform invokes are not necessarily safer! They can leak memory as hell sorry, as well.

I've tried to use the [MarshalAs] attribute, but a having interop fill an array of IntPtrs inside a struct is not supported by the IL environment. Yes, you can try something like

struct DS_NAME_RESULT
{
int cItems;
IntPtr firstItem; //will work only if you crack one item or if you use Marshal.ReadInt32 etc code seen at pinvoke.net
}

Or try this... But now you have a managed array of IntPtr and that won't work as well.

struct DS_NAME_RESULT
{
int cItems;
IntPtr[] pDS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM; //won't be marshaled since the framework cannot create and marshale this array on the fly
}

and DS_NAME_RESULT ITEM would be like:

struct DS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM
{
  public int status;
  [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWstr)]
  public string pDomain;
  [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWstr)]
  public string pName;
} ;

Let's see how easy you could write the solution set the 'unsafe' attribute in spite of how disastrous this might sound.

Unsafe only allows for easy interop with unmaged IL code, this is a facto default with MC++, where you easily can use all those .h files, (windows.h, winbase.h etc) without having to retype all your DllImport statements or without having to copy them from http://www.pinvoke.net which often has untested declares. I could have use MC++ as well, but if you want to expose the assembly for reusage, you'll start to redefine all those Win32 enums and constants anyway. We have to learn to live with the border between managed and unmanged code.

Our 'unsafe' CSharp code, looks very much like a C++ implementation. In addition, it offers some improvements over the IADsNameTranslate interface (that you derive from NameTranslate, with Guid("b1b272a3-3625-11d1-a3a4-00c04fb950dc").

Some remarks about my style of programming: I really don't like ansi or Win9x compatible code. Screw it! :), as you can see, my declares favor Windows 2000 and higher. Also take in account, that this is not full proof & tested code.

Have fun using this code.

* Use of this code, in your projects, is for your own risk.

* If you modify the code, you send improvements back

* If you copy the code, you won't remove the credits for the code

using System;

using System.DirectoryServices;

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

using System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory;

using System.Data;

using System.ComponentModel;

namespace NameTranslate

{

public enum ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM

{

/// <summary>

/// Initializes a NameTranslate object by setting the domain that the object binds to.

/// </summary>

ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_DOMAIN = 1,

/// <summary>

/// Initializes a NameTranslate object by setting the server that the object binds to.

/// </summary>

ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_SERVER = 2,

/// <summary>

/// Initializes a NameTranslate object by locating the global catalog that the object binds to

/// </summary>

ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3

} ;

public enum DS_NAME_FORMAT

{

DS_UNKNOWN_NAME = 0,

DS_FQDN_1779_NAME = 1,

DS_NT4_ACCOUNT_NAME = 2,

DS_DISPLAY_NAME = 3,

DS_UNIQUE_ID_NAME = 6,

DS_CANONICAL_NAME = 7,

DS_USER_PRINCIPAL_NAME = 8,

DS_CANONICAL_NAME_EX = 9,

DS_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_NAME = 10,

DS_SID_OR_SID_HISTORY_NAME = 11,

DS_DNS_DOMAIN_NAME = 12

} ;

enum DS_NAME_FLAGS

{

/// <summary>

/// Indicates that there are no associated flags

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_NO_FLAGS = 0x0,

/// <summary>

/// Performs a syntactical mapping at the client without transferring over the network.

/// The only syntactic mapping supported is from DS_FQDN_1779_NAME to DS_CANONICAL_NAME or DS_CANONICAL_NAME_EX.

/// DsCrackNames returns the DS_NAME_ERROR_NO_SYNTACTICAL_MAPPING flag if a syntactical mapping is not possible.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_FLAG_SYNTACTICAL = 0x1,

/// <summary>

/// Forces a trip to the domain controller for evaluation, even if the syntax could be cracked locally

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_FLAG_EVAL_AT_DC = 0x2,

/// <summary>

/// The call fails if the domain controller is not a global catalog server.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_FLAG_GCVERIFY = 0x4,

/// <summary>

/// Enables cross forest trust referral.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_FLAG_TRUST_REFERRAL = 0x8

} ;

public enum DS_NAME_ERROR

{

/// <summary>

/// The conversion was successful.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_NO_ERROR = 0,

/// <summary>

/// A generic processing error occurred.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_RESOLVING = 1,

/// <summary>

/// The name cannot be found or the caller does not have permission to access the name.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_NOT_FOUND = 2,

/// <summary>

/// The input name is mapped to more than one output name or the desired format did not have a single,

/// unique value for the object found.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_NOT_UNIQUE = 3,

/// <summary>

/// The input name was found, but the associated output format cannot be found.

/// This can occur if the object does not have all the required attributes.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_NO_MAPPING = 4,

/// <summary>

/// Unable to resolve entire name, but was able to determine in which domain object resides. The caller is expected to retry the call at a domain controller for the specified domain. The entire name cannot be resolved, but the domain that the object resides in could be determined. The pDomain member of the DS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM contains valid data when this error is specified.

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_DOMAIN_ONLY = 5,

/// <summary>

/// A syntactical mapping cannot be performed on the client without transmitting over the network

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_NO_SYNTACTICAL_MAPPING = 6,

/// <summary>

/// The name is from an external trusted forest

/// </summary>

DS_NAME_ERROR_TRUST_REFERRALDS = 7

};

public class NWCNameTranslate

{

[DllImport("NtDsapi.dll", EntryPoint = "DsBindW", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = false)]

static extern int DsBind(

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string DomainControllerName,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string DnsDomainName,

out IntPtr phDS);

[DllImport("NtDsapi.dll", EntryPoint = "DsBindWithCredW", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = false)]

static extern int DsBindWithCred(

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string DomainControllerName,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string DnsDomainName,

IntPtr authHandle,

out IntPtr phds);

unsafe struct DS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM

{

public DS_NAME_ERROR status;

public char* pDomain;

public char* pName;

} ;

public struct NameResultItem

{

public DS_NAME_ERROR status;

public string domain;

public string name;

}

unsafe struct DS_NAME_RESULT

{

public int cItems;

public DS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM* pDS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM;

} ;

[DllImport("Ntdsapi.dll", EntryPoint = "DsMakePasswordCredentialsW", ExactSpelling=true, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = false)]

static extern int DsMakePasswordCredentials(

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string User,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string Domain,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string Password,

out IntPtr pAuthIdentity

);

[DllImport("Ntdsapi.dll", ExactSpelling=true)]

static extern void DsFreePasswordCredentials(

IntPtr AuthIdentity

);

[DllImport("Ntdsapi.dll", EntryPoint = "DsUnBindW", SetLastError = false, ExactSpelling=true)]

static extern int DsUnBind(IntPtr phDS);

[DllImport("NtDsapi.dll", EntryPoint = "DsFreeNameResultW", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = false, ExactSpelling=true)]

unsafe private static extern int

DsFreeNameResult(DS_NAME_RESULT* pResult);

[DllImport("Ntdsapi.dll", EntryPoint = "DsCrackNamesW", SetLastError = false, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling=true)]

unsafe static extern int DsCrackNames(IntPtr hDS,

DS_NAME_FLAGS flags,

DS_NAME_FORMAT formatOffered,

DS_NAME_FORMAT formatDesired,

int cNames,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType = UnmanagedType.LPWStr, SizeParamIndex = 4)]

string[] rpNames,

DS_NAME_RESULT** ds_name_result

);

[DllImport("Activeds.dll", EntryPoint = "ADsBuildVarArrayStr", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = false, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]

static extern int ADsBuildVarArrayStr(

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType = UnmanagedType.LPWStr, SizeParamIndex = 1)]

string[] lppPathNames,

int arrayLen,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)]

out object varArray);

private IntPtr hDs;

private IntPtr ident;

private string[] crackme;

private NameResultItem[] cracked;

private DS_NAME_FORMAT inType;

private DS_NAME_FORMAT outType;

public NWCNameTranslate()

{

}

~NWCNameTranslate()

{

            DsUnBind(this.hDs);
            if (this.ident != IntPtr.Zero)
               DsFreePasswordCredentials(this.ident);

}

public void ChaseReferral(int lnChaseReferral)

{

//this.nt.ChaseReferral(lnChaseReferral);

//if (res != 0) throw new COMException("NameTranslate Failed", res);

}

public NameResultItem Get(DS_NAME_FORMAT lnFormatType)

{

this.outType = lnFormatType;

this.Crack();

if (this.cracked.Length == 1)

return this.cracked[0];

else

return new NameResultItem();

}

unsafe private void Crack()

{

DS_NAME_RESULT * ppresult=null;

int lenArray = this.crackme.Length;

int result = DsCrackNames(this.hDs,

DS_NAME_FLAGS.DS_NAME_NO_FLAGS,

this.inType,

this.outType,

lenArray,

this.crackme,

&ppresult);

if (result != 0)

throw new Win32Exception(result);

lenArray = ppresult->cItems;

this.cracked = new NameResultItem[lenArray];

// Well, is this code giving you the creeps being 'unsafe', I think not! :)

for (int cx = lenArray - 1; cx >= 0; cx--)

{

DS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM nameRes = ppresult->pDS_NAME_RESULT_ITEM[cx];

this.cracked[cx].status = nameRes.status;

this.cracked[cx].domain = new string(nameRes.pDomain);

this.cracked[cx].name = new string(nameRes.pName);

}

DsFreeNameResult(ppresult);

}

public NameResultItem[] GetEx(DS_NAME_FORMAT lnFormatType)

{

this.outType = lnFormatType;

this.Crack();

return this.cracked;

}

public void Init(ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM lnSetType)

{

int result = 0;

DsGetDcNameWrap.DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO domInfo = DsGetDcNameWrap.GetDomainInfo();

if (this.hDs != IntPtr.Zero)

{

result = DsUnBind(this.hDs);

if (this.ident != IntPtr.Zero)
DsFreePasswordCredentials(this.ident);

}

if (lnSetType == ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM.ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_DOMAIN)

result = DsBind(null, domInfo.DomainName, out this.hDs);

else if (lnSetType == ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM.ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_SERVER)

result = DsBind(domInfo.DomainControllerName, null, out this.hDs);

if (result != 0)

throw new Win32Exception(result);

}

public void Init(ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM lnSetType, string bstrADsPath)

{

int result =0;

            if (this.hDs != IntPtr.Zero)
            {
               DsUnBind(this.hDs);
               if (this.ident != IntPtr.Zero)
                  DsFreePasswordCredentials(this.ident);
            }

if (lnSetType == ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM.ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_DOMAIN)

result = DsBind(null, bstrADsPath, out this.hDs);

else if (lnSetType == ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM.ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_SERVER)

result = DsBind(bstrADsPath, null, out this.hDs);

if (result != 0)

throw new Win32Exception(result);

}

public void InitEx(ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM lnSetType, string bstrADsPath, string bstrUserID, string bstrDomain, string bstrPassword)

{

         if (this.hDs != IntPtr.Zero)
         {
            DsUnBind(this.hDs);
            if (this.ident != IntPtr.Zero)
               //fix leak thanks to Jimmy!
               DsFreePasswordCredentials(this.ident);
         }

int result = DsMakePasswordCredentials(bstrUserID, bstrDomain, bstrPassword, out this.ident);

if (result != 0)

result = DsBindWithCred(null, bstrADsPath, this.ident, out this.hDs);

if (result != 0)

throw new Win32Exception(result);

}

public void Set(DS_NAME_FORMAT lnSetType, string bstrADsPath)

{

this.crackme = new string[] { bstrADsPath };

this.inType = lnSetType;

}

public void SetEx(DS_NAME_FORMAT lnFormatType, string[] pVar)

{

this.inType = lnFormatType;

this.crackme = pVar;

}

struct DsGetDcNameWrap

{

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]

internal struct DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO

{

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

public string DomainControllerName;

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)]

public string DomainControllerAddress;

public uint DomainControllerAddressType;

public Guid DomainGuid;

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

public string DomainName;

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

public string DnsForestName;

public int Flags;

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

public string DcSiteName;

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

public string ClientSiteName;

}

[DllImport("Netapi32.dll", SetLastError = true, ExactSpelling = true)]

static extern int NetApiBufferFree(IntPtr Buffer);

[DllImport("Netapi32.dll", EntryPoint = "DsGetDcNameW", ExactSpelling = true,

CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = false)]

static extern int DsGetDcName

(

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

string ComputerName,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

string DomainName,

IntPtr DomainGuid,

[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]

string SiteName,

int Flags,

out IntPtr pDOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO

);

static internal DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO GetDomainInfo()

{

DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO domainInfo;

IntPtr pDCI;

int val = DsGetDcName(null, null, IntPtr.Zero, null, 0, out pDCI);

//check return value for error

if (val == 0)

{

if (pDCI != IntPtr.Zero)

{

domainInfo = (DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO)Marshal.PtrToStructure(pDCI, typeof(DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO));

NetApiBufferFree(pDCI);

Marshal.DestroyStructure(pDCI, typeof(DOMAIN_CONTROLLER_INFO));

return domainInfo;

}

else

throw new NullReferenceException("DsGetDcName returned null");

}

else

{

throw new Win32Exception(val);

}

Now our tester code. I'm sure you know how to deal with it

static void Main()

{

NameTranslate.NWCNameTranslate nt = new NameTranslate.NWCNameTranslate();

nt.Init(NameTranslate.ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_ENUM.ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_DOMAIN);

string you = Environment.UserDomainName + "\\" + Environment.UserName;

nt.Set(NameTranslate.DS_NAME_FORMAT.DS_NT4_ACCOUNT_NAME, you);

NWCNameTranslate.NameResultItem test = nt.Get(NameTranslate.DS_NAME_FORMAT.DS_FQDN_1779_NAME);

// twice the same entry, just to illustrate :)

nt.SetEx(NameTranslate.DS_NAME_FORMAT.DS_NT4_ACCOUNT_NAME, new string[] { you, you });

NWCNameTranslate.NameResultItem[] test2 = nt.GetEx(NameTranslate.DS_NAME_FORMAT.DS_FQDN_1779_NAME);

}

ps: You may not publish this article without permission.

You can download the source here: nametranslate.zip

"Knock knock, who's here?"

EProgrammer — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:47:00 GMT

Hi,

Let's just get to business!

Eprogrammer is MVP, a Microsoft Valued Professional. And what for? Just for helping people on the internet, you can find him often at news://news.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.inetserver.iis . He runs a business, is self-employed and always looks for the edge of technology on C#, .NET C++ and ASP.NET.

Ok, who is Eprogrammer really? Are you really interested? In my free-time, I love to play and hunting rabbits with my falcon 'a gray parrot' and when I'm not free, I love to speak with Russian people about the bible. To be honest now, I did not say everything according to truth, if you look for 'chippy' in my private photocollection, you'll discover, that grey parrots do not really love to eat rabbits :)

What can you expect in my web logs? I would like to write like Kenny Kerr, my favorite weblogger. He's doing a lot of new and verstatile things that are really usefull to us all. http://weblogs.asp.net/kennykerr/

Currently, I run two projects, one for Leones, a MMC 3.0 add-in project. I never expected to write a full MMC application, but really believe me, in just a day or two, you have your own Active Directory Users and Computers snapin! (Now I'm exaggerating again, sorry!)

This MMC experience, is a very usefull, but suddenly, when you think you got it all, you'll find, it won't work as an extension snap-in for the Active Directory Users and Computers snapin. Why? Because they use a slightly other interface which derives for instance from another interface (for instance) IShellExtInit. MS wanted us, third party developers, to create our own extensions for the mentioned MMC app. The MSDN documentation really tells you all you should know, I repeat: they tell you, they write about it, but the samples lack recent code using ATL or WTL and using .NET, you'll find yourself writing interop declares for the biggest part of the programming time, so I decided to stick to C++ for the moment. I do not complain :), this makes my job a unique one, for the moment.

That's why I use C++ for my active directory extension snapins, for adccure.nl and .NET 2.0 framework, for Leones, the MMC SDK 3.0 should do it.

I'll post back later to let you know my findings.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, reading blogs are for free :<, I share my secrets with you, but only if my sponsor pays enough :)