ASP.NET Core Session in NCache

Install NuGet Package

Install the NuGet package Alachisoft.NCacheSessionServices.Enterprise to your application by executing the following command in the Package Manager Console:

Install-Package Alachisoft.NCacheSessionServices.Enterprise

Include Namespaces

To utilize the APIs, include the following namespaces in your application in Startup.cs:

• Alachisoft.NCache.Web.SessionState
• Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting

Using NCache Session Management Services with ASP.NET Core requires two steps:

1. Configuring the session management service
2. Adding middleware to the application

Step 1: Configure NCache Session Management Service

The session management service needs to be initialized. In Startup.cs, use the SetNCacheSessionConfiguration() extension method on IServiceCollection in ConfigureServices() to initialize the service. The very basic overload of this extension method takes an IOptions<NCacheSessionConfiguration> as its base configuration.

There are two methods to specify configurations:

• Through your application as IOptions or
• In JSON format in Appsettings.json of your application.

Important

Refer to ASP.NET Core Session Provider in Programmers' Guide for detailed description of each configuration member.

Method 1: Specifying Configurations in IOptions

The session can be initialized by the AddNCacheSession() extension method that takes an IOptions<NCacheSessionConfiguration> object as the configuration.

Note

The configuration must always contain the cache name.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    //Add framework services
    services.AddMvc();

    //Add services to the container with configured session (SessionAppId = NcacheSessionApp) for cache "demoClusteredCache", with logging enabled and idle timeout set to 5
    services.AddNCacheSession(configuration =>
    {
        configuration.CacheName = "demoClusteredCache";
        configuration.EnableLogs = true;
        configuration.SessionAppId = "NCacheSessionApp";
        configuration.SessionOptions.IdleTimeout = 5;
        configuration.SessionOptions.CookieName = "AspNetCore.Session";
    });                   

}

Method 2: Specifying Configurations in Appsettings.json

The configurations for the services can also be provided in JSON format as a section in Appsettings.json of your ASP.NET application:

Note

The configuration must always contain the cache name.

{

  "AppSettings": {
    "SiteTitle": "ASP.NET MVC Music Store",
    "CacheDbResults": true,
    "CacheName": "demoClusteredCache"
  },
  "NCacheSessions": {
    "SessionAppId": null,
    "SessionOptions": {
      "CookieName": "AspNetCore.Session",
      "CookieDomain": null,
      "CookiePath": "/",
      "CookieHttpOnly": "True",
      "IdleTimeout": "5",
      "CookieSecure": "None"
    },
    "CacheName": "demoClusteredCache",
    "EnableLogs": "True",
    "RequestTimeout": "90"
  },

  "DefaultAdminUsername": "Administrator@test.com",
  "DefaultAdminPassword": "myPassword",
  "Data": {
    "DefaultConnection": {
   "ConnectionString": "Server=(localdb)\\MSSQLLocalDB;Database=MusicStore;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true;Connect Timeout=30;"
    }
  }
}

NCache provides the SetNCacheSessionConfiguration() method to initialize configurations from external files before adding the session services to the container. Using this method, you can refer to the configurations by providing the name of the section containing JSON format configurations in Appsettings.json:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{ 
    //Add framework services
    services.AddMvc();

    //Add services to the container                    
    services.SetNCacheSessionConfiguration(Configuration.GetSection("NCacheSettings"));

    services.AddNCacheSession();
}

Step 2: Add Middleware to Application

Once the services have been initialized, you can now configure the HTTP request pipeline by adding middleware in the Configure() method. The following is an excerpt showing the addition of a middleware layer through the use of UseNCacheSession() extension method inIApplicationBuilder. The NCache session middleware should always be stacked before the layer that utilizes the sessions.

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{
    loggerFactory.AddConsole(Configuration.GetSection("Logging"));
    loggerFactory.AddDebug();

    if (env.IsDevelopment())
    {
        app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
        app.UseBrowserLink();
    }
    else
    {
        app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
    }
    app.UseStaticFiles();           

    app.UseNCacheSession(); //store NCache session data            

    app.UseMvc(routes =>
    {
        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "default",
            template: "{controller=myApp}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
    });
}