How to use Security in NCache?

Note

This feature is only available in NCache Enterprise Edition.
This feature is provided for both Windows and Linux .NET Core applications.

NCache provides a customizable security feature for securing distributed cache access. You can prevent any unwanted or unauthorized access to your NCache cluster, and to the data that resides in the cluster by simply configuring NCache security. Moreover, the data being transmitted over the network between cache servers and your application can be secured by configuring the NCache data encryption mechanism. No code changes are required for NCache security and encryption customizations.

Pre-requisites

Install the following NuGet packages in your application:
- Alachisoft.NCache.SDK
Include the following namespaces in your application:
- Alachisoft.NCache.Client
- Alachisoft.NCache.Runtime.Exceptions
- System.Configuration
Add System.Configuration assembly through Reference Manager.
The application must be connected to cache before performing the operation.
Cache must be running.
For API details: ICache, CacheConnectionOptions,GetCache()
To ensure the operation is fail safe, it is recommended to handle any potential exceptions within your application, as explained in Handling Failures.
To handle any unseen exceptions, refer to the Troubleshooting section.

Pre-Requisites

Add the following Maven dependencies in your pom.xml file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.alachisoft.ncache</groupId>
    <artifactId>ncache-client</artifactId>
    <version>5.2.0</version>
</dependency>

Import the following packages in your application:
- import com.alachisoft.ncache.client.*;
- import com.alachisoft.ncache.runtime.exceptions.*;
- import com.alachisoft.ncache.web.security.*;
The application must be connected to cache before performing the operation.
Cache must be running.
For API details: Cache,Credentials
Make sure that the data being added is serializable.
To ensure the operation is fail safe, it is recommended to handle any potential exceptions within your application, as explained in Handling Failures.
To handle any unseen exceptions, refer to the Troubleshooting section.

Include the following modules in your application:
- const ncache = require('ncache-client')
The application must be connected to cache before performing the operation.
Cache must be running.
For API details refer to: Cache,CacheConnectionOptions.
To ensure the operation is fail safe, it is recommended to handle any potential exceptions within your application, as explained in Handling Failures.
To handle any unseen exceptions, refer to the Troubleshooting section.

Here's an example which shows how to enable security on the cache. Once security is configured on the cache, security credentials need to be mentioned for initializing cache, using CacheConnectionOptions. For Java, the class used to mention the user credentials is SecurityParams.

try
{
    // Initialize credentials
    string userid = "UserId";
    string password = "UserPassword";
    string cacheName = "myreplicatedcache";

    // Use CacheConnectionOptions to provide credentials 
    var options = new CacheConnectionOptions();

    // Use UserCredentials property to assign credentials
    options.UserCredentials = new Credentials(userid, password);

    // Connecting to cache with security credentials
    ICache cache = CacheManager.GetCache(cacheName, options);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex)
{
      // NCache specific exception
      if (ex.ErrorCode == NCacheErrorCodes.NO_SERVER_AVAILABLE)
      {
            // Make sure NCache Service is running
            // Make sure that the cache is running
      }
      else
      {
            // Exception can occur due to:
            // Connection Failures: ErrorCode 17506
            // Operation Timeout: ErrorCode 35003
            // Operation performed during state transfer
      }
}
catch (ConfigurationException ex)
{
      if(ex.ErrorCode == NCacheErrorCodes.SERVER_INFO_NOT_FOUND)
      {     
            // client.ncconf must have server information
      }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
      // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
      // Argument exception occurs in case of empty string name
}

try 
{
      // Initialize credentials
      String userId = "UserId";
      String password = "UserPassword";
      String cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

      // Use CacheConnectionOptions to provide credentials
      CacheConnectionOptions options = new CacheConnectionOptions();

      // Use UserCredentials property to assign credentials
      Credentials credentials = new Credentials(userId, password);
      options.setUserCredentials(credentials);

      // Connecting to cache with security credentials
      Cache cache = CacheManager.getCache(cacheName, options);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex) 
{
      // NCache specific exception
      if (ex.getErrorCode() == NCacheErrorCodes.NO_SERVER_AVAILABLE) 
      {
           // Make sure NCache Service is running
           // Make sure that the cache is running
      }
      else
      {
          // Exception can occur due to:
          // Connection Failures: ErrorCode 17506
          // Operation Timeout: ErrorCode 35003
          // Operation performed during state transfer
      }
}
catch (ConfigurationException ex) 
{
      if (ex.getErrorCode() == NCacheErrorCodes.SERVER_INFO_NOT_FOUND) 
      {
         // client.ncconf must have server information
      }
}
catch (Exception ex) 
{
    // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
    // Argument exception occurs in case of empty string name
}

// This is an async method
try 
{
      // Initialize credentials
      let userId = "UserId";
      let password = "UserPassword";
      let cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

      // Use CacheConnectionOptions to provide credentials
      let options = new ncache.CacheConnectionOptions();

      // Use UserCredentials property to assign credentials
      let credentials = new ncache.Credentials(userId, password);
      options.setUserCredentials(credentials);

      // Connecting to cache with security credentials
      let cache = await ncache.CacheManager.getCache(cacheName, options);
}
catch (error) 
{
      // Handle errors
}

Or as an alternative, the security credentials can be provided in the property file of your application:

./media/image1.png

try
{
    // Initialize credentials
    string userName = string.Empty;
    string password = string.Empty;
    string cacheName = "myreplicatedcache";

    // Check if Username and Passwod is provided through App.config file
    if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Username"] != null)
    {
        userName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Username"].ToString();
    }
    if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Password"] != null)
    {
        password = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Password"].ToString();
    }

    // Use CacheConnectionOptions to provide credentials 
    var options = new CacheConnectionOptions();

    options.UserCredentials = new Credentials(userName, password);

    // Connect to cache with security credentials provided in App.config file
    ICache cache = CacheManager.GetCache(cacheName, options);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex)
{
      // NCache specific exception
      if (ex.ErrorCode == NCacheErrorCodes.NO_SERVER_AVAILABLE)
      {
            // Make sure NCache Service is running
            // Make sure that the cache is running
      }
      else
      {
            // Exception can occur due to:
            // Connection Failures: ErrorCode 17506
            // Operation Timeout: ErrorCode 35003
            // Operation performed during state transfer
      }
}
catch (ConfigurationException ex)
{
      if(ex.ErrorCode == NCacheErrorCodes.SERVER_INFO_NOT_FOUND)
      {     
            // client.ncconf must have server information
      }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
      // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
      // Argument exception occurs in case of empty string name
}

try {
      // Precondition: Cache is connected
      String cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

      // Check if Username and password is provided in the property file of the application
      Properties properties = new Properties();
      properties.load(new FileInputStream("security.properties"));

      String userName = properties.getProperty("Username");
      String password = properties.getProperty("Password");

      // Use CacheConnectionOptions to provide credentials
      CacheConnectionOptions options = new CacheConnectionOptions();
      Credentials credentials = new Credentials(userName, password);
      options.setUserCredentials(credentials);

      // Initializing cache with security credentials provided in the property file
      Cache cache = CacheManager.getCache(cacheName, options);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex) 
{
      // NCache specific exception
      if (ex.getErrorCode() == NCacheErrorCodes.NO_SERVER_AVAILABLE) 
      {
            // Make sure NCache Service is running
            // Make sure that the cache is running
      } 
      else
      {   
            // Exception can occur due to:
            // Connection Failures: ErrorCode 17506
            // Operation Timeout: ErrorCode 35003
            // Operation performed during state transfer
      }
}
catch (ConfigurationException exception) 
{
      if (exception.getErrorCode() == NCacheErrorCodes.SERVER_INFO_NOT_FOUND) 
      {
            // client.ncconf must have server information
      }
}
catch (Exception exception) 
{
      // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
      // Argument exception occurs in case of empty string name
}

// This is an async method
try
{
      // Precondition: Cache is connected
      let cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

      // Check if Username and password is provided in the property file of the application
      let userName = properties.get('User.UserName');
      let password = properties.get('User.Password');

      // Use CacheConnectionOptions to provide credentials
      let options = new ncache.CacheConnectionOptions();
      let credentials = new ncache.Credentials(userName, password);
      options.setUserCredentials(credentials);

      // Initializing cache with security credentials provided in the property file
      let cache = await ncache.CacheManager.getCache(cacheName, options);
}
catch (error) 
{
      // client.ncconf must have server information

      // Exception can occur due to:
      // Connection Failures: ErrorCode 17506
      // Operation Timeout: ErrorCode 35003
      // Operation performed during state transfer
}

Troubleshooting

Alachisoft.NCache.Runtime.Exceptions.SecurityException

This exception is raised if an unauthorized user tries to perform cache operations, or wrong credential information is given in the GetCache() or in client.ncconf file.

Workaround