DEV Community: Ram Hemasri

Application Insights for Worker Service using Serilog

Ram Hemasri — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 20:48:50 +0000

This post is a contribution for C# Advent Calendar 2020. This is a simple guide for implementing Azure Application Insights using Serilog in a dotnet core worker service.

.Net Core worker services are best suited for long-running background tasks. These services can be run as a windows service or linux daemons. Worker services comes with DI, logging and configuration features out-of the box.

First create a new Worker Service project via your favorite terminal using the following simple command

dotnet new worker -o WorkerService

Install the following Serilog Packages in your project directory.

Serilog
Serilog.Extensions.Hosting
Serilog.Settings.Configuration
Serilog.Sinks.Console
Serilog.Sinks.ApplicationInsights

dotnet add package Serilog
dotnet add package Serilog.Extensions.Hosting
dotnet add package Serilog.Settings.Configuration
dotnet add package Serilog.Settings.Configuration
dotnet add package Serilog.Settings.Configuration

Copy your Application Insights Instrumentation Key from Azure Portal and update your appsettings.json with the following json

{
  "Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": "Debug",
    "WriteTo": [
      "Console",
      {
        "Name": "ApplicationInsights",
        "Args": {
          "instrumentationKey": "__ApplicationInsightsInstrumentationKey__",
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Information",
          "telemetryConverter": "Serilog.Sinks.ApplicationInsights.Sinks.ApplicationInsights.TelemetryConverters.TraceTelemetryConverter, Serilog.Sinks.ApplicationInsights"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

In Program.cs file import Serilog namespace
using Serilog; and update your CreateHostBuilder to instansiate Serilog logger and chain with UseSerilog() method to replace the default logging provider with Serilog.

public static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
            Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
                .ConfigureServices((hostContext, services) =>
                {
                    services.AddHostedService<Worker>();
                     Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
                    .ReadFrom.Configuration(hostContext.Configuration)
                    .CreateLogger();
                }).UseSerilog();

Use the following command in your project directory to run the worker service.

dotnet run

You should start seeing your console messages in your Azure portal Application Insights logs

Hosting Blazor on Netlify using Github Actions (Part 3 of Series)

Ram Hemasri — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 14:06:26 +0000

This series introduces hosting Blazor WebAssembly on Netlify using Github Actions. Previously, in part 1, we have created a Blazor WebAssembly Project using Visual Studio 2019 and in part 2 we used Visual Studio 2019 to set up Github Project. In this last part we will use Github Actions to push our Blazor WebAssembly to Netlify.

Creating Netlify tokens for Github actions

You should never expose these tokens
Github actions require your Netlify personal access token and site API ID to push the Blazor WebAssembly.
User personal access token can be created by going to your Netlify settings page. When you navigate to the Create a new personal access token page, enter NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN in the text box and click Generate Token button.
Netlify site API ID is unique to every site. We can easily create a site by dragging a folder with index.html page on to Netlify.

After site is successfully created, go to Site Settings and you can take a note of API ID under site information.

Go to your github repository settings created in part 2 and add the secrets. You have to add the two token and API ID generated on Netlify as NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN and NETLIFY_SITE_ID.

Setting up Github Actions

Click on Actions tab in your Github repository
Scroll down and click on Workflows for Python, Maven,Docker and more
The previous step will bring more workflows. Scroll until you find .Net Core and click on Set up this workflow. We require .Net workflow for building Blazor WebAssembly.
Github creates dotnetcore.yml in your Blazor project repository.

Edit your dotnetcore.yml as below and commit your changes. This triggers github workflow and publishes your Blazor site to Netlify.


name: BlazorOnNetlify #your workflow name
on: [push] #on push to your branch run this workflow

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: 3.1.100 #Blazor WebAssembly requires 3.1.100
    - name: Build with dotnet
      run: dotnet build --configuration Release
    - name: Publish Blazor webassembly using dotnet 
#create Blazor WebAssembly dist output folder in the project directory
      run: dotnet publish -c Release --no-build -o ./
    - name: Publish generated Blazor webassembly to Netlify
      uses: netlify/actions/cli@master #uses Netlify Cli actions
      env: # these environment variables are added in github secrets
          NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN }}
          NETLIFY_SITE_ID: ${{ secrets.NETLIFY_SITE_ID }}
      with:
          args: deploy --dir=BlazorOnNetlify/dist --prod #push dist folder to Netlify
          secrets: '["NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN", "NETLIFY_SITE_ID"]'

Github workflow status is available in Actions tab

Status Badges

Status badges are useful to know your workflow and netlify deployment statuses. These can be added to your Github Readme file.

Github status badge can be created from using the following markdown

[![Actions Status](https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/workflows/{workflow_name}/badge.svg)](https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/actions)

Netlify status badge can be found under your Blazor Site Settings

Refernces

Configuring Github Workflow
Blazor WebAssembly
WebAssembly

Hosting Blazor on Netlify using Github Actions (Part 2 of Series)

Ram Hemasri — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:27:52 +0000

This series introduces hosting Blazor WebAssembly on Netlify using Github Actions. Previously, in part 1, we have created a Blazor WebAssembly Project using Visual Studio 2019. In part 2 of this series we will use Visual Studio 2019 to set up Github Project.

Create Github Project repository from Visual Studio 2019.

In your Visual Studio 2019 toolbar select Add to Source Control > Git. This will initialize a git repository and adds all the files to the local git repository
Select Team Explorer from the right hand sidebar. Click on Publish to Github
You have to enter your Github Credentials in Connect To Github window. I am using my Github personal profile. Enter username/password and click Sign in button.
Enter your desired repository name and an optional description. Click Publish.
When the repository is successfully pushed you should see an information alert Repository created successfully in Team Explorer side bar.
The published repository can be accessed from BlazorOnNetlify

Hosting Blazor on Netlify using Github Actions (Part 1 of Series)

Ram Hemasri — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:20:58 +0000

This series introduces hosting Blazor WebAssembly on Netlify using Github Actions. In part 1 we will create a Blazor WebAssembly Project using Visual Studio 2019

What is Blazor?

Blazor is a feature of ASP.NET Core which lets you build interactive web UIs using C#. Blazor can run on client-side directly in the browser using WebAssembly or it can be hosted on server side in a ASP.NET core app.

Prerequisites

As of this writing Blazor WebAssembly is still in preview and it requires .Net Core 3.1 SDK. Check your dotnet version by running dotnet --version in a command shell. This command should return 3.1.100. Otherwise, you have to install .NET Core 3.1. Visual Studio 2019 16.4 or Visual Studio for mac 8.4 preview 4 also includes .NET Core 3.1. Run the following command shell to install Blazor project templates.

   dotnet new -i Microsoft.AspNetCore.Blazor.Templates::3.1.0-preview4.19579.2

Create Blazor WebAssembly App in Visual Studio 2019

In Visual Studio 2019, create a new project by navigating to File > New > Project
Select Blazor App from the Create a new Project window and click Next
In Create a new Blazor app window Select Blazor WebAssembly App and uncheck Asp.NET Core hosted. Click on Create.
In Configure your new project window enter Project name and click on Create.
Visual Studio displays the newly created Blazor WebAssembly app in Solution Explorer. You can run the app by pressing F5 or clicking IIS Express.