How to use WebApi / Serilog with .Net 4.7.2 about audit.net

[thepirat000]

At first sight, your code looks good.

Are you sure that the Audit.Core.Configuration.Setup().UseSerilog() is ever called?
If for any reason it's not, Audit.NET will be generating .json files as logs in the app folder by default. Do you see any file being created when you call your API action?

[fjoppe-brunel]

Yes, the UseSerilog() is called - breakpointed it.

Also, if I remove this Serilog initialization, nothing is generated in folder "WebApp/bin".

Note, I am running in Debug mode from Visual Studio.

[thepirat000]

What package and version are you referencing for the WebApi audit? Audit.WebApi or Audit.WebApi.Core ?

You should be referencing Audit.WebApi.

Can you try to do open Audit.WebApi let scope = this.GetCurrentAuditScope() inside your action method to see if the audit scope is being created?

[fjoppe-brunel]

Hi Frederico,

I only use Audit.WebApi, I am not using dotnetcore anywhere.

I have inserted the scope assignment you suggested above. Breakpointed it and the Audit.Net scope is returned.

It looks like as everything has been initialized correctly.

I also connected the Debug logger to the Audit logger, and then I got logging in the correct logfile.

Could the issue be because this is an async function?

[thepirat000]

Can you share a minimal runnable project that reproduces the issue so I can help further?

I was unable to reproduce and had too little experience with F#.

[fjoppe-brunel]

I have continued with testing - have not make a repro yet, I'll try this later.

My findings:

• Calling Audit.Core.AuditScope.Log in an Api method, produces logging;
• Installing package Audit.Mvc (21.0.4) and setting the [Audit] attribute on a class inheriting from System.Web.Mvc.Controller, does produce audit logging (nice!);
• Attribute [AuditApi] does not work on a class inheriting from System.Web.Http.ApiController, nor does the [Audit] attribute (ok, just tryin :) );

Also, the controllers in the (legacy) code have a multi-layered inheritence scheme as follows:
A inherits B inherits System.Web.Mvc.Controller

The [Audit] tag worked on class B, while not on class A.
The [AuditApi] tag didn't work at all. It appears as if the attribute is not processed.

Another detail that might help is this: the code of all controllers is in a separate class library referenced by the ASP.Net project.

[fjoppe-brunel]

Unfortunately, I was unable to create a simple project, because the legacy code base is very big, and stripping it just caused other issues. So I took the other approach - get source code of Audit.WebApi into my solution and temporary use this instead of the nuget package, for investigation.

After setting the attribute and adding a few breakpoints:

• This line was hit, while
• This line was never hit;

Meaning that the attribute works. I've surrounded this line with a try/catch all, and it always came into the catch section.

It always received the exception that binary System.Net.Http.Formatting.dll version 5.2.6.0 could not be found/loaded. This Stack Overflow response helped me further.

My code was using Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Client version 5.2.7.0, and related libraries too. There also was a version redirection in my Web.Config, to version 5.2.7.0.

Solution:
After I downgraded every related dependency to "5.2.6.0", including the version redirect, Audit.WebApi is working!

[thepirat000]

I'm glad you find a solution.

Wondering if something can be done in the library to avoid this, but I think upgrading the references is not an option for backward compatibility...

[fjoppe-brunel]

Hi Federico,

The [Audit] tag was working for ASP controllers. So maybe that package could provide a clue.
Perhaps there's a way for strong signed names that allows a version range of an external package.