These days, most applications come with the ability to send email notifications. Sending an email in Dot Net is quite easy and can be accomplished using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). I have used SMTP in many of my web applications, and it is still available in .Net Core.

So, why should you use MailKit? While implementing the email function in one of my .Net Core projects, I found out that Microsoft had deemed SMTP to be outdated. Instead, they recommended using the MailKit library. For more information, please check out the link below.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.net.mail.smtpclient?WT.mc_id=AZ-MVP-5002809&view=netcore-2.2

I have used MailKit library in my .Net Core project.

Here I will share how to use simple email sending function using MailKit library in .Net Core projects.

Implementation:

After a successful installation, we can proceed further with the code.

1. Create a configuration class.

2. Add the mail server settings in appsettings.json file, like shown below.

3. Create one email message class.

4. To encapsulate email sending functionality and to use it anywhere from the application we should create one interface and class like given below.

5. Create a new class and inherit interface.

6. The code below is an implementation in class file EmailSender. Please don’t get confused with Smtp class used below in the code; this class belongs to MailKit library class. CreateEmailMessage method is a simple message creation method which we need to use to create a message using MimeMessage class.

7. In the .Net Core project, we need to add dependency injection in Startup.cs file.

8. Now we are ready to use the send method and can call this method from anywhere in the application.

The implementation provided above is for the synchronous method. Similarly, we need to implement an asynchronous method for the send function. We can also add code to be able to send emails with attachments.

When calling the send method, we can use a string for the message body or even a dynamic template file. The BodyBuilder class can be used to build the body or content of the email. It can also be used to add data from the template file and then change the dynamic content.

I developed this in a .Net Core project, but the recommendation is to use the MailKit library in all new developments, even if the project is in the .Net framework. In older implementations, we can replace existing SMTP code with MailKit.

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Testing web APIs is indeed a challenging task, especially when compared to testing traditional user interfaces. The absence of a graphical interface makes it difficult to test the functionality and reliability of an API, which can lead to potential issues and a poor user experience. This is where Swagger comes to the rescue.

Swagger is a game-changer in the world of web API testing. It simplifies the testing process by providing a user-friendly interface for testing web API endpoints. With Swagger, developers no longer have to rely on third-party tools such as Fiddler or Postman to test their APIs. Instead, Swagger provides an all-in-one solution that allows developers to easily test and validate their APIs, ensuring that they are working as expected.

What is Swagger?

1. Swagger is an open-source framework that helps developers to design, build, and document RESTful APIs. It provides a simple and interactive way to describe the structure of an API, allowing developers to visualize and test the API’s endpoints.
2. It provides a UI representation of the Restful API without any implementation logic.
3. Swagger generates UI using the Swagger specification file (swagger.json), which is generated by Swagger tool based on service code.

• This file describes the capabilities of the service.
• It also specifies the methods supported by the service.
• Moreover, it provides information about method parameters.

4. Swagger also generates documentation for the API that can be accessed by other developers, stakeholders, and end-users, making it easier for everyone to understand how the API works.

How Swagger Works?

When you open a webpage that uses a RESTful API, the browser will first request the webpage from the web server. This request will trigger a separate request to the API server, which will provide the necessary data for the webpage.

Swagger UI is automatically generated from the API server’s OpenAPI specification, which is a standard for describing RESTful APIs. This UI can be viewed within a browser and provides a comprehensive and interactive documentation of the API’s endpoints, parameters, request and response examples, and other related information.

Benefits of SwaggerUI:

SwaggerUI has several advantages over other frameworks, making it a popular choice for Web API development. Some of the key benefits of SwaggerUI include:

1. User-friendly interface: The visually appealing and intuitive interface allows for easy collaboration and input from various team members during the design process.
2. Improved Documentation: The comprehensive documentation feature not only facilitates internal communication within the team, but also supports the automation of dependent processes.
3. Convenient Testing and Debugging: The user-friendly interface and testing capabilities of SwaggerUI make it a valuable tool for quickly resolving any Web API issues that may arise during development.
4. Ease of Use:

SwaggerUI is useful for testing and debugging Web API problems.

How to Install SwaggerUI?

To install SwaggerUI in an Asp.net core Web API project, use the following command in the Package Manager Console:

Install-Package Swashbuckle.AspNetCore

This will add the necessary dependencies and configure SwaggerUI in your project, allowing you to easily document and test your APIs.

How to configure Swagger in Asp.net Core Web API?

To configure Swagger, we have to add the AddSwaggerGen method into ConfigureServices.

After that, add the Swagger and SwaggerUI into the Configure method. The code will look like below:

When you run the application and navigate to http://localhost:52046/swagger/index.html:

You can see above image has ValuesController with five different endpoints.If you add a new controller, for example, CustomersController, and add methods to work with the customer data, these will automatically begin to appear in the SwaggerUI.

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The need for a directory of users arises when various devices are used on the same network. It is crucial to locate the directory on one central source, known as Active Directory. It helps validate and authenticate multiple users accessing all resources on the domain with a single sign-on.

In this blog, we will demonstrate how to implement Active Directory in a .NET application.

What is Active Directory?

Active Directory is a database adapted by Microsoft to manage multiple devices on a single network. It also can be defined as a set of services that connect users with network resources they need to accomplish projects. In order to obtain access to devices, the network users require it to be validated.

Let us consider a C# .NET application to validate the users using Active Directory on the login page, before implementing Active Directory, we use ASP.NET membership to validate a user on the Login page. The code should look similar to the code below.

Now, to create our own function to validate the user through Active Directory, we use the code below.

VerifyUserAD accepts three parameters, namely, Username, Password and ReturnMsg. ReturnMsg returns the error message if the validation of the user fails against the Active Directory. Refer to the code below.

Once the user is validated, the function VertifyUserAD returns an ‘authenticated’ message, based on which the user can take the following relevant actions.

To entirely bypass the ASP .NET membership, use the Active Directory to validate the user. For an existing application, users can maintain and access a copy of Users in the database, meaning there is no need to modify the whole application end-to-end.

Role-based implementation

For role-based implementation, we use the DirectorySearcher class to fetch the property ‘memberOf’ for that user in Active Directory, as shown in the code below.

This enables users to find the list of Groups in which the user is assigned using the SearchResult.

Use the command below to install Directory Services using the package manager console.

Install-Package System.DirectoryServices

Hope this blog will help you in the implementation of Active Directory in Dot Net application. For more information on .Net services, please visit https://www.metasyssoftware.com/dot-net