Request validation problem only for Googlebot - asp.net-mvc-3

I don't have a lot of hair, but I'm pulling out what little of it is left.
My MVC3 app serves images via Action like so
/Image/ShowImage/25-000252?t=a&o=1
a is predefined image size, o is image order for that item
Image is controller, ShowImage is action which returns FilePathResult. All this works without any problems except when Googlebot comes along. Then all of a sudden request validation kicks in
A potentially dangerous Request.Path value was detected from the client (?).
How and why are both beyond my ability to understand.
ShowImage action has ValidateInput(False), web.config has httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" but nothing seems to help.

Turn on tracing for the app or install elmah or look in the logs for iis to see the path that is returning 500 status code. Then it should be clear what needs to change.

This is resolved by
http://geekswithblogs.net/renso/archive/2011/08/26/a-potentially-dangerous-request-value-was-detected-from-the-client.aspx

Related

Is Durandal getting in the way of my POST to a 3rd party asp.net handler? 405 Method not allowed error

I've added Roxy Fileman to my project and tied it in to CKEditor. It's a standard Durandal project with an MVC controller for routing and a web api controller for ajax/json data calls.
A typical working URL for a web api call in my app is http://localhost:63093/api/DurandalApi/getAssessmentQuestionnairePushMenu?id=1
When I try and upload a file from within CKEditor, I get:
Request URL:http://localhost:63093/fileman/index.html?type=image&CKEditor=ckeditor&CKEditorFuncNum=1&langCode=en
Request Method:POST
Status Code:405 Method Not Allowed
Remote Address:[::1]:63093
If, however, I directly go to http://localhost:63093/fileman/index.html?type=image&CKEditor=ckeditor&CKEditorFuncNum=1&langCode=en in my browser, the file upload works perfectly and I can then browse to the image from FileMan inside CKEditor.
The network tab in chrome dev tools indicates that the successful upload is done using this URL: http://localhost:63093/fileman/asp_net/main.ashx?a=UPLOAD which is significantly different to the one that CKEditor attampts to use, but that may be because in the second example, index.html is already loaded?
I'm not completely up to speed with what's going on, but the fact that the same URL works perfectly outside of Durandal if I go directly to the URL seems to indicate the FileMan plugin is working just fine and all permissions are set accordingly. Furthermore the CKEditor config is also fine as it can see the images I upload in the directory, but for some reason it's unable to "post" from within CKEditor (which is embedded in a standard Durandal view).
I'm trying to read up on routing to see if I need to do some kind of exception mapping in Durandal to tell it to let the 3rd party .ashx handler deal with the POST request and I'm not even sure if this problem is indicative of Durandal getting in the way or something else. Any suggestions gratefully received!
Ah. All has become clear. This is a half and half answer really as it doesn't really solve the problem, but equally the problem doesn't really exist!
The issue is that Roxy Fileman does NOT use the CK Editor inbuilt "upload" tab that is in the popup. It expects the user to "browse server" only and use the "add file" link in Roxy instead.
I was confused by the instructions, but now I understand!

CakePHP Page Occasionally Losing Layout - Help?

I have a CakePHP site whose homepage is cached for 10 minutes at a time using Cake's default options. However I've been alerted that "every once in a while", once a day or so, it's losing the layout, just displaying the page content without the header, styling etc.
Removing the cached version and regenerating the page apparently fixes the problem. But why would/could this be happening in the first place? I can't say I've seen it happen myself (in any of my CakePHP projects) but does anyone else have any experience of this, or any ideas of ways to fix? Much appreciated!
EDIT: Looking at a broken cached home.php file compared to a working cache file, I've spotted this line:
$controller->layout = $this->layout = 'ajax'; //broken
$controller->layout = $this->layout = 'default'; //working
This seems like a bit of a breakthrough. I guess that sometimes the page is being called by an Ajax request, and then being cached in that format until the cache expires. Anyone know why this might be happening (I don't think we're trying to call the homepage via Ajax anywhere, and we don't even have an ajax layout!) and if there's anything we can do to stop it?
Are you sure no ajax requests are interfering with your code/request?
We had a nightmare issue recently where cake was not rendering the layout on back/forward browser clicks. See here: CakePHP no layout on back and forward button
It may also help to look into the cake request cycle (http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/getting-started/a-typical-cakephp-request.html) and narrow down when in the request (and where) the error is occurring, although I dunno how you would reproduce it :)
Hope you figure it out!
Also, if you have any errors in your view, sometimes it won't load the layout. It will just spit out the view until the point where it experienced the error. Perhaps the error is not in displaying your layout, but some odd circumstance where you are generating an error with a Helper.

What is this the meaning of "Reload safe" web pages and can it be achieved with Ajax?

1) I saw an interview question on this, and I'm assuming it's something to do with form submission and avoiding double submissions. Can someone confirm this?
2) Assuming this assumption is correct, can this be done with Ajax? If so is there a link someone can point me to?
(I'm assuming you'd generate some sort of random number and include it in the form as a hidden field, then ensure that number hadn't been submitted before for the session).
Redirect-after-post is a technique to avoid problems with the user refreshing or using the back button to get back to a posted form. In short, instead of providing a response page to an HTTP post, which will trigger another post if its reloaded, you issue a 303 redirect (or a 302, to support ancient browsers by taking advantage of a bug that is as old as the web). This causes the browser to issue a second HTTP request - a get this time - and if the response page to that is reloaded there shouldn't be any problems. Just make sure that all the changes are made by the post handler and the page you redirect to has no side effects.
If you post using XMLHttpRequest then the redirect will be followed; unless you specifically support it using the hash part of the location or the new HTML5 history methods then the back button and reload aren't going to trigger an AJAX post again.

is it possible to do partial postback on web?

I read some paragraphs in a book saying that it is not possible to do a partial postback for web, even AJAX is employed. Ajax will postback everything and update only ajaxfied controls.
However, on pages I made using ajax, I used Fiddler to monitor the transportation. I found when the page initial load, it loaded everything include pictures .... However, when I click a button and do a ajax postback. I can only see the some data were loaded.... Looks like it doesn't need to reload the whole page again.
I don't know if what I see is correct? Or the book I read is correct?
Thank you guys.
That depends what you put in the term "postback".
The AJAX call will send the complete form data back to the server, just as if the form was posted normally. The server will answer with a partial response that only contains the parts of the page that should be updated.
So, the request is not partial, but the response is.
I am not sure how you are posting back from the client side. I am guessing you are using UpdatePanels. How well you 'AJAX-ify' a web page depends on what method you employ.
UpdatePanels - Read Dave Ward's posting on them - http://encosia.com/2007/07/11/why-aspnet-ajax-updatepanels-are-dangerous/
PageMethods to post back to a web service, get the data and update the DOM to display the result
JQuery and other such AJAX frameworks to post back to a web service
I am sure the link above should clear things up a bit
I'm having a hard time understanding your terminology. I'm not really sure what a "postback" is, much less a "partial" one. I do know that one of the basic ways to transmit information to an HTTP server is via a POST request, which is usually used when submitting forms. If you mean to say that the entire form is transmitted when you click a submit button, I believe you'd be right.
You also seem to be doing something with AJAX, but it's difficult to tell. The whole point of AJAX is to have dynamic data displayed on a page without resorting to reloading it. Defining what to send and what to do with the results is entirely up to your own JavaScript. So unless you're using a framework, which you don't specify, there is no such thing as "ajaxified controls."
In any case, "AJAX" usually means using the XMLHttpRequest() method of modern browsers to send data to servers without refreshing the page. When you call this function, you specify exactly what data to send. This has nothing to do with HTML forms. One caveat: if you are indeed using a library for AJAX, it might impose additional limits on how you structure information to send.

Iframe vs normal / ajax get request

I have a page that gathers environment status from a couple of IBM WebSphere servers using iframes similar to this:
<iframe src="http://server:9060/ibm/console/status?text=true&type=server&node=NODE&name=ServerName_server_NODE"></iframe>
and it happily prints out "Started" or "Unavailable" etc. But if I load the same url in a normal browser sometimes it works, sometimes it does not? Some of them are showing a login page, while others are simply return HTTP code 500.
So whats the difference between loading the page through an iframe vs through a browser?
I can tell you that the iframe solution works no matter which machine I am doing it on, so I do not belive it has anything to do with the user whos opening the page. And before you ask, why not keep the solution that works, well its because it takes a long time to open the page with the iframes vs a page where everything is requested through ajax.
Update: Using jQuery to perform the ajax call returns "error" and "undefined" for the servers that I can't see in a normal browser.
One difference is an iframe has to render the view while XHR would not.
An iframe is essentially the same as opening with the browser. In both cases the browsers credentials are used, so there will be no difference between the two.
Secondly, loading something in an iframe should take the same amount of time as requesting it through XHR, since in both cases the browser makes an HTTP request and waits for the response. Although I should add that an iframe will take time to render the content onto the page. However if you plan on displaying it with ajax anyways, an iframe/xhr solution will be more or less the same.
In case of ajax request same origin policy (which restricts cross domain call) comes into picture. So you can't make cross domain call using xhr. Alternative for same is embed flex swf file in your page as activex control and make flex call through javascript and then flex is responsible to make cross domain call (flex can if targeted domain allows cross domain using crossdomain.xml) and renders result using javascript again.

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