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Secure service remoting communications in a C# service

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Security is one of the most important aspects of communication. The Reliable Services application framework provides a few prebuilt communication stacks and tools that you can use to improve security. This article discusses how to improve security when you're using service remoting in a C# service. It builds on an existing example that explains how to set up remoting for reliable services written in C#.

To help secure a service when you're using service remoting with C# services, follow these steps:

  1. Create an interface, IHelloWorldStateful, that defines the methods that will be available for a remote procedure call on your service. Your service will use FabricTransportServiceRemotingListener, which is declared in the Microsoft.ServiceFabric.Services.Remoting.FabricTransport.Runtime namespace. This is an ICommunicationListener implementation that provides remoting capabilities.

    public interface IHelloWorldStateful : IService
{
    Task<string> GetHelloWorld();
}

internal class HelloWorldStateful : StatefulService, IHelloWorldStateful
{
    protected override IEnumerable<ServiceReplicaListener> CreateServiceReplicaListeners()
    {
        return new[]{
                new ServiceReplicaListener(
                    (context) => new FabricTransportServiceRemotingListener(context,this))};
    }

    public Task<string> GetHelloWorld()
    {
        return Task.FromResult("Hello World!");
    }
}

  2. Add listener settings and security credentials.

    Make sure the certificate that you want to use to help secure your service communication is installed on all the nodes in the cluster.

    Note

    On Linux nodes, the certificate must be present as PEM-formatted files in the /var/lib/sfcerts directory. To learn more, see Location and format of X.509 certificates on Linux nodes.

    There are two ways that you can provide listener settings and security credentials:

    1. Provide them directly in the service code:

      protected override IEnumerable<ServiceReplicaListener> CreateServiceReplicaListeners()
{
    FabricTransportRemotingListenerSettings  listenerSettings = new FabricTransportRemotingListenerSettings
    {
        MaxMessageSize = 10000000,
        SecurityCredentials = GetSecurityCredentials()
    };
    return new[]
    {
        new ServiceReplicaListener(
            (context) => new FabricTransportServiceRemotingListener(context,this,listenerSettings))
    };
}

private static SecurityCredentials GetSecurityCredentials()
{
    // Provide certificate details.
    var x509Credentials = new X509Credentials
    {
        FindType = X509FindType.FindByThumbprint,
        FindValue = "4FEF3950642138446CC364A396E1E881DB76B48C",
        StoreLocation = StoreLocation.LocalMachine,
        StoreName = "My",
        ProtectionLevel = ProtectionLevel.EncryptAndSign
    };
    x509Credentials.RemoteCommonNames.Add("ServiceFabric-Test-Cert");
    x509Credentials.RemoteCertThumbprints.Add("9FEF3950642138446CC364A396E1E881DB76B483");
    return x509Credentials;
}

    2. Provide them by using a config package:

      Add a named TransportSettings section in the settings.xml file.

      <Section Name="HelloWorldStatefulTransportSettings">
    <Parameter Name="MaxMessageSize" Value="10000000" />
    <Parameter Name="SecurityCredentialsType" Value="X509" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateFindType" Value="FindByThumbprint" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateFindValue" Value="4FEF3950642138446CC364A396E1E881DB76B48C" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateRemoteThumbprints" Value="9FEF3950642138446CC364A396E1E881DB76B483" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateStoreLocation" Value="LocalMachine" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateStoreName" Value="My" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateProtectionLevel" Value="EncryptAndSign" />
    <Parameter Name="CertificateRemoteCommonNames" Value="ServiceFabric-Test-Cert" />
</Section>

      In this case, the CreateServiceReplicaListeners method will look like this:

      protected override IEnumerable<ServiceReplicaListener> CreateServiceReplicaListeners()
{
    return new[]
    {
        new ServiceReplicaListener(
            (context) => new FabricTransportServiceRemotingListener(
                context,this,FabricTransportRemotingListenerSettings .LoadFrom("HelloWorldStatefulTransportSettings")))
    };
}

      If you add a TransportSettings section in the settings.xml file , FabricTransportRemotingListenerSettings will load all the settings from this section by default.

      <!--"TransportSettings" section .-->
<Section Name="TransportSettings">
    ...
</Section>

      In this case, the CreateServiceReplicaListeners method will look like this:

      protected override IEnumerable<ServiceReplicaListener> CreateServiceReplicaListeners()
{
    return new[]
    {
        return new[]{
                new ServiceReplicaListener(
                    (context) => new FabricTransportServiceRemotingListener(context,this))};
    };
}

  3. When you call methods on a secured service by using the remoting stack, instead of using the Microsoft.ServiceFabric.Services.Remoting.Client.ServiceProxy class to create a service proxy, use Microsoft.ServiceFabric.Services.Remoting.Client.ServiceProxyFactory. Pass in FabricTransportRemotingSettings, which contains SecurityCredentials.

    
var x509Credentials = new X509Credentials
{
    FindType = X509FindType.FindByThumbprint,
    FindValue = "9FEF3950642138446CC364A396E1E881DB76B483",
    StoreLocation = StoreLocation.LocalMachine,
    StoreName = "My",
    ProtectionLevel = ProtectionLevel.EncryptAndSign
};
x509Credentials.RemoteCommonNames.Add("ServiceFabric-Test-Cert");
x509Credentials.RemoteCertThumbprints.Add("4FEF3950642138446CC364A396E1E881DB76B48C");

FabricTransportRemotingSettings transportSettings = new FabricTransportRemotingSettings
{
    SecurityCredentials = x509Credentials,
};

ServiceProxyFactory serviceProxyFactory = new ServiceProxyFactory(
    (c) => new FabricTransportServiceRemotingClientFactory(transportSettings));

IHelloWorldStateful client = serviceProxyFactory.CreateServiceProxy<IHelloWorldStateful>(
    new Uri("fabric:/MyApplication/MyHelloWorldService"));

string message = await client.GetHelloWorld();

    If the client code is running as part of a service, you can load FabricTransportRemotingSettings from the settings.xml file. Create a HelloWorldClientTransportSettings section that is similar to the service code, as shown earlier. Make the following changes to the client code:

    ServiceProxyFactory serviceProxyFactory = new ServiceProxyFactory(
    (c) => new FabricTransportServiceRemotingClientFactory(FabricTransportRemotingSettings.LoadFrom("HelloWorldClientTransportSettings")));

IHelloWorldStateful client = serviceProxyFactory.CreateServiceProxy<IHelloWorldStateful>(
    new Uri("fabric:/MyApplication/MyHelloWorldService"));

string message = await client.GetHelloWorld();

    If the client is not running as part of a service, you can create a client_name.settings.xml file in the same location where the client_name.exe is. Then create a TransportSettings section in that file.

    Similar to the service, if you add a TransportSettings section in client settings.xml/client_name.settings.xml, FabricTransportRemotingSettings loads all the settings from this section by default.

    In that case, the earlier code is even further simplified:

    
IHelloWorldStateful client = ServiceProxy.Create<IHelloWorldStateful>(
             new Uri("fabric:/MyApplication/MyHelloWorldService"));

string message = await client.GetHelloWorld();

As a next step, read Web API with OWIN in Reliable Services.