ISAPI Rewriting, Devices and Korean XML

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Taking all my TFTP Provisioning Service stuff at my day job today and providing an HTTPS alternative. Seems that some VOIP devices want to make an HTTPS call for their configuration files.

They expect what the manufacturer programmed them to expect, which in this particular case is what one dood referred to jokingly as "Korean XML" - it has no root element!

That's no big deal, I'll do my stuff and send the device whatever it wants, well-formed or not. The big problem is the device is only smart enough to ask for:

https://myserver/myfolder/DEVICEKEYWITHLONGMACADDRESS.XML


Ok, now how the hell am I gonna map that to my:


https://myserver/myfolder/default.aspx?id=DEVICEKEYWITHLONGMACADDRESS



The answer? ISAPI_Rewrite from Helicon. They have a freeware version, and it handles very nice REGEX URL Rewrites at the IIS level (e.g., way before you ever get to ASP.NET) - which was exactly what I needed.

The Rules file for this particular one is elegantly simple:


[ISAPI_Rewrite]

RewriteRule /myweb/(.*)\.xml /myweb/default.aspx\?id=$1 [I]


Boom! Every request for an XML File in that folder comes into my ASP.NET page, with the DEVICEKEY info right on the querystring where I want it, and the device could care less! The device is asking for a physical file; I am assembling that file's contents via a whole bunch of database and rules logic, and putting it on to the Response Ouput stream, and the device is as happy as a Korean Ch'usok dancer.


Recommended!





Peter has been active on the C# and other MS newsgroups, has had samples at gotdotnet.com (now codegallery.com) that have been downloaded over 56,000 times, and has written numerous articles for eggheadcafe.com, for which he is a co-founder, and MSDNAA sites. He has also been a technical reviewer on books from Prentice Hall, Manning and other publishers. Peter was a Microsoft MVP for 10 years. Peter was born and raised in New York City, and after a stint as a jazz musician playing contrabass with the Robert Hunt Trio, migrated to sunny Florida, where he was hired as a rookie Financial Consultant at Merrill Lynch in Orlando, specializing in Corporate Services. It was at Merrill that Peter realized computers and technology were his forte. He spent his last few years at Merrill developing real – time computerized trading and and stock charting program using advanced technical analysis indicators, some of which are his own inventions. In 1997, he moved on to architect and serve as lead developer on a number of innovative web-based and middleware solutions for the healthcare and financial services industry.

Comments

  1. Anonymous10:50 AM

    Thanks, I've been looking for something like this!

    ReplyDelete

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