Audit.WCF.Client

WCF client Audit Extension for Audit.NET library.

Generate Audit Logs for Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service calls on client-side.

Audit.Wcf.Client provides the client-side infrastructure to log interactions with WCF services. It records detailed information of the service method calls by using an IClientMessageInspector to intercept the request and response messages.

If you are looking for server-side audit, please check the Audit.WCF library.

Install

NuGet Package

To install the package run the following command on the Package Manager Console:

PM> Install-Package Audit.Wcf.Client

Usage

A custom endpoint behavior is provided to enable auditing on the requests and responses of the WCF service calls.

There are two ways to configure the endpoint behavior:

• Adding the audit behavior to the client endpoint on the app.config / web.config of your client application.

  For example:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
  <configuration>
    <system.serviceModel>
  	<bindings>
  	  <basicHttpBinding>
  		<binding name="BasicHttpBinding_IService" />
  	  </basicHttpBinding>
  	</bindings>
  	<client>
  	  <endpoint address="http://localhost/Service.svc" binding="basicHttpBinding"
  		bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IService" contract="MyServiceReference.IService" name="BasicHttpBinding_IService"
  		behaviorConfiguration="auditBehavior" />
  	</client>
  	<behaviors>
  	 <endpointBehaviors>
  	  <behavior name="auditBehavior">
  	   <auditBehavior includeResponseHeaders="true" eventType="Catalog:{action}" />
  	  </behavior>
  	 </endpointBehaviors>
  	</behaviors>
  	<extensions>
  	 <behaviorExtensions>
  	  <add name="auditBehavior"
  		 type="Audit.Wcf.Client.AuditBehavior, Audit.Wcf.Client, PublicKeyToken=571d6b80b242c87e"/>
  	 </behaviorExtensions>
  	</extensions>
    </system.serviceModel>
  </configuration>
  

  Note you have to include the behaviorConfiguration property on the client endpoint, the endpoint behavior auditBehavior, and the behavior extension pointing the provided type Audit.Wcf.Client.AuditBehavior from the assembly Audit.Wcf.Client

• Adding the audit behavior on code when creating the channel.

  For example:

  public static IService GetServiceProxy()
  {
    var channelFactory = new ChannelFactory<IService>(new BasicHttpBinding(), new EndpointAddress(URL));
    channelFactory.Endpoint.EndpointBehaviors.Add(new AuditEndpointBehavior()
    {
      EventType = "Catalog:{action}",
      IncludeResponseHeaders = true
    });
    return channelFactory.CreateChannel();
  }
  

Configuration

The Audit Behavior can be configured with the following properties:

• EventType: A string that identifies the event type. Default is "{action}".
• Can contain the following placeholders:
  • {action}: Replaced with the action URL
• IncludeRequestHeaders: Boolean value that indicates whether the output should include the request headers. Default is false.
• IncludeResponseHeaders: Boolean value that indicates whether the output should include the response headers. Default is false.
• AuditDataProvider: Allows to set a specific audit data provider. By default the globally configured data provider is used. See Audit.NET Data Providers section for more information.
• AuditScopeFactory: Allows to set a specific audit scope factory. By default the globally configured AuditScopeFactory is used.

Output mechanism

To globally configure the output mechanism, use the Audit.Core.Configuration class to set a Data Provider. For more details please see Event Output Configuration.

For example:

Audit.Core.Configuration.Setup()
	.UseFileLogProvider(config => config.Directory(@"C:\Logs"));

This should be done prior to the AuditScope creation, i.e. during application startup.

Output

Audit.Wcf.Client output includes:

• Execution time and duration
• Environment information such as user, machine, domain and locale.
• Request body
• Response body
• Http Status Code
• Request headers (optional)
• Response headers (optional)

Output details

The following table describes the Audit.Wcf.Client output fields:

• WcfClientAction

Describes an audited WCF client event

Field Name	Type	Description
Action	string	The requested action URL
RequestBody	string	The request body (XML)
RequestHeaders	Dictionary<string, string>	The request HTTP headers (optional)
HttpMethod	string	The HTTP method used (POST, PUT)
ResponseAction	string	The response action (if any)
MessageId	string	The message ID (if any)
ResponseStatusCode	HttpStatusCode	The response HTTP status code
ResponseBody	string	The response body (XML)
ResponseHeaders	Dictionary<string, string>	The response HTTP headers (optional)
IsFault	string	Value that indicates whether the message generated any SOAP faults.

Output Sample

{
    "EventType": "Catalog:http://tempuri.org/IService/GetProductDetails",
    "WcfClientEvent": {
        "Action": "http://tempuri.org/IService/GetProductDetails",
        "RequestBody": "<s:Envelope> ... </s:Envelope>",
        "HttpMethod": "POST",
        "ResponseAction": null,
        "MessageId": null,
        "ResponseStatuscode": 200,
        "ResponseBody": "<s:Envelope> ... </s:Envelope>",
        "ResponseHeaders": {
            "Content-Length": "431",
            "Cache-Control": "private",
            "Content-Type": "text/xml; charset=utf-8",
            "Date": "Thu, 29 Jul 2021 23",
            "Server": "Microsoft-IIS/10.0",
            "X-AspNet-Version": "4.0.30319",
            "X-Powered-By": "ASP.NET"
        },
        "IsFault": false
    },
    "Environment": {
        "UserName": "Federico",
        "MachineName": "DESKTOP",
        "DomainName": "DESKTOP",
        "CallingMethodName": "WcfClient.MyServiceReference.ServiceClient.GetProductDetails()",
        "AssemblyName": "WcfClient, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null",
        "Culture": "en-US"
    },
    "StartDate": "2021-07-29T23:31:10.9631278Z",
    "EndDate": "2021-07-29T23:31:11.0641269Z",
    "Duration": 101
}

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