I built an app with Silverlight4, RIA Services, and I'm using ASP.NET Membership for authentication/authorization.
My web.config has this:
<system.web>
<sessionState timeout="20"/>
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms name="_ASPXAUTH" timeout="20"/>
</authentication>
I have read a number of different strategies on how to deal with auth/session timeout on the client side. That is: if the client is idle for x minutes (20 here), and then they do something with the UI that triggers a RIA/WCF call, I want to trap on that event and deal with appropriately (e.g. take them back to the login screen) -- in a nutshell: I need a way to differentiate from a bona-fide server side DomainException vs. an auth failure because the session timed out.
AFAIK: there is no typed exception or property that can determine this. The only way I've been able to determine this -- which seems like a hack: is to inspect the Error's Message string and look for something like "Access denied" or "denied". For example: something like this:
if (ex.Message.Contains("denied"))
// this is probably an auth failure b/c of a session timeout
So, this is what I'm currently doing, and it works if I run and debug either with the built-in server from VS2010, or if I run in localhost IIS. If I set the timeout to 1 minute, login, wait more than a minute and trigger another call, I breakpoint on the exception and enter the if code block above and all is well.
Then I deploy the app to a remote IIS7 server and I try the same test and it doesn't work. So, I added log tracing, and here's the event where the exception happened:
<E2ETraceEvent xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2004/06/E2ETraceEvent">
<System xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2004/06/windows/eventlog/system">
<EventID>131076</EventID>
<Type>3</Type>
<SubType Name="Error">0</SubType>
<Level>2</Level>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2011-10-30T22:13:54.6425781Z" />
<Source Name="System.ServiceModel" />
<Correlation ActivityID="{20c26991-372f-430f-913b-1b72a261863d}" />
<Execution ProcessName="w3wp" ProcessID="4316" ThreadID="24" />
<Channel />
<Computer>TESTPROD-HOST</Computer>
</System>
<ApplicationData>
<TraceData>
<DataItem>
<TraceRecord xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2004/10/E2ETraceEvent/TraceRecord" Severity="Error">
<TraceIdentifier>http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/System.ServiceModel.Diagnostics.TraceHandledException.aspx</TraceIdentifier>
<Description>Handling an exception.</Description>
<AppDomain>/LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT/sla-2-129644844652558594</AppDomain>
<Exception>
<ExceptionType>System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[[System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.DomainServiceFault, System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35]], System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089</ExceptionType>
<Message></Message>
<StackTrace>
at System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.QueryOperationBehavior`1.QueryOperationInvoker.InvokeCore(Object instance, Object[] inputs, Object[]& outputs)
at System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.DomainOperationInvoker.Invoke(Object instance, Object[] inputs, Object[]& outputs)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.InvokeBegin(MessageRpc& rpc)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage5(MessageRpc& rpc)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage31(MessageRpc& rpc)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.MessageRpc.Process(Boolean isOperationContextSet)
</StackTrace>
<ExceptionString>System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.DomainServiceFault]: (Fault Detail is equal to System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.DomainServiceFault).</ExceptionString>
</Exception>
</TraceRecord>
</DataItem>
</TraceData>
</ApplicationData>
</E2ETraceEvent>
The problem is that I don't have the string in the error message that indicates "denied" or "Access denied" - and I am unsure as to why this solution works in localhost IIS or VS2010 host but not in a remote IIS7 server. Is there some obscure configuration setting that I'm missing here? Is there a better way to do this in general?