Team blog of MCS @ Middle East and Africa

Web performance/load Testing SharePoint 2013 for Beginners (part 1)

2013-06-16T11:56:00Z

Hello,

Web performance/load testing can sound like an intimidating thing, but it is not. And web performance/load testing SharePoint has been made a lot easier with Visual Studio 2012 Update 1. So here is a quick introduction into the subject.

Prerequisites:

Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate Edition (preferably with Update 1 as it provides the new features for testing SharePoint).
A SharePoint OOB installation
A SQL Server instance (any edition) to create the LoadTestResultsRepository database required by VS 2012's load testing features. To create the database, browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE from a command prompt window and run SQLCMD /S <yoursqlinstance> -i loadtestresultsrepository.sql

Steps:

1. Launch Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate > New Project > Test > Web Performance and Load Test Project

When the web performance test is created successfully, an IE window will load with the Web Test Recorder plugin loaded and recording is started. Browse the SharePoint site as the scenario dictates and the Web Test Recorder will record each and every web request (URL) you visit (explicitly or implicitly).

* if you receive any error messages when loading the Web Test Recorder Plugin, Enable 3rd party extensions in IE advanced options

3. When done, click Stop in the Web Test Recorder plugin. Visual Studio will save the Web performance test and replay it for one time.

4. If a ProcessQuery request fails, it is because it is expecting a header (X-RequestDigest). So how do we pass this header to the request? Right click the first request in the web performance tree, Add an extraction rule to extract the form input __REQUESTDIGEST and save it in a context parameter (name it for example digest). Right click the ProcessQuery request and click add header. The header name should be X-RequestDigest and the value should be bound to the parameter context digest we created in the extraction rule.

5. Try to replay the test and it should work out successfully.

For more information on Web performance/load testing SharePoint, see the following.

Web Performance and Load Testing SharePoint 2010 and 2013 Applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/jj710162.aspx
SharePoint load testing made easier with Visual Studio 2010 Update http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2013/02/01/sharepoint-load-testing-made-easier-with-visual-studio-2012-update.aspx
How to: Create a Load Test Results Repository Using SQL http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ms182600.aspx
Getting Stared with Load and Web Performance Test Walkthroughs http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ee923685.aspx

Good Luck!

Yousef

Useful References – SSRS Logging, Monitoring and Troubleshooting

2013-06-12T09:39:35Z

As I was recently working on SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) I complied a list of references that can be used as a quick guidance for SSRS Logging, Monitoring & Troubleshooting. This list includes links and quick description on each link to act as an Index. Hope you will find it useful:

· Monitoring Report Server Performance: Describes the performance objects you can use to track the processing load on your server.

· Setting Report Processing Properties: Describes ways of configuring a report to run on demand, from cache, or on a schedule as a report snapshot.

· Caching Reports (SSRS): Describes report caching behavior on a report server.

· Caching Shared Datasets (SSRS): Describes shared dataset caching behavior on a report server.

· Processing Large Reports: Provides recommendations on how to configure and distribute a large report.

· Setting Time-out Values for Report and Shared Dataset Processing (SSRS): Explains how to set time outs on query and report processing.

· Troubleshooting Reports: Report Performance: Provides recommendations on report performance.

· Reporting Services Log Files: Provides information about two basic categories of logging, execution logging and trace logging.

· Errors and Events Reference (Reporting Services): Provides information about errors and events for SQL Server Reporting Services

· Troubleshooting Techniques for Report Problems: Useful information to troubleshoot problems you have with designing a report, previewing a report, publishing a report to a report server in native mode or SharePoint integrated mode, viewing a report on the report server, or exporting a report to a different file format

· Performance (Reporting Services): Provides information about reporting server performance and the affecting factors including hardware, number of concurrent users accessing reports, the amount of data in a report, and output format

· Troubleshooting Concepts (Reporting Services)

Use Facebook as an Identity Provider for SharePoint 2013 – Part 4

2013-06-06T13:21:32Z

At this stage, we are done with configuring the SharePoint Part

Demo:

Go to your SharePoint Site Collection you created in part 3.
From the drop down list, select Facebook Authentication

You will be redacted to Facebook page to enter your credential - The good thing that you don't share your credential with third party application :)
Click OK to make your Facebook Application access your public profile.

After clicking OK, watch the URL of your Internet Explorer; It will take you to Access Control Namespace URL and then redirect you again to you SharePoint Site Collection URL.

Now you are logged in to SharePoint using the Facebook credential with a full read access.

Conclusion:

ACS provides us the capability to authorize our application through different public identity providers like Hotmail, Outlook, Facebook, Gmail, and Yahoo which will save our time and effort to develop authentication application to connect to their APIs.

Go back to Part 3

Office 365 & ADFS - Error when adding the second Federation server: No Certificate Matching the Federation Service

2013-06-06T11:36:49Z

Symptoms:

The symptoms as follow:

- First ADFS server is implemented.

- New Federation service is configured properly.

- ADFS is installed on the second ADFS server.

- When adding the server to the federation farm we receive the following error:

“No certificate matching the Federation Service name were found in the Local Computer certificate store. Install the certificate that represents your Federation Service name in the Local Computer certificate store, and then try again”

The following snapshot represents the error:

Explanations:

Searching ADFS shows some vague words that gave the impression that ADFS requires that the name used for ADFS must be the subject name of the certificate, check the following article as example:

- Review ADFS Requirements: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn151311.aspx

“The Subject name of this SSL certificate is used to determine the Federation Service name for each instance of AD FS that you deploy. For this reason, you may want to consider choosing a Subject name on any new certification authority (CA)-issued certificates that best represents the name of your company or organization to the cloud service and this name must be Internet-routable. For example, in the diagram provided earlier in this article (see “Phase 2”), the subject name of the certificate would be fs.fabrikam.com”

Also when we have configured the first ADFS server and creating the new Federation Farm, you will notice that the wizard shows the certificate subject name as the default until from the drop down you select another name as the following snapshot:

But when adding the second server to the farm it’s not even gave you that option.

So the first thing to think of is that only with the wizard and can be fixed with the command line or not?

Solution:

Doing a quick search I found this article which is talking about how to create new federation farm using the command fsconfig.exe:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/adfs2-help-how-to-configure-a-new-federation-server(v=WS.10).aspx

The general syntax of the command:

fsconfig.exe {StandAlone|CreateFarm|CreateSQLFarm|JoinFarm|JoinSQLFarm}

And as per the article the fsconfig command in this folder:

C:\program files\Active Directory Federation Services 2.0

So all we need to do is to follow the same syntax to join an existing farm and we can use the help to get the exact parameters:

Fsconfig joinfarm /help

The command line should be:

fsconfig.exe joinfarm /primarycomputername <<this is the first ADFS server>> /serviceaccount <<service account used with the first server>> /serviceaccountpassword <<password>> /certthumbprint <<the certificate thumbprint>>

The following snapshot shows the result of executing the command:

As the snapshot the configuration is completed successfully and using the command line solved the problem.

Use Facebook as an Identity Provider for SharePoint 2013 – Part 3

2013-06-05T10:22:31Z

At this stage, we are done configuring the Azure Part

Continue Configuration Steps:

Go to your SharePoint Farm
Create a new web application

Make sure the claim authentication will be as the following:

Enable Windows Authentication = Checked
Integrated Windows authentication = Check
Select NTLM

PS: The Facebook authentication will be enabled later

After creating the web application, go and create a site collection

Run the following script:

Red parameters need to be changed depend pon your configuration

$realm = "http://mysharepointlogin.com"
$signinurl = "https://mysharepointlogin.accesscontrol.windows.net:443/v2/wsfederation?wa=wsignin1.0&wtrealm=http%3a%2f%2fmysharepointlogin.com%2f"
$certlocation = "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\MySharePointLogin.cer"
$rootcertificate = Get-PfxCertificate $certlocation
New-SPTrustedRootAuthority "MSharePointLogin" -Certificate $rootcertificate
$certificate = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2($certlocation)
$ClaimTypingMapping1 = New-SPClaimTypeMapping -IncomingClaimType "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress" -IncomingClaimTypeDisplayName "Email" -SameAsIncoming
$ClaimTypingMapping2 = New-SPClaimTypeMapping -IncomingClaimType "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/name" -IncomingClaimTypeDisplayName "Display Name" –LocalClaimType "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname"
$ClaimTypingMapping3 = New-SPClaimTypeMapping -IncomingClaimType "http://www.facebook.com/claims/AccessToken" -IncomingClaimTypeDisplayName "Access Token" -SameAsIncoming
$ClaimTypingMapping4 = New-SPClaimTypeMapping -IncomingClaimType "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier" -IncomingClaimTypeDisplayName "Name Identifier" –LocalClaimType "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/upn"
$ClaimTypingMapping5 = New-SPClaimTypeMapping -IncomingClaimType "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/expiration" -IncomingClaimTypeDisplayName "Expiration" -SameAsIncoming
New-SPTrustedIdentityTokenIssuer -Name "Facebook Authentication" -Description "Facebook Identity Provider" -Realm $realm -ImportTrustCertificate $certificate -ClaimsMappings $ClaimTypingMapping1,$ClaimTypingMapping2,$ClaimTypingMapping3,$ClaimTypingMapping4,$ClaimTypingMapping5 -SignInUrl $signinurl -IdentifierClaim $ClaimTypingMapping1.InputClaimType

realm = the URI or URL that is associated with a SharePoint web application that is configured to use a SAML token-based provider (SharePoint Web application URL)

signinurl = Access Control Namespace URL which was created in windows Azure.

$certloc = Physical path for the certificate. Make sure to select the .Cer

$rootcert = Get the .pfx certificate root

New-SPTrustedRootAuthority = Creates a trusted root authority.

$cert = to represents an X.509 certificate.

$ClaimTypingMapping = map between the new claim in SharePoint with the incoming claim from ACS.

New-SPTrustedIdentityTokenIssuer = Create a new Identity Provider named Facebook Authentication

After running the script successfully – > Go and select the SharePoint Web Application you created – > General Setting from the top ribbon.

Go to Claims Authentication Section and check Facebook Authentication

Go back and select the web application –> Click User Policy

In the pop windows –> Click Add Users

Select All zones and click Next

Click Browse Users

Select All Users –> All Users (Facebook Authentication) –> Click Add –> Click OK.

Select Full read – Has Full read-only access.

Click OK

Go to Part 2

Go to Part 4

Azure Caching – Windows Azure SDK 2.0

2013-06-03T18:42:17Z

Caching is one of the ways to achieve performance gains by serving request from a temporary location instead of calling backend resources for consequential requests. It is especially critical when considering most of the response times –throughput – take place during backend processes. In this post, I will explain how-to caching for cloud services with demonstration of a sample application.

Base Solution

I will be using the solution that I have used for the previous post as base for this exercise. The demonstration will include very simple case - caching the to-do list retrieved from Azure SQL database and responding all the list queries from there.

Steps

Step 1: Enable Cache

Right click on the role then select Properties Select Caching from left menu Check ‘Enable Caching’ Set Cache (depending) Update storage account credentials (depending)

Step 2: Add reference to Azure Caching assembly

Right click on References Select Manage NuGet Packages
Search Azure Caching Click Install
Accept License terms
Close

Step 3: Implementing Caching

Update task controller utilizing Windows Azure Caching

         1: using System.Collections.Generic;
    
       2: using System.Diagnostics;
    
       3: using System.Linq;
    
       4: using System.Web.Mvc;
    
       5: using Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching;
    
       6: using ToDoData.Models;
    
       7:  
    
       8: namespace ToDoListWeb2.Controllers
    
       9: {
    
    //[Authorize]
    
    //[InitializeSimpleMembership]
    
    public class TaskController : Controller
    
    {
    
        private const string CacheKey = "CachedTasks";
    
        readonly DataCache _dataCache = new DataCache("default");
    
  
    
        //
    
        // GET: /Home/
    
  
    
        public ActionResult Index()
    
        {
    
            return View(GetDataList());
    
            //Util.TestTrace2();
    
            //using (var context = new ToDoContext())
    
            //    return View(context.ToDoItems.ToList());
    
        }
    
  
    
        private List<ToDoItem> GetDataList()
    
        {
    
            if (_dataCache.Get(CacheKey) == null)
    
            {
    
                Trace.TraceInformation("Cache with key '{0}' getting filled.", CacheKey);
    
                using (var context = new ToDoContext())
    
                {
    
                    _dataCache.Add(CacheKey, context.ToDoItems.ToList());
    
                }
    
            }
    
            else
    
                Trace.TraceInformation("Serving the request from the Cache with key '{0}'.", CacheKey);
    
  
    
            return (List<ToDoItem>)_dataCache[CacheKey];
    
        }
    
  
    
        //
    
        // GET: /Home/Details/5
    
  
    
        public ActionResult Details(int id = 0)
    
        {
    
            using (var context = new ToDoContext())
    
                return View(context.ToDoItems.Find(id));
    
        }
    
    }
    
}

Deployment Preparation

Before deployment we need to modify these (at least)

Modify instance count to 2+.
Update Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Caching.ConfigStoreConnectionString key with the storage (blob, table) account you have
Make sure Diagnostics level is set to Information in order to see the tracing outputs written above
Update identifier attribute of autoDiscover tag with the name of the role you set caching. That would be “ToDoListWeb2” in my case.

       1: <dataCacheClients>

       2:   <dataCacheClient name="default">

       3:     <autoDiscover isEnabled="true" identifier="ToDoListWeb2" />

       4:     <!--<localCache isEnabled="true" sync="TimeoutBased" objectCount="100000" ttlValue="300" />-->

       5:   </dataCacheClient>

       6: </dataCacheClients>

The Result

As you can see, from the image below, first the cache is filled with data (1st request), then cache data used (consequential requests) directly.

Office 365 Arabization – Part V

2013-06-03T14:19:06Z

In the previous part I’ve explained the Arabic dynamic distribution groups, in this part we will discuss the reporting.

Reporting

First question you will get after setting up the tenant and create the users will be: I need list of all users with a specific parameter.

The main cmdlet here is Export-Csv this cmdlet can be used to export the result to the CSV file:

I need list of all licensed users

Get-MsolUser | Where-Object {$_.isLicensed -eq "TRUE"} | Export-Csv d:\licensedUsers.csv

In the above cmdlet:

1. First part we are getting all users.

2. Second part is to filter users with parameter islicensed=true

3. Export the list of users to the CSV file.

Let’s open the result file in notepad:

We have a lot of problems:

1. Arabic is “?????” so the file isn’t useful. The default format is ASCII so we need to make it Unicode.

2. The first line is listing the .Net Object Type.

3. Also there a lot of not needed values like the first column.

So let’ make some modification to the cmdlet:

Get-MsolUser | Where-Object {$_.isLicensed -eq "TRUE"} | Select-Object -property "UserPrincipalName" | Export-Csv -Encoding unicode d:\licensedUsers.csv -NoTypeInformation

In the above cmdlet:

1. The third part is added for the filtered users we select the following properties: UserPrincipalName and Department.

2. In the last part for the exported CSV file we set the encoding to Unicode instead of ASCII (the default value).

3. And to remove the .Net value we have added –NoTypeInformation

And the result as follows:

Now the file can be useful for reporting, so let’s see more examples:

I need List of all users with department “حضانة”:

Don’t forget that you will need PowerShell ISE for Arabic support (review the previous parts).

Get-MsolUser -Department "حضانة" -all | Select-Object -Property "*princip*",displayname,department |Export-Csv -Encoding unicode -Path d:\حضانة.csv -NoTypeInformation

All the attributes can be used in Select-Object so we can decide what will be exported.

Let’s add Exchange to the equation:

I need list of users with department “حضانة” and with mailbox size for each one:

First we will need to connect to Exchange Online as explained in the previous part (Part IV: Dynamic Distribution Group)

Let’s try the following cmdlet:

Get-MsolUser -Department "حضانة" -all | ForEach-Object {Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity $_.userprincipalname} | Select-Object -Property displayname,"lastlogo*",totalitemsize,storagelimit* | Export-Csv -Path d:\حضانة.csv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding unicode

Note the following:

1. –all in the first part to get all users, when you have large number of users.

2. Second part we executed get-mailboxstatistics which will return a lot of information.

3. Third part we will select from the returned result only lastlogon and totatitemsize and storagelimit.

Let’s check the result:

Last thing that of course you can open the CSV file in Excel so you have more control:

1. Open Excel first.

2. Open> browse to the file.

3. Select “Delimited”

4. Under Delimiters > select Comma > then Finish.

Now you can check the CSV file in Excel:

In this part I’ve explained how to export specific list of users with specific attributes.

Previous Parts:

Part I: Arabic Problems

Part II: Users Bulk Creation

Part III: Users Bulk Modification

Part IV: Dynamic Distribution Group

Diagnostics of Cloud Services – Windows Azure SDK 2.0

2013-06-02T15:04:03Z

In this blog, I will demonstrate new diagnostics features of the new SDK (April 2012, v2.0) in a sample application. All the diagnostics instrumentation will be done on built-in features by modifying configuration settings. This is well aligned with “Configure before Customize” approach.

Requirements:

Windows Azure SDK v2.0, Windows Azure .NET Developer Center. This includes azure emulators (compute and storage) as well.

Storage Explorer (Optional): Azure Storage Explorer tool from Neudesic, http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/.

Azure cloud service, please refer to this link http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/cloud-services/

Azure storage account, please refer to this link http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/storage/

And an IDE, I am using Visual Studio (VS) 2012.

The Solution

Started VS File –> New Projects Selected “Cloud” template
Added 2 projects from left selection targeting .NET 4.5 and Windows Azure SDK v2.0
Renamed the projects by clicking on top of the selected project names
Selected a template for web application
Added a task controller to the web app	1: using System.Linq; 2: using System.Web.Mvc; 3: using ToDoCommon; 4: using ToDoData.Models; 5: 6: namespace ToDoListWeb2.Controllers 7: { 8: //[Authorize] 9: //[InitializeSimpleMembership] 10: public class TaskController : Controller 11: { 12: // 13: // GET: /Home/ 14: 15: public ActionResult Index() 16: { 17: Util.TestTrace2(); 18: using (var context = new ToDoContext()) 19: return View(context.ToDoItems.ToList()); 20: } 21: 22: // 23: // GET: /Home/Details/5 24: 25: public ActionResult Details(int id = 0) 26: { 27: using (var context = new ToDoContext()) 28: return View(context.ToDoItems.Find(id)); 29: } 30: } 31: }
Added respective Views	1: @model IEnumerable<ToDoData.Models.ToDoItem> 2: 3: @{ 4: ViewBag.Title = "Index"; 5: Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; 6: } 7: 8: <h2>Index</h2> 9: 10: <p> 11: @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create") 12: </p> 13: <table> 14: <tr> 15: <th> 16: @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Name) 17: </th> 18: <th> 19: @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Description) 20: </th> 21: <th> 22: @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Rank) 23: </th> 24: <th> 25: @Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.IsComplete) 26: </th> 27: <th></th> 28: </tr> 29: 30: @foreach (var item in Model) { 31: <tr> 32: <td> 33: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name) 34: </td> 35: <td> 36: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Description) 37: </td> 38: <td> 39: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Rank) 40: </td> 41: <td> 42: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.IsComplete) 43: </td> 44: <td> 45: @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id=item.ItemId }) \| 46: @Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", new { id=item.ItemId }) \| 47: @Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id=item.ItemId }) 48: </td> 49: </tr> 50: } 51: 52: </table>
Created a dummy test method in a utility class	1: using System; 2: using System.Diagnostics; 3: using System.Text; 4: using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime; 5: 6: namespace ToDoCommon 7: { 8: public class Util 9: { 10: public static void TestTrace2(string info = "") 11: { 12: Trace.TraceInformation("Dummy entry. Trace.TraceInformation from {0} {1}", 13: RoleEnvironment.CurrentRoleInstance.Role.Name, info); 14: Trace.TraceWarning("Dummay entry. Trace.TraceWarning from {0} {1}", 15: RoleEnvironment.CurrentRoleInstance.Role.Name, info); 16: try 17: { 18: throw new ArgumentException("Dummy exception", new ArgumentException("Inner dummy exception...")); 19: } 20: catch (Exception ex) 21: { 22: var sb = 23: new StringBuilder(string.Format("Dummy entry. Trace.TraceError from {0} {1}", 24: RoleEnvironment.CurrentRoleInstance.Role.Name, info)); 25: sb.AppendLine(); 26: var innerEx = ex.InnerException; 27: while (innerEx != null) 28: { 29: sb.AppendFormat("\t Inner Exc Message: {0}\r\n", innerEx.Message); 30: innerEx = innerEx.InnerException; 31: } 32: 33: sb.AppendLine("StackTrace: " + ex.StackTrace); 34: Trace.TraceError(sb.ToString()); 35: } 36: } 37: } 38: }

Ok, time to run the cloud service. Then browse the Task page where some dummy traces are passed to listener as sampled just above this.

Where are the Logs?

All the diagnostics logs are written to files in "C:\Users\[your_user_account]\AppData\Local\” path. Please note, you need change your folder settings, since the AppData is hidden. Here, DevelopmentStorage and dftmp folder are the locations where all the application related logs are written.

From the folder above, the logs matching selected log level (Error by default) are persisted into the storage table (WADLogsTable, etc). To see the entries, you can use different tools (storage explorer, etc.), I am going to use VS for this purpose as well. To do that, click on View on VS’ top menu, then Server Explorer (or Ctrl + W). On the Server Explorer panel, click on Windows Azure Storage then Development (local run), then Tables and "WADLogsTable" (storage table name).

How it works?

As you can see, diagnostics are already enabled for both web and worker roles. If you look at the web.config in the web application, you will see that a trace listener called 'AzureDiagnostics' also added (web role and the associated web application runs on different processes).

You can see that from GUI as well by right click on a role then Properties:

Now, we know the reason why error-type logs are written only, because, by default, it is set to 'Errors only'. Diagnostics settings here are reflected in the diagnostics configuration file called 'diagnostics.wadcfg'.

How-to Change Settings

Now, if you want to change the settings, please follow the steps picture below:

(1): Role diagnostics configuration window

For example, when I change log level to Information and enable both Event and Performance counters logs, I am able to see all the logs (except Verbose) for application, performance and events, as seen below:

And you can change the setting while your application running (alive!)

And Deployment

Please note that before going to deploy the solution, in regards to diagnostics feature context and the image (1) - "Role diagnostics configuration window" above:

You need to update storage account accordingly. You should use a separate diagnostic storage table for PROD environment

Set the log level for errors initially, when troubleshooting, you can set the level accordingly depending on implemented diagnostics features on your application (Information, Verbose, etc.).

Set the buffer size and transfer intervals (less buffer/interval means, less amount of data and more often data transfer from the local folder to storage table. Please refer this link fore more details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dn186185.aspx.

I have deployed the solution here. As said, before and sampled in picture below, I am able to see the diagnostic data from VS and to change the configuration settings –alive- if needed.

Conclusion

Software applications in general should have diagnostics enabled. This is exclusively critical for those running in Azure, because they are most likely a composite of applications running in different platforms and networks/locations. Health of the system (the overall application) is dependent on health of each its subsystems and to identify the cause of bugs (and, no mistake they occurs) when alive, you need to instrument your solution with meaningful diagnostics features, at least when passing the message one domain to another.

I have written several blogs about diagnostics features:

Part 4: this post - Configuration based diagnostics features of Windows Azure SDK 2.0
Part 3: Customized diagnostics features of Windows Azure SDK 2.0
Part 2: Diagnostics of Azure Web Sites – Custom Logging, Windows Azure SDK 1.8
Part 1: Diagnostics of Windows Azure Web Sites – Built-in Diagnostic Features (configuring diagnostics features directly from Azure Management dashboard)

Helpful links:

Use Facebook as an Identity Provider for SharePoint 2013 – Part 2

2013-06-02T01:30:00Z

At this stage we are done configuring the Facebook part.

Continue Configuration Steps:

Now we need to create a signing token certificate. This is used to sign tokens issued to SharePoint Web Applications.
Open command prompt, browse to MakeCert.exe command which can be found in the \Bin folder of the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) installation path.

If MakeCert.exe is missing, then download and install Windows SDK from here

Run the following command:

MakeCert.exe -r -pe -n "CN=mysharepointlogin.accesscontrol.windows.net" ^

-sky exchange -ss my -len 2048 -e 05/29/2014

After the operation succeed, go to Control Panel –> Administrative Tools –> Manage Computer Certificate.
Expand Certificates – Current User, Personal, and click on Certificate. You will find the newly created signing token certificate.

Right Click on the new certificate go to All Tasks –> Export.
Choose No, do not export the private key, and click next.

Choose Base-64 encoded x,509 (.CER), and click Next.

Save the Certificate on the Desktop, ex: "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\MySharePointLogin.cer"
Go again to Control Panel –> Administrative Tools –> Manage Computer Certificate.
Browse to the same certificate again (Current User –> Personal -> click on Certificate).
Right Click on the new certificate go to All Tasks –> Export.
Choose Yes, export the private key, and click next.

Choose Personal Information Exchange –PKCS #12(.PFX) and click Next.

Choose Password, and choose a password; remember this password as it will be used later.

Save the Certificate on the Desktop, ex: "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\MySharePointLogin.pfx”

Go to your Access Control Namespace URL:

http://MySharePointLogin.accesscontrol.windows.net (Mine)
http://YourNamespaceTitle.accesscontrol.windows.net (Your namespace title)

Click on Identity Providers.

Click Add

Select Facebook and click Add

Keep the Display name as default

Enter the Application ID –> This is the Facebook Application ID and can be retrieved from your Facebook Developer Account, then go to Application Information https://developers.facebook.com/apps (Part 1).
Enter the Application Secret –> This is the Facebook Application Secret and can be retrieved from your Facebook Developer Account, then go to Application Information https://developers.facebook.com/apps (Part 1).
Application Permission can vary, the default is the email, for more information go to: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/login/#permissions
Login Page Text keep default.
Click Save

Click on Relying Party Applications from the left navigation, then click Add.

Fill the related information for the relying party (SharePoint)

Name –> Web Application Host Header (ex: SharePointLogin.com
Realm –> http://WebApplicationHostHeader (ex: http://SharePointLogin.com)
Return URL –> Http://WebApplicationHostHeader/_trust (ex: http://SharePointLogin.com/_trust)
Token Format: SAML 1.1

Fill the related information for the relying party (SharePoint)

Token encryption policy –> None
Token lifetime (secs) –> 4000
Choose Facebook as Identity Provider.
Check Create New Rule Group
Browse to the certificate you exported from the previous step; choose the certificate with .PFX extension.
Enter the password you created when you exported the certificate.
Click Save.

Click Rule Groups from the left navigation and then click on Default Rule Group for MySharePointLogin.com

Click Generate

Choose Facebook and click Generate

Click Save

Go to Part 1

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Use Facebook as an Identity Provider for SharePoint 2013 – Part 1

2013-05-31T23:15:30Z

Introduction:

This blog will describe in details how to use Facebook as an identity provider to login into your SharePoint application.

There are many ways to integrate you SharePoint application with Facebook; so you can start developing authentication and authorization mechanisms for your SharePoint application, OR you can start using Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) that provides an easy way of authenticating users who need to access your SharePoint application.

How does ACS work with SharePoint and Facebook?

User requests to be authenticated against a relying party (In our case, it is a SharePoint web application), and then to choose from a dropdown list the required Identity Provider for authentication.
The user will be redirected to the chosen identity provider (which is Facebook in our case).
The user enter his/her username and password.
The Facebook will generate and send a security token to the user that hold claims and other properties.
Facebook will redirect the user to the ACS, and the user will send the generated security token to the ACS.
ACS validate the security token, and generate a new security token.
The ACS redirect the user to the SharePoint web application and send the new security token to the user.
The user will send the security token to the SharePoint web application.
The SharePoint application will validate the security token, and then redirect the user to the required page.

Configuration Steps:

PS: I will assume you have ONLY a configured SharePoint machine and connected to the internet only.

First of all, let us create a windows azure account:

Go to http://www.windowsazure.com/
Sign in with your Microsoft account (Live.com, Outlook.com, or Hotmail.com)
Click on accounts:

click on Sign up for a free trial.

Choose your county and click the next arrow

Enter you mobile number, and click on send text message, wait 5 minutes, and you will receive a verification code.

Enter you verification code and click on verify code, then click the next arrow.

Enter your credit card and your billing information; (You will not be charged for this, remember the first 90 days are FREE).

Click Next.
Click on Portal on the top right of the page.

Click on ACTIVE DIRECTORY on the left navigation then click on ACCESS CONTROL NAMESPACES.
Click on CREATE A NEW NAMESPACE.

Fill the namespace (I name it MySharePointLogin; you can choose your own namespace) and click create.

The URL of your Access Control Namespace will be like this:

http://MySharePointLogin.accesscontrol.windows.net (Mine)
http://YourNamespaceTitle.accesscontrol.windows.net (Your namespace title)

Now go to Facebook Developer: http://developers.facebook.com
Sign in using your Facebook username and password.
Click on App from the top navigation

Click Create New App

Fill the required information and click Continue

Fill the required Captcha
Fill the Access Control Namespace URL in the Site URL, and Click Save.
PS You will require the App ID and App Secret in the next phase.