The Prompt Code: May 2020

"The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive"

― Albert Einstein ―

.NET Core 3.0 - How to recompile Razor views automatically on change?

It was first very annoying and frustrating as I was not able to see the change right away on my .Net core 3.1.2 Razor pages. It was very time consuming to recompile once I make any changes. Thank you Microsoft for fixing this for us, now we can Microsoft AspNetCore Mvc Razor Runtime Compilation to see our changes without recompiling your project.

Step # 1: Install Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor.RuntimeCompilation NuGet package

Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor.RuntimeCompilation

Step # 2: Add services.AddRazorPages().AddRazorRuntimeCompilation() in your Startup class

public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
options.UseSqlServer(
Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));
services.AddDefaultIdentity<IdentityUser>(options => options.SignIn.RequireConfirmedAccount = true)
.AddEntityFrameworkStores<ApplicationDbContext>();

services.AddRazorPages().AddRazorRuntimeCompilation();

}

How to add EF Core Identity Authentication in your existing .Net Core 3.0 project?

Working on your EF Core Application

You already have your existing project but you never added the Authentication when you created the project. Well, How do you add EF Core Identity Authentication in your existing .Net Core project and update your Local SQL database without creating a new project?

The Identity Authentication is already part of the framework, you just have to follow the instructions below to add this to your existing .Net Core 3.0 project.

Step # 1: Add Data folder and ApplicationDbContext Class

Add Data folder and ApplicationDbContext Class

ApplicationDbContext Class

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity.EntityFrameworkCore;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace AddIdentityAuthentication.Data
{
public class ApplicationDbContext : IdentityDbContext
{
public ApplicationDbContext(DbContextOptions<ApplicationDbContext> options)
: base(options)
{

}

}
}

Step 2: Add Database Connection and Add DbStartContext Service in Startup class

{
"ConnectionStrings": {
"DefaultConnection": "Server=yourserver;uid=sa;pwd=password;database=Identity"
},
"Logging": {
"LogLevel": {
"Default": "Information",
"Microsoft": "Warning",
"Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Information"
}
},
"AllowedHosts": "*"
}

Startup.cs class

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
options.UseSqlServer(
Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));
services.AddDefaultIdentity<IdentityUser>(options => options.SignIn.RequireConfirmedAccount = true)
.AddEntityFrameworkStores<ApplicationDbContext>();

services.AddRazorPages();

}

Step # 3: Package Console: Add-migration and Update-Database commands

Add-migration Command

Add-Database Command

This is it, you are done!. The database with default Idenity tables will be created for you. It's time to start using your DotNet Core Identity to start authenticating users.

How can I add MySql from Server Explorer in Visual Studio 2019?

Visual Studio 2019 and your MySQL

If you have MySql installed on a Ubunut 18.04 machine and need to access the database from Visual Studio 2019.

You can follow these steps below.

Download and Install mysql Visual Studio and Windows Installer
https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/windows/visualstudio/
https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/windows/installer/8.0.html

If your Visual Studio 2019 is still open then close/open your Visual Studio 2019.

Open your Server Explorer and Click on Connect to Database

Server Explorer 2019

Enter your server information and you will get an error. "Cannot connect to MySQL server"

Cannot connect to MySQL server

If that's the issue then there are some settings that you mush configure on your Ubuntu machine in order for you to connect to your mysql server.

Step # 1:

Open mysqld.cnf, this file is located under etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d
Type this command: etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

Scroll down until you see "bind-address" and then change the IP address from 127.0.0.0 to 0.0.0.0
ctrl + x
Y
Enter to Save

mysqld.cnf : Bind-Address = 0.0.0.0

Step # 2:
You can grant specific machine exclusive permission to connect to the database remotely If you only plan to access the database server from that machine. You can use the command below but make sure to replace 0.0.0.0 with the actual IP address of the machine you plan to connect from.

sudo ufw allow from 0.0.0.0 port 3306

If you need to access the database from other machines in the future, you can grant them access on an ad hoc with this command. Just remember to include their respective IP addresses.

Alternatively, you can allow connections to your MySQL database from any IP address with the following command:

Warning: This command will enable anyone to access your MySQL database. Do not run it if your database holds any sensitive data.

sudo ufw allow 3306

It's time to restart the MySQL service to put the changes you made to mysqld.cnf into effect:

sudo systemctl restart mysql

Once all of the above steps are completed then, go back to your Visual Studio 2019 and try to connect to your database. It will connect with no issues.

Install MySQL on your Ubuntu 18.04

Installing MySQL on Ubuntu 18.04

Installing MySQL on Ubuntu 18.04

To install MySQL on your Ubuntu server follow the steps below:
Update the apt package index by typing:

sudo apt update

Install MySQL

sudo apt install mysql-server
Once the installation is completed, the MySQL service will start automatically. To check If MySQL server is running, type: sudo systemctl status mysql

mysql.service - MySQL Community Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: en
Active: active (running) since Sun 2020-05-03 15:18:28 EDT; 1min 26s ago
Main PID: 4113 (mysqld)
Tasks: 27 (limit: 4588)
CGroup: /system.slice/mysql.service
└─4113 /usr/sbin/mysqld --daemonize --pid-file=/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Secure your MySQL

MySQL server package already has the command that can help us to secure our MSSQL.

Run the script by typing: sudo mysql_secure_installation

VALIDATE PASSWORD PLUGIN can be used to test passwords
and improve security. It checks the strength of password
and allows the users to set only those passwords which are

secure enough. Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD plugin? Enter YES

There are three levels of password validation policy:

LOW Length >= 8
MEDIUM Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, and special characters
STRONG Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, special characters and dictionary file

Please enter 0 = LOW, 1 = MEDIUM and 2 = STRONG: 1
Please set the password for root here.

New password:

Re-enter new password:

Estimated strength of the password: 100
Do you wish to continue with the password provided?(Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y

Remove anonymous users? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) :Y

Disallow root login remotely? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) N

Remove test database and access to it? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) N

Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) Y
... skipping.
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes
made so far will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
Success.

All done!

Login to SQL

sudo mysql

If you want to configure phpMyAdmin then change the authentication method from auth_socket to mysql_native_password.

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'Your password';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'youruser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';

OK let's run the following command: FLUSH PRIVILEGES This will tell the server to reload the grant tables and load your new changes.

SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

You will notice that it has your root user and a new user with "mysql_native_pa " not "auth_socket "
you can login with the following command if you already enabled password authentication.

you can login with the following command if you already enabled password authentication.

mysql -u root -p

OK you can type Quit so we can logout from SQL and install phpMyAdmin

It's about time to install phpMyAdmin to start managing your mysql instance on your Ubunut machine.

Type the following command: sudo apt install phpmyadmin php-mbstring php-gettext

Enter on this screen.

Select Yes and Press Enter

Enter PHP Admin Password

http://SERVER_IP/phpmyadmin (where SERVER_IP is the IP address of your hosting server) and log in.

My phpMyAdmin page is not displaying

My phpMyAdmin page is not displaying

If you are unable to bring up the phpmyadmin website then use the below instructions.

Open your apache2.conf in your editor.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Add the following line to the end of the file.
Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

Then restart apache
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

How to uninstall MySQL Ubuntu?

If for some reason you need to uninstall mysql from Ubuntu 18.04 then follow the below commands to uninstall this from your machine.

sudo apt-get remove --purge mysql*
sudo apt-get purge mysql*
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean

How to fully remove phpMyAdmin?

If you installed phpMyAdmin in your Ubuntu 18.04 machine and you installed this from the Ubuntu repositories then you can simply use the below command to remove it permanently from your server.

sudo apt-get purge phpmyadmin

It's important that you use purge instead of delete becuase this will delete all configuration files and that includes all Apache web server files as well.

You will prompted to remove the database that was installed when you installed the phpMyAdmin.

How to Update DNS entries in your Ubunut 18.04?

Are you getting the below error when you trying to run the sudo atp-get update?

"Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead."

You are getting this error becuase you are using the default DNS servers IP address in your box. You can change that by following the below instructions.

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

Delete the existing DNS and add the following entries

nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 4.2.2.2