HttpSelfHostServer and HttpContext.Current

c# asp.net-web-api httpcontext self-hosting
Richard picture Richard · Jul 5, 2012 · Viewed 15.2k times · Source

I'm working on a self-hosted ASP.NET web api-application. Everything works fine, but now I'm struggling with HttpContext:

I need to save session-informations from the client. But HttpContext.Current is always null. So it's obvious that my HttpSelfHostServer don't work with the static HttpContext-Class.

The thing I don't understand is: why..? And I can't figure out a way to tell neither HtttpSelfHostServer nor HttpSelfHostConfiguration to work with HttpContext.

Here's what I'm doing:

  1. Creating a HttpSelfHostConfiguration

    • 1.1 Adding Service-Resolvers & Routes
    • 1.2 Adding custom UserNamePassword-Validator

  2. create new Instance of HttpSelfHostServer with the config

    • 2.1 server.OpenAsync().Wait()

Any help how I can tell my server to work with HttpContext.Current is greatly appreciated! Cheers!

Answer

Julien Jacobs picture Julien Jacobs · Jul 16, 2012

You won't be able to use HttpContext in a self-hosted environment. HttpContext is set by the ASP.Net pipeline, which you won't have if you don't run under IIS/ASP.Net.

The HttpContext is only available in the Web-Hosting mode, in which the HttpControllerHandler creates the request.

FYI- I invite you to read the following great articles from Pedro Felix to better understand the different hosting models:

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