This is an open source, cross platform version of David Fowler's JabbR running on .NET Core.

For security, connection strings and other sensitive information must be stored in environment variables.

• You can easily read and write these key-value pairs using the dotnet user-secrets command
  • You must first add a reference to Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.UserSecrets in your project.json
• This command must be executed from the top level of your project (read: not solution). This is because it will try to find a project.json file referencing the executable.
  • You can easily test if the executable is found by typing

  $ dotnet user-secrets -h
  

If you correctly followed the above steps, you'll be met with a help dialog when you execute dotnet user-secrets -h that looks like this.

If you receive an error like the following

$ dotnet user-secrets -h
No executable found matching command "dotnet-user-secrets"

Then you likely need to rebuild your solution, or move into the correct project directory where the project.json file can be found.

To set a user secret, you need to use dotnet user-secrets set <key> <value>, like so

$ dotnet user-secrets set "connectionString" "Server=MYAPPNAME.database.windows.net,1433;Initial Catalog=MYCATALOG;Persist Security Info=False;User ID={plaintext user};Password={plaintext password};MultipleActiveResultSets=False;Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=False;Connection Timeout=30;"

Alternatively, if you want to use LocalDB, an alternative built in database, you can run the same command as above, but with a simpler connection string like so

$ dotnet user-secrets set "connectionString" "Server=(localdb)\\mssqllocaldb;Database=aspnet-application;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true"

In your Startup.cs file, you can access the Configuration API easily by creating an IConfigurationRoot object instance. This is created for you in the Visual Studio template project for a .NET Core Web Application, as below. Whatever key you defined for your key-value pair when you used dotnet user-secrets set <key> <value> is what you will use to access that value in your code.

private IConfigurationRoot _configuration;

public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
{
    // This code is templated for you upon creation of a new project in Visual Studio
    // File > New Project > .NET Core > .NET Core Web Application > Pick any of Empty, Web API, or Web Application
    var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
        .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
        .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true)
        .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true);

    if (env.IsDevelopment())
    {
        builder.AddUserSecrets();
    }

    builder.AddEnvironmentVariables();

    _configuration = builder.Build();
}

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    // Here you are accessing the environment variable you stored under the key "connectionString"
    string connection = _configuration["connectionString"];

    // And then you can use that value to register other services, like your database.
    services.AddDbContext<JabbrContext>(options => options.UseSqlServer(connection));

The above command will set the key connectionString to an environment variable containing the given database connection string. We've used the structure of a connection string hosted on Azure, but you will have to use your own

• You need to replace the above connection string with your own.
• You will have to replace {plaintext user} and {plaintext password} in the above connection string with your real credentials.

"Help, I can't find my connection string!" No problem, read more about Azure DB's and connections here

Learn more about safe storage of user secrets in .NET