Hello Ryan,
As for the .net 2.0 configuration encryption and section refresh problem
you mentioned, I've just performed some tests according to your description
in my local environment. Here is my test results and some suggestion on
this:
1. When perform the configuration section protection, we can choose which
provider to use, there're two built-in providers(DPAPI provider and RSA
provider). Based on my test, the problem (ConfigurationErrorException will
occur when we use DPAPI provider , but not when using RSA provider).
2. After we have modified the configuration(any sections in it) and save it
to file and refresh the certain sections, we can use the original
configuration object to query the section data again or construcut a new
configuration object(through ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration ).
And I found that the exception will occur when we use the original
configuration object , but not occur if we reconstruct/reload a new
configuration object(from exe config file).
Therefore, I think the cause of the problem is that when using DPAPI
provider, after refresh the certain Section, the old configuration object
lose the related encryption information(since the informations first
constructed after we protect that section) and result the sequential
loading from the file failes....(it dosn't know that the section is
protected...).
If you're using the DPAPI provider("DataProtectionConfigurationProvider"),
you can consider reload a new configuration object instead of using the
original one. Here is a workable sample console application(not sure
whether you prefer VB.NET or C#, please let me know if you prefer VBNET
one):
=======================================
namespace EncryptSectionConsole
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Run();
}
static void Run()
{
Console.WriteLine("press any key to dump the
connectionstrings...");
Console.ReadLine();
DumpConnectionStrings();
Console.WriteLine("press any key to encrypt the
connectionstrings...");
Console.ReadLine();
EncryptConnectionStrings();
Console.WriteLine("press any key to dump the
connectionstrings...");
Console.ReadLine();
NewDumpConnectionStrings();
//will result exception
//DumpConnectionStrings();
}
static void DumpConnectionStrings()
{
foreach(ConnectionStringSettings connstr in
ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings)
{
Console.WriteLine("name: {0}, connstring: {1}",
connstr.Name, connstr.ConnectionString);
}
}
static void NewDumpConnectionStrings()
{
Configuration config =
ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(Configur ationUserLevel.None);
foreach (ConnectionStringSettings connstr in
config.ConnectionStrings.ConnectionStrings)
{
Console.WriteLine("name: {0}, connstring: {1}",
connstr.Name, connstr.ConnectionString);
}
}
static void EncryptConnectionStrings()
{
Configuration config =
ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(Configur ationUserLevel.None);
config.ConnectionStrings.SectionInformation.ForceS ave= true;
config.ConnectionStrings.SectionInformation.Protec tSection("DataProtectionCo
nfigurationProvider");
config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Modified);
Console.WriteLine("press any key to refresh the section....");
Console.ReadLine();
config.ConnectionStrings.SectionInformation.ForceS ave = true;
config.ConnectionStrings.ConnectionStrings.Add(new
ConnectionStringSettings("new connstr", "new value"));
config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Modified);
ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("connectionStr ings");
}
}
}
================================
Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Steven Cheng
Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead
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