No example for ASP.NET Core

[breyed]

Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.HttpContext differs from the HttpContext in the example.

---

Document Details

⚠ Do not edit this section. It is required for docs.microsoft.com ➟ GitHub issue linking.

• ID: e999ab71-aabf-9917-6f50-8fce3e19a0ae
• Version Independent ID: b072be7c-c060-00af-4027-8422473f74a1
• Content: Send user context IDs to enable usage experiences in Azure Application Insights
• Content Source: articles/application-insights/app-insights-usage-send-user-context.md
• Service: application-insights
• GitHub Login: @mrbullwinkle
• Microsoft Alias: mbullwin

[kobulloc-MSFT]

@breyed Thank you for the feedback! We will assign this to the author so they can update the document accordingly.

[jpeterson88]

It would be great to still see an example for ASP.NET Core. Can't seem to access session in my ITelemetryInitializer as it's null.

[aherrick]

Below is how I'm doing it:

services.AddSingleton<ITelemetryInitializer, WebSessionTelemetryInitializer>();

	public class WebSessionTelemetryInitializer : TelemetryInitializerBase
	{
		public WebSessionTelemetryInitializer(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
			 : base(httpContextAccessor)
		{
		}

		/// <summary>
		/// Called when initialize telemetry.
		/// </summary>
		/// <param name="platformContext">The platform context.</param>
		/// <param name="requestTelemetry">The request telemetry.</param>
		/// <param name="telemetry">The telemetry.</param>
		protected override void OnInitializeTelemetry(HttpContext platformContext, RequestTelemetry requestTelemetry, ITelemetry telemetry)
		{
			if (platformContext?.User?.Identity == null)
			{
				return;
			}

			telemetry.Context.User.Id = platformContext.User.Identity.Name;
			telemetry.Context.User.AccountId = // get account from claims

			if (platformContext.Request.Cookies != null && platformContext.Request.Cookies.ContainsKey(UIConstants.WebSessionCookieName))
			{
				var sessionCookieValue = platformContext.Request.Cookies[UIConstants.WebSessionCookieName];
				if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(sessionCookieValue))
				{
					var sessionCookieParts = sessionCookieValue.Split('|');
					if (sessionCookieParts.Length > 0)
					{
						// Currently SessionContext takes in only SessionId. The cookies has
						// SessionAcquisitionDate and SessionRenewDate as well that we are not
						// picking for now.
						requestTelemetry.Context.Session.Id = sessionCookieParts[0];
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}

[gilmishal]

@aherrick Tried that, and my identity is always empty - there are no claims in the claimprincipal.

[spottedmahn]

@aherrick thanks! 👏

Our code for reference for others:

using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.AspNetCore.TelemetryInitializers;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Channel;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DataContracts;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

namespace OurApp.Web.Services
{
    //source: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/issues/16002#issuecomment-437146249
    public class OurTelemetryInitializer : TelemetryInitializerBase
    {
        public OurTelemetryInitializer(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
             : base(httpContextAccessor) { }

        protected override void OnInitializeTelemetry(HttpContext httpContext, RequestTelemetry requestTelemetry, ITelemetry telemetry)
        {
            if (httpContext.RequestServices == null)
                return;

            var userService = httpContext.RequestServices.GetService<IUserService>();
            if (userService == null)
                return;

            var userId = userService.GetUserId();

            if (userId == null)
                return;

            telemetry.Context.User.Id = userId;
            telemetry.Context.User.AccountId = userId;
        }
    }
}

[janhurst]

@aherrick Tried that, and my identity is always empty - there are no claims in the claimprincipal.

Same here, the claims principal is always empty. I am using Windows Integrated Authentication, and I can see my custom authorization handlers being triggered.

[mrbullwinkle]

adding @cijothomas

[rmarskell]

This is what I used. The claims principal has values after the user has logged in as expected.

using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Channel;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DataContracts;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using System.Linq;
using System.Security.Claims;

namespace My.App.Namespace {
    public class TelemetryInitializer : ITelemetryInitializer {
        private readonly IHttpContextAccessor _httpContextAccessor;

        public TelemetryInitializer(
            IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor) {
            _httpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;
        }

        public void Initialize( ITelemetry telemetry ) {

            //Make sure this is a request telemetry entry
            if ( telemetry as RequestTelemetry == null ) { return; }

            //Get the current http context
            HttpContext httpCtx = _httpContextAccessor.HttpContext;

            //Check if the user is authenticated
            if ( httpCtx?.User?.Identity.IsAuthenticated ?? false ) {
                //Add the details to the telemetry
                telemetry.Context.User.AuthenticatedUserId = httpCtx.User.Claims.FirstOrDefault( c => c.Type == ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier )?.Value;
            }
        }
    }
}

And then in Startup.cs:

using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using My.App.Namespace;

And in ConfigureServices():

services.AddSingleton<IHttpContextAccessor, HttpContextAccessor>();
services.AddSingleton<ITelemetryInitializer, TelemetryInitializer>();

[cijothomas]

@rmarskell
services.AddSingleton<IHttpContextAccessor, HttpContextAccessor>(); is added by SDK so you don't need to add again. There are several threading issues with using HttpContextAccessor, - https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-aspnetcore/issues/373

[ideoclickVanessa]

services.AddSingleton<IHttpContextAccessor, HttpContextAccessor>(); is added by SDK so you don't need to add again. There are several threading issues with using HttpContextAccessor, - microsoft/ApplicationInsights-aspnetcore#373

@cijothomas
What is the recommended way of attaching details about the currently logged on user to the telemetry then?

[rmarskell]

Hmm. I don't really understand why it's so difficult to properly add the user ID to the telemetry. Until yesterday, I had assumed this was handled automatically.

[cijothomas]

Its easy to add user id to telemetry. The tricky part is retrieving userid from HttpContextAccessor.
ApplicationInsights is doing it after taking a lock (https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-aspnetcore/blob/develop/NETCORE/src/Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.AspNetCore/TelemetryInitializers/TelemetryInitializerBase.cs#L41)
If you are doing this yourself (i.e reading from context and populating,) then it should be protected with locks as sdk does.

Also this issue (dotnet/aspnetcore#14975) about HttpContextAccessor.

[jordanchang]

I wanted to include User-Agent to all my request telemetry and this worked for me on ASP .NET Core app.

1. Create a custom telemetry initializer that inherits from the ITelemetryInitilizer. Inject HttpContext so that the user-agent can be retrieved from the current HTTP request. If a telemetry is of type request, set the the user-agent as UserId.

 public class MyCustomTelemetryInitializer: ITelemetryInitializer
    {
        readonly IHttpContextAccessor _httpContextAccessor;

        public MyCustomTelemetryInitializer(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
        {
            _httpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;
        }

        public void Initialize(ITelemetry telemetry)
        {
            if (telemetry is RequestTelemetry requestTelemetry)
            {
                requestTelemetry.Context.User.Id = _httpContextAccessor.HttpContext.Request.Headers["User-Agent"];
            }
        }
    }

2. Register the custom initilizer in your app startup
   builder.Services.AddSingleton<ITelemetryInitializer, MyCustomTelemetryInitializer>();

3. The User-Agent will now appear on the UserId column of request telemetry.

[breyed]

@jordanchang User-Agent specifies the user's web browser (Chrome, Edge, etc.); it doesn't identify the human who is signed in.

[mbrennan376]

I have tried all the solutions above and Identity.Name is null, except for database dependency calls. Is there a requirement for what order the services are added to the container?

[mbrennan376]

I have tried all the solutions above and Identity.Name is null, except for database dependency calls. Is there a requirement for what order the services are added to the container?

I worked this through with Microsoft support and it appears as if the cause in my case was adding the accessor to the container in startup cs. I removed the extra call to add the accessor and it appears to be working now #16002 (comment)

[empz]

Can we please have an updated working example for ASP.NET Core written in this doc. page?

[NumberByColors]

@SamaraSoucy-MSFT Remove me from this, I haven't worked on it in years.

[lgayhardt]

Thank you for all the feedback. We are actually retiring this doc so I will close this issue.

#please-close