Parsing the HTTPResponse from the Azure Management API

Ok, after that last example I ended up pulling what hair I had left in my head out trying to parse the XML that got returned. I have come across this problem before but my memory being what it is I had totally forgotten about it so have written this blog post to help remind myself next time this happens.

I couldn’t seem to be able to get at the elements in the data. I was doing this:

            ' Parse the web response
            responseStream = httpResponse.GetResponseStream
            reader = New StreamReader(responseStream)
            Dim rawOutput As String = reader.ReadToEnd
            Dim xdoc As XDocument = XDocument.Parse(rawOutput)

            Dim serviceOperations = From s In xdoc.Descendants("SubscriptionOperation")
                                    Select s


            For Each s In serviceOperations
                Dim email = s.Descendants("UserEmailAddress").Value
                Dim operation = s.Descendants("OperationName").Value
                Dim opDate = s.Descendants("OperationStartedTime").Value
                Console.WriteLine(String.Format("User: {0} Did: {1} On: {2}", email, operation, opDate))
            Next

And stepping through the code I found that ServiceOperations resolved to nothing. After a couple of hours of poking and prodding and then searching the internet I came across the solution in this post: Fetching Hosting Services Name Using Windows Azure Management API

Namespaces! Memory starts ticking over and I remember hitting this before. So here is the revised code (In full) which will get Subscription details (Basically audit information) from the Management API

Imports System.Net
Imports System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text

Module Module1

    Sub Main()
        ' X.509 certificate variables
        Dim certStore As X509Store
        Dim certCollection As X509Certificate2Collection
        Dim certificate As X509Certificate2

        ' Request and response variables
        Dim httpRequest As HttpWebRequest
        Dim httpResponse As HttpWebResponse

        ' Stream variables
        Dim responseStream As Stream
        Dim reader As StreamReader

        ' URI variable
        Dim requestURI As Uri

        Try

            ' specify time range
            Dim startTime As String = "2012-11-11"
            Dim endTime As String = "2012-11-13"

            ' The ID for the Windows Azure subscription.
            Dim subscriptionId As String = "{Your Subscription}"

            ' The thumbprint for the certificate. This certificate would have been
            ' previously added as a management certificate within the Windows
            ' Azure management portal.
            Dim thumbPrint As String = "{Your Thumbprint}"

            ' Open the certificate store for the current user.
            certStore = New X509Store(StoreName.My, StoreLocation.CurrentUser)
            certStore.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly)

            ' Find the certificate with the specified thumbprint
            certCollection = certStore.Certificates.Find(
                X509FindType.FindByThumbprint,
                thumbPrint,
                False)

            ' close the certificate store
            certStore.Close()

            ' Check to see if mat
            If certCollection.Count = 0 Then
                Throw New Exception("No certificate found containing thumbprint " & thumbPrint)
            End If

            ' A matching certificate was found.
            certificate = certCollection(0)
            Console.WriteLine("Using certificate with thumbprint: " & thumbPrint)

            ' create new request
            requestURI = New Uri(
                String.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/operations?StartTime={1}&EndTime={2}",
                              subscriptionId, startTime, endTime)
                )

            httpRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(requestURI)

            ' add certificate to requrest
            httpRequest.ClientCertificates.Add(certificate)

            ' Specify the version information in the header
            httpRequest.Headers.Add("x-ms-version", "2012-03-01")
            httpRequest.ContentType = "application/xml"

            ' Make the call using the web request
            httpResponse = httpRequest.GetResponse

            ' Display the response status code
            Console.WriteLine("Response status code: " _
                              & httpResponse.StatusCode)

            ' Display thr request ID returned by windows azure
            If httpResponse.Headers IsNot Nothing Then
                Console.WriteLine("x-ms-request-id: " & httpResponse.Headers("x-ms-request-id"))
            End If

            ' Parse the web response
            responseStream = httpResponse.GetResponseStream
            reader = New StreamReader(responseStream)
            Dim rawOutput As String = reader.ReadToEnd
            Dim ns As XNamespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure"

            Dim xdoc As XDocument = XDocument.Parse(rawOutput)

            Dim serviceOperations = From s In xdoc.Descendants(ns + "SubscriptionOperation")
                                    Select s


            For Each s In serviceOperations
                Dim email = s.Descendants(ns + "UserEmailAddress").Value
                Dim operation = s.Descendants(ns + "OperationName").Value
                Dim opDate = s.Descendants(ns + "OperationStartedTime").Value
                Console.WriteLine(String.Format("User: {0} Did: {1} On: {2}", email, operation, opDate))
            Next

            httpResponse.Close()
            responseStream.Close()
            reader.Close()
            Console.ReadKey()
        Catch ex As Exception
            Console.WriteLine("Error encountered: " & ex.Message)
            Console.ReadKey()
            System.Environment.Exit(1)
        Finally
            System.Environment.Exit(0)
        End Try
    End Sub

End Module

This can be used as an example to pull audit information from Azure. I hope this helps others not make my silly mistake ;-)

P.s. I hope you like the new theme. Thanks to the above blog post (Debugmode.net) for showing it to me. It makes reading source code much better on wider monitors.

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Image may be NSFW.
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