What is meant by Owin based application?

Aarti Gupta

I am very new in software world , and my question may sound stupid , but i am very confused in the topic owin.

Owin is a way to decouple host and application that what i know.

My question is when do we say an application an owin based application , it is said that an owin application can be self hosted like from an console application.

If i use Microsoft.Owin which is Microsoft way of implementing owin called as Katana , like Micosoft.Owin.Security (Let's call it, OAuth owin middleware ) in my web API, then does my web API becomes owin based Application and i can host it anywhere?? obviously not , web API depends on system.dll.

How to utilize the concept to its fullest?

How to create a owin component that can be hosted on any platform but at the same time IIS based application like (MVC, Web API) can use that component.

Note:-Please Read my question carefully before answering.

2 Replies

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Sachin Singh6y ago
Accepted answer
Using Owin midllewares in your application doesn't mean your application will become host independent,
The owin component is only the host independent , you can create owin middlewares by following the book definition Func,Task>, called as AppFunc, or use readymade implementation of it like
Katana for the C# community,
and Freya for the F# community.
There are also a number of libraries that only implement host and server OWIN specifications such as Nowin and Suave.
After creating the middleware , if you have selected the Katana implementation to create owin middlewares then you can self host it as console application, winform application , windows service or even host it in IIS with integrated pipeline mode.
If you want to host your web API from any above host options then When implementing Web API with OWIN Katana, Web API is just a middleware in the pipeline, which can be registered by UseWebApi method, taking one argument HttpConfiguration
using System.Web.Http;
namespace Owin.WebApi.SelfHosting
{
internal class Startup
{
public void Configuration(IAppBuilder appBuilder)
{
var httpConfig = new HttpConfiguration();
httpConfig.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();
httpConfig.EnsureInitialized();
appBuilder
.UseWebApi(httpConfig);
}
}
}

namespace Owin.WebApi.SelfHost
{
internal class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
string hostUrl = "http://localhost:9000/webapi/selfhosting";
using (var server = WebApp.Start(hostUrl))
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Start Listening at {0} ...", hostUrl));
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
}
+4
Laxmidhar Sahoo6y ago
hi

Yes it is basically used for auhentication .You add the reference of the dll and use in your app.

When publish the app your all dependencies copies to the published folder

Thanks and regards
+1