Ninject-ing a dependency in Global.asax

Question

I'm starting a web application with MVC3 and Ninject. There is one dependency that I also need in the Global.asax file that needs to be a singleton.

I thought it should be like this:

public class MvcApplication : NinjectHttpApplication
{
    IUserAuthentication _auth;

    public MvcApplication()
    {
        base.AuthenticateRequest += new EventHandler(MvcApplication_AuthenticateRequest);
    }

    protected override IKernel CreateKernel()
    {
        var _kernel = new StandardKernel(new SecurityModule());
        _auth = _kernel.Get<IUserAuthentication>();

        return _kernel;
    }

    void MvcApplication_AuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        _auth.ToString();
    }

But then I saw that _auth is null when MvcApplication_AuthenticateRequest is called.

Then I tried like this:

public class MvcApplication : NinjectHttpApplication
{
    ItUserAuthentication _auth;
    IKernel _kernel;

    public MvcApplication()
    {
        _kernel = new StandardKernel(new SecurityModule());
        _auth = _kernel.Get<IUserAuthentication>();
        base.AuthenticateRequest += new EventHandler(MvcApplication_AuthenticateRequest);
    }

    protected override IKernel CreateKernel()
    {
        return _kernel;
    }

    void MvcApplication_AuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        _auth.ToString();
    }

But now I can see that the constructor is being called several times, therefore I will have several IKernel, and I guess that singleton instances won't be so singleton in my app scope.

How should I do it? Using a static variable?

Answer 1

This is how we do it, I did some testing and my AuthService seems to go in his controller only once :

public class MvcApplication : NinjectHttpApplication
    {

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                "Default", // Route name
                "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
                new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
            );

        }

        protected override IKernel CreateKernel()
        {
            var kernel = new StandardKernel();
            kernel.Load(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly());

            kernel.Bind<ISession>().To<MongoSession>().InRequestScope();
            kernel.Bind<IAuthenticationService>().To<AuthenticationService>().InSingletonScope();
            kernel.Bind<IMailer>().To<Mailer>().InRequestScope();
            kernel.Bind<IFileProvider>().To<MongoFileProvider>().InRequestScope();

            return kernel;
        }

        protected override void OnApplicationStarted()
        {
            base.OnApplicationStarted();

            AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
            RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
        }

        protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if (HttpContext.Current.User != null)
            {
                if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
                {
                    if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity is FormsIdentity)
                    {
                        var id = (FormsIdentity) HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;
                        var ticket = id.Ticket;
                        var authToken = ticket.UserData;
                        var authService = (IAuthenticationService)DependencyResolver.Current.GetService(typeof(IAuthenticationService));
                        var user = authService.GetUserForAuthToken(authToken);
                        if (user != null)
                        {
                            user.SetIdentity(HttpContext.Current.User.Identity);
                            HttpContext.Current.User = (IPrincipal) user;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
}

Hope it helps!

Answer 2

The MVC extension injects the HttpApplication by default. But only property injection can be used! So just add a property decorated with the Inject attribute.