Storing Sitefinity Access Logs to Azure Storage

Implementing centralized logging enhances transparency and governance across your CMS applications. This guide walks through setting up Azure Storage to capture Sitefinity CMS logs, using a clean hybrid implementation between .NET Core and MVC architectures.

The setup involves two main components:

• Azure Storage configuration
• Custom code implementation in Sitefinity

⚙️ Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• Sitefinity CMS version 14.4 or later (tested)
• Hybrid Sitefinity project (using both .NET Core Renderer and MVC with Progress.Sitefinity)
• Azure Subscription with appropriate permissions to manage Storage services

☁️ Azure Setup

1. Log into the Azure Portal and navigate to Storage Accounts.

2. Create a new Storage Account under your desired Resource Group.

3. Add a Storage Table to store logs, and save the URL for later use.

   

4. Generate a Shared Access Signature (SAS) for secure access to the Storage Table. You will need this for connecting Sitefinity to Azure Storage.

   

🏗️ Sitefinity Setup

1. Install NuGet Package: In your Sitefinity project, install the Azure.Data.Tables NuGet package.

2. Create Configuration Section: Add a configuration section to store the Azure Storage Table URL and the SAS connection string (generated from Azure steps 3 and 4 above).

   

3. Create Core Services: Implement the following components in your Sitefinity CMS:

   • Global.asax.cs for application-wide settings
   • UserService.cs for user-related log processing
   • AuditServices.cs for storing audit-related logs

4. Test the Log Implementation: Perform a few login attempts to verify that logs are captured and stored in Azure Storage.

   

5. Create Report View: Develop a reporting view to display logs in the Sitefinity CMS dashboard:

   • ReportController.cs for handling the report generation
   • ReportModel.cs to structure the log data
   • AuditReport.cshtml for the report's front-end display

6. Configure the Widget: Add the custom widget to the Backend Page of Sitefinity for easy log viewing.

   

🔗 Sample Code

You can access the complete sample code for this implementation on my GitHub Gist.